Deciding on Insides: Lin Yu-ting, gender conformity, Taiwanese identity and me

A scarlet ibis at Taipei Zoo

Even before the Taiwanese media began whaling on JK Rowling for stating female Taiwanese Olympic boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) is a man, with many commenters falsely believing she is transgender, I was thinking about issues of gender, identity and culture. 

For some background on Lin, I recommend Min Chao's excellent post on Medium. To summarize, Lin is not trans. She was registered as female at birth. The Medium post says she grew up in a single-parent home; Taiwan News says she took up boxing to protect her mother from domestic abuse. She has faced bullying for her androgynous looks. The controversy stems from an allegedly failed gender test at a competition in New Delhi. I say "allegedly" because both the test type and reasons for the failure are reported as "unspecified" and results "confidential", and the athletic organization running that event is mired in controversy and shunned by the IOC. Lin later passed eligibility requirements, including a medical examination in Hangzhou.

Claims that the test given by the Russian-backed International Boxing Association showed Lin, as well as Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, has having XY chromosomes seems to stem from a single Russian Telegram channel. We don't actually know much (anything really!) about the test or its results and I don't exactly trust one Russian official posting on Telegram as a reliable source of information. It's unclear if Lin has elevated testosterone levels, but even if she does, that wouldn't un-female her.

That hasn't stopped the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) squad from dismissing Lin outright as "male". It's not really a surprise: if one's chief goal is isntigating hate, one "unspecified" failed test by a sketchy organization is sufficient fuel for that fire.

It bothers me deeply, however, that refuting the hate directed at Lin forces one to reaffirm that she is a cis woman, implying that the criticism would be warranted if she were trans. That they'd be right to criticize if she were trans, but she simply isn't, or that there's something wrong with being trans. Truly, I don't believe this -- I would not care if she were. I don't think transphobes are blinkered just because they fell for what increasingly looks like Russian disinformation about two women who have never transitioned. I also think they're blinkered because they oppose full human rights for trans individuals.

A fair amount of the media coverage does seem to care; as much as I love watching UDN and others stick it to JK Rowling, I would not go so far as to call it enlightened discourse. I do commend UDN for pointing out that gender is not a binary, and neither testosterone levels nor chromosomes necessarily identify a person as specifically male or female. The article notes that we don't actually know the results of the tests, nor do we know anything about Lin's anatomy or whether she's intersex, and it's wrong to speculate. This is true. They take a non-position on the discussion of transgender athletes, correctly pointing out that it's irrelevant to Lin Yu-ting's career. It's a more thoughtful take than I'd expect from a conservative Taiwanese media outlet, but not exactly standing up for trans rights. 

All of this has snagged on a loose wire in my own brain. I've been thinking about it for awhile, both in relation to Taiwan and myself. 

One person's aphorism can so easily be another's thought-terminating cliché. Think about "wherever you go, there you are". As an adage offering traditional wisdom, it simply reminds us that we can't run from  our true selves. It can easily be twisted into something far more sinister, however: you can't change who you are, implying that your identity isn't yours to construct. Rather, it's decided by societal forces, doctrine, orthodoxy, others' perception of you -- and you must either accept it, or suffer. 

Some time ago, I read a tweet noting that many on the Western left stand up for trans equality and the right of any person to decide on their own gender identity and expression, but those same leftists will turn real pink real fast when it comes to Taiwan -- not giving Taiwanese any space to cultivate their identity. According to some, gender identity is fluid butTaiwanese are Chinese whether they like it or not (just as the anti-trans ideologues insist that your gender is your gender, whether that reflects who you really are or not). Who gets the right to decide who they are (and who doesn't) is thus unfair and arbitrary. 

I don't remember whose tweet it was and can't find it, but if you do, please comment below so I can give proper credit.

As with critics of Lin Yu-ting, such beliefs are based on scant or questionable evidence: incorrect references to international law, extremely biased interpretations of history that excise any facts that don't fit their narrative -- for example, that for most of their reign, the Qing only controlled about one-third of Taiwan, and as a colonial outpost at that -- straight-up wrong incantations of US policy or the Republic of China constitution. These critics demand that Taiwanese be Chinese, because it makes them uncomfortable that Taiwanese would have their own agency, or even just historical facts to back up their chosen identity. Taiwanese who disagree aren't conforming properly to the narrative, so they have to be attacked online, called 'separatists', threatened with execution, told they aren't who they say they are. Treated as less than human, not deserving of full human rights, including self-determination. Anything -- anything -- to keep them under control. Conformed. Y'know, doctrine over reality.

