Saturday, April 2, 2011

Oh, Ma Ying-jiu.

Posted by Michael Turton posting from the Taipei Times about Ma's poorly-thought-out judicial nomination:

In Which President Ma Once Again Is Incompetent

In my time in Taiwan, I've occasionally met women who have tried to make the case that the KMT is pro-feminism and pro-women's rights (and pro gay rights, and pro-children's rights etc. etc.) and it's the DPP that is out of touch with modern progressive values.

Well, those women are wrong.

I think the article above sums it up. Do I believe that Ma knowingly and purposely nominated Judge Shao with full awareness of her controversial ruling on the sexual assault of a three-year-old girl? No, I think he honestly wasn't thinking, didn't order proper research and background checks, and really just wasn't paying attention and doesn't care. He's not actively anti-women, he's passively so...and so is the entire KMT.

This basically sums up the KMT's entire stance on women: we don't actively hate you or want to keep you oppressed, we just can't bring our navy-suited selves to give a damn about you. We're all men here so you just scuttle back home, start marrying earlier and popping out babies like we want you to.

Yes, many of the progressive women's rights laws in Taiwan were passed just before the DPP took power under Chen Shui-bian, but honestly I think that many of those were passed just then in an attempt to court female voters, not out of a true caring for women's rights. Otherwise, they would have been passed far earlier as they should have been. The fact remains that the KMT has never been a bastion of women's rights, and probably never will be.

While I support the attempt to appoint more women to high-level offices, this is not the way to do it. Appointing competent, qualified women (or better yet, electing them) is to be lauded. Appointing women who are, in fact, anti-woman themselves and are willing to pass down verdicts such as Shao's is, like putting Sarah Palin in power, exactly the opposite of the right way to do it.

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