Taiwan has issues with sexism, but we don't put known attempted rapists in office

An innocent golden piece of wood from the Grand Matsu Temple in Tainan

All I can say about the Blasey Ford / Kavanaugh hearings is that at this point, in 2018, if you still support the Republican Party, then you hate women and think sexual assault is okay.

I don't care if you want to identify as a 'conservative'. I don't know what that is supposed to mean anymore, but whatever. Fine. We don't all have to have the exact same values and there is room to disagree or have differing perspectives on quite a lot.  I'm talking about specifically supporting these monsters. And I mean it: at this point, doing so would lead me to seriously question your character. I can tolerate disagreement on many issues, but I cannot tolerate woman-hating attempted rape-excusers.

Yes, attempted rape. If you hold a woman down against her will and try to tear off her clothes as you stop her from screaming, you're not horsing around or copping a feel, you are attempting rape.

Of course, I could have said I felt this way after the election, when the country elected a known sexual assailant. Hell, if I had been old enough, I could have said it in 1991. I could have asked then why it was acceptable for these men to be elected or confirmed to office when no decent person would tolerate that sort of behavior - including talk - from their own sons, brothers, husbands or fathers. But I was a kid in 1991, and Trump exerted a hypnotic pull on the dumber half of the country that turned them into something more like cult members than actual rational voters.

Now, however, it is clear. We know what they do and we know what they will accept. We know they are either sex predators, or they think being a sex predator is acceptable (if you are a straight, white male). If you support that or even just accept it, there is no longer any excuse for you.

Contrast this to Taiwan. Taiwan is far from a paradise of equality - I have female students who tell me openly that they want to go abroad because their families treat them unfairly because they are daughters. More than one adult female student has told me that she won't marry because she has no intention of taking on the expected duties of a wife, and hasn't yet met a man who truly understands that. The same goes for women who have decided not to have children. There is a lot of particularly heinous crime against women by men (although the overall crime rate is dropping, including "non-negligent manslaughter" and what the government weirdly calls "forcible" rape), and the media covers it in the most sexist way possible. Domestic violence is still an issue and there's still a pay gap. I have my own stories of sexism at former jobs.

But as far as I know - and please correct me if I'm wrong - Taiwan has never knowingly elected or allowed the confirmation of someone like Kavanaugh, or Clarence Thomas, or Trump - to a position in the government.

Taiwanese politicians may often be horrible people, but if there's even a whiff of sexual predation about you, your political career is finished. In this country, if you so much as touch a boob without consent (which is also not okay, by the way), as far as any sort of public office is concerned, you're done.

That's just about how it should be: as I see it, if someone has something like that in their past, they demonstrate remorse and do attempt to be a better person, an acceptable consequence is that they may never be fit for political office. As a person, however - again, if demonstrate remorse and personal growth are demonstrated - a second chance may be warranted.

Seriously - Taiwan hasn't yet figured out how media should report on crimes against women, how to treat its wives and daughters fairly or how to close its own pay gap. But it has figured out that sexual misconduct of any kind is an immediate disqualification for political office.

Supposedly one of the most "egalitarian", "meritocratic" societies on Earth, where may credit the modern feminist movement with gaining steam, can't even figure that out. They can't wrap their heads around what a geographically small, often (though not always) parochial nation often described as "conservative", "Confucian" and "passive" (though I don't agree fully) has already figured out.

Good job, America, at demonstrating to the world what you actually think of women. Remind me to laugh in the face of the next person who tries to tell me that the US is so much 'better' when it comes to women's equality.