That doesn't sound terribly different to me from the TERF crowd insisting that one questionable test with unspecified results from one extraordinarily shady organization is enough to pounce on her for being "trans" or "a man", when she is neither. As a friend put it in a private conversation: 

"...people want to control gender expression and force everyone to fit into tidy little boxes, and anyone who violates that should be unpersoned in their view. Like, I feel like they're so obsessed over tamping down trans people, that they have to go after any kind of gender non-conformity. Trans people are the ultimate violators of conformity, so they have to engage in this witch hunt until everyone is back under control."

It also goes in the other direction. Some who will defend the right of Taiwanese people to determine their own identity -- politically, culturally and otherwise -- will then turn around and insist that it's different with gender. That Taiwanese have the right to identify as solely Taiwanese, but if you dare to state your reality over their doctrine on gender, or express yourself differently, you're not a person and don't deserve full human rights. 

This is why anti-trans ideology is so strongly linked to white supremacy: preserving the system, the hierarchy, the doctrine, at all costs. Frankly, you can say the same for Han supremacy, and keeping people in tidy little gender and ethnicity boxes is just as much cornerstone of the CCP's Han supremacists as it is to the West's white supremacists. If anything, it's worse. Have you seen the state of LGBTQ+ rights in China? It's pretty bad.

You know what else is linked to Han supremacy? Denying the reality of Taiwanese identity and Taiwan's distinct cultural heritage. For One China to Rule Them All, that simply cannot be allowed to exist. Conform or die. 

I have one more thing to say about this, and it's a little more personal. Beyond simply wanting to be a good person who respects the agency and self-determination of others, this bothers me so much because I, too, needed to have a conversation with myself to decide my insides. 

I am a cis woman, in that I was assigned female at birth and continue to identify as female. I've been told more than once that I am female because I was born female, and that's all there is to it. Something about that has never sat right with me. Since I was young, I have not felt specifically or quintessentially female, although being in a woman's body also doesn't bother me. 

How much of that comes from inside -- my own brain not accepting without question that I am a woman? How much from outside -- society presenting to me various 'roles' for women and ways to present and conform as a woman, none of which I particularly relish? I don't know. It's probably both. I spent years desperately out of love with myself because for far too long, I lacked the lexicon to have a true reckoning between my inside and my outside. 

That's why the trans rights movement benefits us all. Yes, even those of us who are cis. We don't all conform, we don't all feel exactly right in our bodies, or as though we naturally are a certain gender just because we were assigned that gender at birth. I didn't! Thanks to all of the trans people who fought for respect, recognition and rights, we now have that lexicon. Those of us who need to have the internal dialogue now find it a lot easier to do so.

I didn't not want to be a woman, but I also didn't entirely want to be one. I wasn't terribly interested in the expectations that come with it. Not just the sheer amount of external maintenance (diet, skincare, makeup, clothing, general 'ladylike' presentation), but also the life paths I was expected to inhabit. Wife? Okay, as long as he's a feminist (and he is). Mother? No thanks. Person discriminated against because of her gender and its presentation? Girl Next Door? Gawkable Object? Feminist But Only If You're Hot? Fuck off.

There have been times when I would have preferred to have been seen and treated as a man, though that might have more to do with how much more leeway society gives men in general than my own internal struggle to identify and come to terms with my benthic discomfort.

I navigated this as you might expect, from the cropped hair and army jackets of my late teen years to wondering why not being particularly ladylike didn't result in the benefit of a more athletic "tomboy" persona. I wouldn't have minded being fit! There was the rejection of Not Like Other Girls (that's a misogynist trope), but also wondering why Quirky Artsy Cool Girl is only an identity available to the thin and hot. Now that I'm older, even Fun Worldly Bohemian Aunt remains elusive. She remains slender and feminine with elegant poise as she sips her drink in some foreign café and buys one for her underage niece; I fart a lot, have terrible posture and a body more reminiscent of Angry Feminist Cat Lady (which I kind of am), or perhaps Overcooked Pierogi (but I do like pierogies). If I had a niece, however, I'd take her to Italy at 16 and buy her a drink.

Ultimately, I did decide on 'woman', which makes me cis. But it wasn't an obvious or foregone conclusion. I was unhappy because I needed to have that reckoning, and growing societal recognition of transgender and other gender non-conforming people -- a world where it is a little easier than it was before to be who you are -- also benefited me. It gave me what I needed to work myself out. 

I once commented in some anti-trans thread that I'm a woman because I decided to be one, and it's more coincidence than anything that my insides match (well, match reasonably closely) to the gender I was assigned. Someone shot back "no, you're a woman because you were born a woman!"

Which is just another way of telling me that they believe my identity is not my own to decide, they know who I am better than they do, my internal questioning threatens their conformity, their doctrine matters more than my reality, and their aphorism is my thought-terminating cliché -- except I refuse to terminate the thought. 

In fact, as a cis woman, I feel a lot more threatened by transphobes and their followers insisting that women have to act, look or be a certain way than I do by any trans woman, ever. Latching onto "but look, he's clearly A MAN!" (as though appearances and personal judgments decide gender), or unproven, evidence-free claims is bullying. And transphobes love bullying. As someone who's been called a man simply for standing with trans women, even though I have never been a man, it scares me. 

You know what doesn't scare me? Trans women.

And does that not sound quite a bit like the "Taiwan is Chinese! Taiwanese culture is Chinese culture!" people shouting as though they know Taiwan's identity better than Taiwanese people do, or that Taiwanese people have no right to determine for themselves who they are, that Taiwan's refusal to conform to a Chinese narrative threatens their ideology?

This has diverged quite a bit from the discussion surrounding Lin Yu-ting, but it grabbed hold of something way down in the depths of my own self, so I hope this has been as worthwhile for you to read as it was for me to write.

If you tell us we can't...

A sarcastic funerary memorial to Li Peng, Carrie Lam, lawmaker and general douchebag Junius Ho
and other anti-democracy political figures

Photo courtesy of Jean-Francois Dupre

Recently, Banqiao Senior High School in New Taipei decided to allow male students to wear skirts (most Taiwanese students wear uniforms). Female students are already allowed pants or skirts.

Some parents and parent-adjacent angry people spat out a few meaningless statements such as:

“Children like to do something wacky, to be different from others, so that people pay attention to them,” he [Hung Chih-ho, who leads a Kaohsiung-based parents' association and whose opinion on what happens in Banqiao does not matter] said, “but now boys are allowed to wear skirts to school, with the school attributing the change to respect for students’ right of autonomy.”

Yeah...and?

#Taiwan: Members of several parent organizations gathered in front of the Ministry of #Education (MOE) Friday to protest against a public high school’s decision to allow male students to wear skirts to school.#genderequity https://t.co/zER49LVvxi

— Gwen Wang (@GwenythWR) July 28, 2019

Apparently their main complaint is...you know what? It doesn't matter.

What matters is this: with the new rule in effect, chances were that only a few boys would have chosen to wear skirts. It's not a norm yet so doing so is sort of a form of personal expression rather than an unremarkable choice (for now), and I don't know about you but I find shorts and pants far more comfortable than skirts.

But now, because some ornery seniors are complaining that the young'uns aren't upholding harmful gender norms to the degree that they expect because a few boys are choosing to put fabric on their bodies in ways that boys typically did not do before - OH NOES - you can be absolutely certain that more boys will choose to wear skirts simply to piss off the oldsters.

Good job, old people. You really showed them!

In highly related news, everyone's talking about the "illegal" protest in Yuen Long yesterday - illegal in quotes because the word implies doing something wrong when this protest was absolutely morally right. 

It's not just that I think Yuen Long 7/27 got more support locally and internationally because people dared to show up despite the rejected protest application, but that these protests would in fact be far more peaceful if the police - and police-adjacent angry people - would just allow them to be peaceful. Think about it this way: if you don't throw tear gas, hire gangsters, beat people bloody, kill a guy with water cannons, put jubilee clips on your batons, protesters will assemble, march and go home. It's inconvenient, but not nearly as inconvenient as the world seeing that you either hired thugs, are thugs, or both.

And as a result, more people are showing up. Hong Kongers are getting angry. If they ever trusted those in charge, they no longer do. Occupy Central wasn't universally supported, but with the current spate of protests, all the police and government are doing is hardening the stance of more Hong Kongers against them and against China. They're showing up and demanding democracy exactly because they have been told they cannot have democracy. 

They're doing it creatively too - told that they could not assemble there, a few people figured out that activities such as large-scale Pokemon hunting and religious celebrations are not bound by restrictions on assembly, and claimed those as excuses to gather. There was even a call to hold a sarcastic memorial for Li Peng - the Butcher of Beijing who presided over the Tiananmen Square Massacre - complete with a planned attempt to try to resurrect him.

Would protesters in the West be so creative (and sarcastic)? I don't think so, but then typically we don't have to find ways to protest when we're told we're not allowed.

People are calling for an 'full gear alchemist' gathering tomorrow in Yuen Long to revive Li Peng... -_- alongside Yuen Long pokemon hunting, shopping day, @hoccgoomusic fluid autograph signing party etc... pic.twitter.com/5381bPIcuC

— Kris Cheng (@krislc) July 26, 2019

Good job, Hong Kong police (and hired gangsters - same thing really), the Hong Kong government, and China! You really showed them!

Eventually things would have escalated anyway - as I've said, the problem isn't the extradition treaty but China's plans for the endgame of One Country Two Systems and how incompatible that is with what Hong Kong wants. But it might not have mattered: though there are people who want full independence for Hong Kong, I gather that most would settle for being part of China but having democracy. Most of the time they'd probably have voted for boring, centrist politicians anyway and the few firebrands that would have gotten into office would have their say, but the status of Hong Kong as 'part of China' would not have been seriously disputed.

So if China had just let them have democracy and not made a thing of it, not insisted on half-assed fake democracy, not tried to force through terrifying extradition bills etc. etc., though decisions in Hong Kong might not have always gone exactly their way, China could have had almost all of what it wanted.

Of course, they can't do that, because of their absolute terror that letting people have a say in their government anywhere in China would lead to people in China wanting a say in their government everywhere. This is probably true, but then "the CCP could never allow that as they might lose power!" is not an ethically defensible justification. I don't think it matters though - if the CCP let Hong Kong have what it's demanding, they'd come off looking like 'the good guys', everyone would go on as usual, the bad international press would have never materialized and the real threats facing the CCP might have actually been held off longer, or at least with a lot less international scrutiny. People condemning them now might actually be defending them.

Whether or not it's a good thing for the CCP to stay in power - and I absolutely do not think it is - it might well have been in their own best interest to choose the slow-burning democracy threat over the "we look like murderous thugs to the international community" threat.

The same is true of Tibet. Though he doesn't speak for all Tibetans, the Dalai Lama has been clear that Tibet would settle for autonomy, and does not need independence. All China ever had to do was let it be - stop sending in Han Chinese settlers to change the population demographics (and making sure those settlers got all the best jobs), not trying to erase Tibetan culture or religion, not threatening monasteries and not insisting the CCP could choose who the next major lamas would be. If they'd done that, Tibet would be a lot better off, and China would have gotten almost everything they wanted. (I can't speak for Xinjiang, I'm less sure about that.)

Instead we have re-education camps, an internationally popular Dalai Lama, monks on fire, international celebrities sympathetic to the Tibetan cause and a province in near-lockdown. 

Good job, Chinese government! You showed them! 

Of course, with that comes the terror that Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other provinces with distinct non-Han cultures would want a similar degree of autonomy. Again, that's probably true, but I fail to see why it'd be a bad thing. I don't even think China would necessarily cease to exist. 

And, of course, Taiwan.

This one is trickier as it involves straight-up independence, but if China allowed Taiwan to declare formal independence as the Republic of Taiwan, perhaps with a few acceptable concessions, and then said "you know what, we speak the same language and inhabit similar cultural spheres. Wanna be best friends and have tons of economic cooperation?", Taiwan probably would have said yes.

The way things are now, I don't know that I personally would trust such an offer, but the point still stands the CCP could probably have most of what it wants if they would just let go and stop being such assholes. There would still be a few hardcore China-haters around, metaphorical boys going to school in skirts no matter how much the CCP hated it, but I suspect the average Taiwanese voter would be quite fine with a close relationship with China as long as their autonomy, freedom and democratic rights were permanently assured through de jure independence.

I bet more Taiwanese would even claim Chinese ethnic identity alongside Taiwanese national identity, if doing so weren't a rhetorical point that Beijing is using to try to force its claim on Taiwan.

But no, a dogged insistence on fabricated boundaries (if they really cared about the pre-1911 boundaries, Beijing would claim Mongolia as well) and a desire for total control once again makes it harder for them to actually get the thing they want. Instead, Taiwan remains stubbornly free and quite rightly mistrusts all overtures from the CCP (and CCP-adjacent angry people), and  a close economic relationship thwarted thanks to Beijing's own hubris.

Because they've convinced their own people that Taiwan is of vital national importance and letting Taiwan 'get away' would be a disaster for China, if Taiwan does in fact get away, some provinces of China might decide they want independence, too. If they hadn't manufactured such a potential crisis, I doubt that territories actually under Chinese governance would care nearly so much about a territory not under their governance formalizing its place in the international community.

And thanks to Hong Kong as well as changing international winds, the world is finally starting to notice.

Great job, CCP. Absolutely fantastic. You really showed them!

Now...who wants to put on skirts and head to Yuen Long? 

While comparatively better, Taiwan is not a paradise for women

A casual reader of this blog might come to the conclusion, after a few posts where I defend or even praise Taiwan for being as I've called it "the best country in Asia for women", that I think of Taiwan as some sort of elysian idyll for women where gender equality is the norm and women's rights are universally respected and defended as equal to men's.

However, I'd like to add this as a reminder - perhaps a periodic one, with more to come - that when I say Taiwan is a "good" place for women, I mean that it is comparatively good. For instance, many people talk about foreigners who choose Taiwan over China and Hong Kong due to dissatisfaction with life in a "closed off and racist" (and politically unfree, and polluted) society. I would add something here: I chose to leave China and eventually make my way to Taiwan because I found China unrepentantly and unbearably sexist, and Taiwan less so.

Being better than the rest of Asia is a low bar to clear, however: most if not all of the world still struggles with the basic concept of women's equality, and while Asia is not the total smoking dumpster fire a lot of Westerners think it is vis-a-vis women (remember pretty much every country here has a home-grown feminist movement), it is hardly a shining paragon of gender equity.

To take just one tiny example, despite women having more equality in the workforce than other Asian countries, very few of them are among the nation's top earners. Yet I doubt too many people care about this outside of a core group of activists: rather like in the West. And rather like in the West, many people who think they have good intentions and egalitarian principles will wave these figures away saying it's a "choice" women tend to make to pursue something other than high-earning, high-stress careers (that stupid ex-googler is a good example of this - not even going to link it). Then the issue is left to rot, with no consideration beyond those core activists that no, it is not really a choice if you are pushed into it by societal factors, or if the profession you choose to enter is lower-paid not because it is low-stress or less necessary, but simply because it is dominated by women. Remember that coding and programming were low-paid fields when they were dominated by women, and that teaching was a well-paid, high-status career when it was dominated by men.

This country is not perfect, and still has a long way to go before it can even approach a country like, say, Sweden, despite slow steps toward progress such as hosting a Council for Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) summit for the first time - something that would not likely have happened in the previous administration which was not so much anti-woman as they simply ignored women's issues, nor, perhaps, the one before that despite former vice president Lu being an active feminist (and person with otherwise crazy views - old link but relevant).

In politics, it's not so much that people disagree on deficiencies in women's rights, it's that they just don't care. Take, for example, the way that the National Congress on Judicial Reform ignored important changes, all urgently needed, to issues affecting women and children. A rape shield law? Ignored. Ending the criminalization of adultery? Ignored.

I doubt that every member of the judicial reform congress thinks rape shield laws are a bad thing, or is still under the impression that criminalizing adultery is meant to help rather than harm women. Some of them probably are deeply sexist enough to believe these things, but most likely they ignored the report in question because they just don't give a damn and don't think any of it is particularly important. Casual sexism rather than virulent sexism.

That's how Taiwan often operates - while the US seems to lean headlong into worsening its problems, Taiwan simply ignores them. While I wouldn't want to live in a place that was trying to actively persecute its women - as many places in the US are doing in their attempt to roll back reproductive rights and equality initiatives - nor can I conscientiously accept the attempts of many American politicians to redefine rape (and those who, on the very far right, even advocate legalizing it), this isn't great either.

A quick primer on why criminal adultery laws hurt women can be found in this excellent article which I strongly recommend you read.

The funny thing is that these laws were originally conceived to protect women. Well, some women. Married women. Presumably with children, as people around the world seem to have difficulty imagining a married child-free couple for some reason. Those women, apparently, are worth protecting. I'm guessing the people who put those laws in place thought of them as real women, unlike those evil adulteresses, who are, I dunno, un-women?

The divorce laws also need to change - the idea that one might not be granted a divorce is simply unacceptable. The idea that a no-fault divorce petitioned by only one spouse might not go through - so that a judge gets to decide if you ought to remain married or not despite how much you might not want to be - is unacceptable. A marriage contract is not the same thing as a contract with a landscaper, a contractor or a boss. You aren't expected to spend your free time with your boss, raise children with a graphic designer you hired or be intimate with your landscaper. It's just not the same. I'm in a happy marriage, with zero intention of divorcing, yet I would not marry under laws that wouldn't give me the right to do so (I also have no intention of having an abortion, but I would not live in a country where my right to do so was impinged upon. I do worry that that may soon be the case in the country of my birth).

As for why rape shield laws are important, that ought to be obvious and I'm sad that I even have to say why they are important, but I probably do. Essentially, when a rape charge actually goes to court (which is rare enough - most cases never do), without a rape shield law, the defense is able to turn the court proceedings away from the alleged crime being tried and instead make the trial all about the sexual history of the plaintiff. All of those garbage defenses like "well she has sex with lots of guys" and "how can you believe her, she's a slut and anyway look at what she was wearing" are suddenly inadmissible, because they aren't dealing with the rape in question and are essentially irrelevant. There are some strong and nuanced counterarguments (this is an interesting read) but ultimately, we do need laws that put rape cases on equal footing with trials for, say, armed robbery: if you wouldn't bring up the history of an alleged victim of robbery as someone who always showed off their flashy possessions and even gave them away in the past, then you shouldn't be doing that to an alleged rape victim either.

My point is, if I sound overly optimistic or cheery about women's issues in Taiwan, it's because I'm comparing Taiwan to the rest of Asia. On that rubric, Taiwan does well. But in terms of overall women's equality, we still have a very long way to go.

Update on the Fu Jen University Protests

So, thinking there would just be an "update - agreement reached, strike worked!" type post, I read up on the "resolution" to the Fu Jen Catholic University's protest and hunger strike to remove the unfair - and I say that unequivocally - curfew on the women's dorm when no such curfew applied to the men's.

I was wrong. There is a lot to say about this. First, a question - it doesn't seem like the curfews are abolished effective immediately but will be abolished at some point in the future. Is that true, or did I misunderstand the (somewhat poorly-organized) article?

First and foremost, while I maintain that this is not completely attributable to "Asian conservatism" but is also in large part a symptom of "religious conservatism" (I am not a big fan of mainstream Catholic or any religious conservatism, if you hadn't noticed, and would never tolerate it being imposed on me) there are positive and negative things about the fact that the women had to protest, but also that they won.

The good: well, that they won. That civic activism actually means something and gets something done in Taiwan, and it shows that the "passive/listens to authority/Confucian values" nonsense so many people ascribe to the Taiwanese are false. They are willing to fight! How do we know? They keep doing it! From The Republic of Formosa to 228 to the Kaohsiung Incident to the farmers to the White Lilies to the Sunflowers (the aptly-named Red Shirts didn't seem to have that much of an impact, though I admit bias in not caring for their agenda), if you say the Taiwanese are not willing to fight, you need to read a goddamn history book.

That the youth have not lost hope, that they're willing to fight and they are not the strawberries their condescending parents make them out to be. How many of those older folks calling the young generation 'strawberries' would have fought to end an aspect of gender discrimination in their schools? Their own parents were the ones doing most of the fighting for democracy - what did they fight for? That this sort of activism, which seems to be dead or ineffective in the US - still has power here. I hope that never goes away.

The bad: that they had to protest at all. Their position was reasonable, their goals logical. They should have been able to talk it out with the administration without having to make a massive fuss about it. It reminds me of my own occasional skirmishes at work. While I am always quick to say that my current employers - both of them - are generally very good, and I am in a much better position than the vast majority of English teachers in Taiwan now that I work at a truly professional level (yes, I welcome your hate for saying that in the comments), I have to say this: in the past, at one employer, when I've had to fight for something I deserved, be that enrollment in Laobao (labor insurance) or a well-earned raise, I have felt like attempts at talking about it reasonably are met with resistance, or at the very most no action. It has left me, on a few rare occasions, with the feeling that if I want something I deserve, I must fight for it more strongly than I should have to. I should be able to sit down and talk it out and reach a reasonable solution without having to, I dunno, threaten to quit (a real threat, not a bluff - I was ready to quit over getting a real raise). But, nothing happens until I pull out the big guns, at which point I get what I want but am told I didn't have to pull out those guns. Except I DID, because if I hadn't I wouldn't have gotten anywhere! And I know this from having tried that route and not having gotten anywhere!

Anyway. Ahem. I shouldn't have had to take the nuclear option, and FJU Cinderella shouldn't have had to either. A hunger strike should never have necessary, and it says something rather damning about FJU and Taiwan in general that they did, even as it says something good about the students being willing to organize and fight in the first place. When will we get to the point when reasonable goals don't have to be fought for with hunger strikes and occupations?

Second, I've spent the past week or so asking around to see on an anecdotal basis what the dorm rules are like across Taiwan. I asked people who attended and stayed in dorms at NTU, NCCU, Kaohsiung Medical College, Zhongxing, Yangming University and noticed a comment on my blog from someone who stayed at the dorms at Wenhua. According to these people, Wenhua also has discriminatory curfew policies, and NCCU has no curfews of any kind but makes men sign in and wear ugly orange vests - a perfect deterrent to getting laid? A "don't fuck me" vest? - when visiting women's dorms, but women can visit men's dorms freely. The others either have equal curfew policies or none at all.

This seems to corroborate the data in the article above where well less than half of Taiwanese universities have discriminatory dorm policies.

All I can say is that it does point to Fu Jen being a special case, perhaps due to religious conservatism, but it's also far too many. Even 26% is too many to have discriminatory policies.

Finally, two points in the article:

The first is that refusing to support the protestors because as you "want to protect your daughter, not discriminate"? Screw you. Wanting to protect your daughter because she is female, but not your son in the same way, IS discriminatory. There is no way to separate the two. If you discriminate in whom you want to protect, you are discriminating. WORDS MEAN THINGS.

As a counterpoint, I loved how someone called out that whole "women are responsible for not being victims" line of thinking. Dangers to women in Taiwan are not women's responsibility to fight, they're society's responsibility to eradicate in men.

Along these lines, Taiwan's youth rhetoric on social issues is refreshingly modern. I'm a huge fan. Among the youth you don't hear any of the old "I heard this in Asia" tropes (e.g. "It's not racist because it's natural" or even worse, "there's no racism here because there are no black people here" or "of course we should have equality but women need to be extra careful") - they know racism when they see it, they are aware of intersectional issues and call out when something is race, class or gender-based (or, relevant for Taiwan, age-based), or some combination of same, or all three. They know sexism when they see it and are bracingly able to call out patriarchal ideas of blaming women for being the targets of men rather than blame the men for having targets in the first place. I am excited to see this generation grow into the new leaders of Taiwan. The folks in power may not get it yet, but they do.

And next, there's still a long way to go - the idea of implementing an electronic card system in place of the curfew so "parents can monitor their children's movements" is almost as problematic as an actual curfew! These aren't kids, they are legal adults. They're in COLLEGE. They shouldn't have to use a card that registers their comings and goings for their parents to check. I can't imagine accepting the idea of my parents monitoring where I was at all times of day and night when I started college at 16 (yes, 16. Yes, I'm bragging. Deal with it), even though I lived at home, let alone when I transferred and went away to university at 17. The idea of being monitored at 18, 19, 20? Not acceptable. What really needs to change is the idea that parents have such a right to control of their adult children. And that will be a much slower - but still possible - cultural change.

American Sexist

This is a post for everyone who thinks that a lot of commentary about women's issues and everyday sexism in Taiwan (as this is, after all, a Taiwan-focused blog) are somehow unique to Taiwan or unique to Asia. "Taiwanese culture infantilizes women", they might say, or "In Taiwan women are expected to be very feminine, and they really don't like masculine things - that's why all the clothing and other items they buy are so girly".

Which, there's a speck of truth to that. I wouldn't go so far as to say women are "infantilized" in Taiwan (I know enough women who are, say, the general managers of investment company offices, who are senior executives or who basically run their family businesses, enough tomboys and women who simply aren't that feminine, enough rebels, athletes and artistic types to know that that is something of an exaggeration) but there does seem to be a cultural tendency to expect greater "femininity". Most stereotypes, after all, build bullshit around a kernel of truth.

What bothers me is the idea that this is somehow Asia-specific, Taiwan-specific, or has already been done away with in the Western countries that people who say this often a.) hail from and b.) praise.

I've been in the US for family reasons since December (it is now March, for those who read this post down the line). That's the longest amount of time I've spend in the US since the mid-aughts - 2006 to be precise. I was 26 when I left, and I feel I've grown and changed a lot since then - become more articulate in my support for, and reasons for supporting, feminist causes, for example. Behavior I put up with in male friends and boyfriends back then I would not put up with now, and I would be better able to articulate why.

So, this is the first time I've been around American cultural norms for an extended period since before my sense of feminist self fully formed - at least I think it's fully-formed at this point.  And you know what? Gender-pigeonholing and expecting 'femininity' is a huge problem here, as well. And yes, it is somewhat media-propagated, it's also socially propagated.

There's the Fifty Shades of Grey crap going around - since I've been back I've had at least one friend spend quite some time rhapsodizing the 'beauty' of a relationship where a significantly younger woman goes against her egalitarian beliefs and lets herself be dominated, as per the wishes of her (barf) "inner goddess", a relationship I'd categorize as if not abusive, at least full of red flags and creepy behavior (this is not a commentary on dom-sub relationships, of which I know very little and have no firsthand experience - this is a commentary on the relationship in that book/movie/pile of trash).

Then there's shopping. As I shop for spring clothing, something I am happy to have the luxury of doing without a problem (that never happened in Taiwan), my sister and I have noted several times that the clothing and t-shirts available for men are much cooler and more unique than those available for women. Some examples from Target:




Choices for women: yawn. They're cute, but boring. Totally fine as one aspect of a wardrobe, and would be fine if more fun choices were available - but the only fun choices are super feminine:



So, the men get Game of Thrones sigils and Star Wars t-shirts, and we get "SINGLE"? Yuck.

There were t-shirts for sports teams - most of which seemed to include the word "Swag".

The men's t-shirts were much more interesting: 



I personally would want "Omnomnomnivore" from that group.

So, we've been shopping in the men's section. I got fuzzy Batman pajama pants, Boba Fett pajama pants, a Sriracha t-shirt, and I almost bought a Star Trek t-shirt but decided against it as the last movie was so damn bad. You can get t-shirts for everything from Guiness to The Big Bang Theory to A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll have to get all the t-shirts altered.

I asked if any of these were available in the women's section. Nope. For women? Boooyyyss, we're single! 

Do they think women just don't like sci-fi, Game of Thrones or delicious, delicious Sriracha? I like all of those things. What makes them think that a woman wouldn't love a pair of fuzzy Batman pajama pants or a baby Iron Man t-shirt or a Darth Vader sugar skull t-shirt? All of which I would totally wear. I would not wear Snoopy sporting a pink bow or anything that says "swag", "cute", "kiss me" or whatever on it. Also, no sparkles please.

I've also been watching an inordinate amount of TV, simply because it's quite novel to have a lot of channels to choose from in my native language. I've become strangely obsessed with Ellen's Design Challenge (I just love cool furniture I suppose), but was put off by the judges saying repeatedly that "women" would not like one designer's items. Here's an example of an item that is "masculine" and that "every man" would want in their home but hardly any women would buy (very close to what was actually said.

Both my sister and I were put off by this - I freaking love this fan...thing (it's a credenza, right?). I would TOTALLY buy that. I would probably never buy the more 'feminine' designs thought up by other designers. I happened to love this guy's "masculine" work - I'm all about interesting metals, industrial details and thick natural woods*. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was pissed at how the show categorized these designs as "for men", but it, along with the "now we shop in the men's section at Target" experience, has really made me think about whether the US is really better at all in terms of socially-conditioned gender stereotyping than Taiwan.

Sure, women in the US, at least my part of the US, get less blowback for expressing our not-always-feminine preferences and sensibilities, and in Taiwan a lot of women complain that they do. But I'm from the People's Republic of New York where we are all Communists, pornographers, homosexuals and Jews - I would wager that in other parts of the country it's much worse. And you won't see as many instances of Hello Kitty figurine collection or anything like that.

But really, I'm not even particularly anti-feminine - if even I, not the least feminine person you will meet (although certainly not the most) feels pigeonholed, like "this is for girls, that is for boys" in the USA, if even I feel like I have to shop in the men's section of Target to get cool t-shirts and get irritated at a TV show for implying that women don't like things that women obviously do like, as I'm a woman and I like them, then maybe we are not as progressive as we think, maybe Taiwan isn't so much worse or so much more sexist than we think, and maybe we need to get off our high horses about what it's like 'back home'.

Women still get a raw deal here, too.

*shut up