The Taipei Nursing College and the Taipei Medical School have trained more than 400 male nursing students since 1985. However, only 60 of them are practicing today, most of whom are given hard jobs at units with difficult assignments. The Shin Kong Hospital recently hired two male head nurse. They said, "No doctors dare yelling at me", "We have better chances competing with female nurses." (China Times, page 5, 1997-06-23)
| Plenty of people thinks that it is useless for women to be educated, for the women would end up in the kitchen and the educational resources would only be wasted. No one ever thinks about the issues of sexual discrimination in the job market and the potential human resources available if we redistribute the responsibilities in the family and develop the women workforce. The medical profession seems to consider that these 60 male nurses are more reliable, and in turn are worthy of better jobs than their female counterpart. The little bunch of sixty enjoys the professional status and social respect the vast majority of female nurses cannot even dream about. Male doctors don't dare yelling at male nurses but only at female ones; is this because male nurses work harder, or does this only reflect the sexual discrimination in the medical profession? |
The Gender and Space Studio of the National Taiwan University held a "Pedestrian Underpass Running Race" at the underpass of Keelung Road and Tunhua South Road in Taipei today. Using a short skit, they demonstrated the maldesign of the construction that obstructed the movement of women. In the skit, the "Wolf" ran faster than the female student, the homemaker and the vocational woman. It is obvious that the society places many limits and rules on women to deprive them of their survival abilities. The Studio demanded that a) the City Government establish a special assignment team to draft the Map of Danger, b) female commissioners participate in city planning and design, and c) construction regulations and city planning laws be amended to regulate personal safety in addition to the current fire, flood and earthquake safety standards. (Womenet News Team, 1997-06-24)
A man Liao Zhengshun, upset about his wife and children going back to his wife's maiden home, poured gasoline on his four children and burned three of them to the second and third degrees. His eldest daughter, who escaped from the fire, prayed to the gods "to protect my brothers and sisters, but not my father." (United Daily News, page 5, 1997-06-19) A Hong Kong businessman Liu Nanshan killed himself in his home in a Seattle high-income residential area, after shooting dead his wife and two sons. Priliminary reports from the police showed that the suicide was an attempt to escape from business troubles. (United Daily News, page 9, 1997-06-19)
| Not again! Is it a man's right to decide the fate of his family when he faces a bottleneck in his business? A few years ago, a Taiwan businessman Huang also killed his wife, mother and two daughters, injured his son, and then committed suicide. It seems that they view their family as their last piece of property which they have the right to "dispose of" before dying! |
Women organizations including the National Organization for Women urge Lin Qingxuan to settle reasonably with his ex-wife, and advocate modifications to the Family and Relatives Chapter of the Civil Law. Lawyer Cai Minghua, Esq. said she would volunteer to deal with the law for Lin's ex-wife. As we understand, Lin Qingxuan's new wife gave birth to a son on June 16, six months after Lin divorced his ex-wife. (China Times, page 7 and United Daily News, page 5, 1997-06-22)
The Ministry of Justice announced the statistics for rape and rape murder cases from 1992 to 1996. There were 662 such cases in 1992, 872 in 1993, 862 in 1994, 1139 in 1995 and 1361 in 1996. Apparently the number of these cases increased greatly in 1995. Because of private settlements and difficulties in evidence acquisition, only 21 % of all such cases reached convictions. (United Daily News, page 7, 1997-06-18)
About 30 public prostitutes attended a "Public Hearing for Safety in the Sex Industry" several days ago, where they unanimously spoke against the idea of abolishing prostitution. Experts on AIDS from the Philippines and Australia also provided examples from other countries, arguing that the abolition of prostitution would not eradicate the sex industry, but will only force the prostitutes who had once been legal to perform sexual behaviors that are more dangerous, and in turn obstruct social workers and medical personnels in providing assistance. (United Daily News, page 16, 1997-06-27)
A women's college in Cambridge University admitted a faculty member who was male-to-female transsexual. This resulted in a protest by the administrative committee of the college, because the statutes of the college regulates that all researching, faculty and staff members have to be female. Padman, a physicist who underwent transsexual operation in 1982, still holds official documents indicating she being a male. The head of the college admitted Padman even after Padman told her about the transsexual history. Germaine Greer, famous feminist in the 1970s, also opposed the admission of Padman. (China Times, page 5, 1997-06-25)
| After one has put so much efforts in changing one's sex, do we still have to restrain the person to the original gender? When the founders of the college established its all-female statute, they wanted to protect the rights of women, because women are underprivileged with respect to men. Therefore, we can say, the statutes are established to protect the underprivileged. Then why do we close the door in the face of the transsexuals? Aren't they more underprivileged with respect to women? |
Homosexual Civil Action Front held the "June 29 Rainbow Partners Dream Park" festival, celebrating their rights to use public spaces, coinciding with similar Gay and Lesbian Pride events all over the world. The affiliates of the Homosexual Civil Action Front include a 30-person League of Educators, consisting of primary and secondary school teachers, college lecturers and education school students, aligning their efforts to promote homosexual equal rights education. (China Times, page 14 and United Daily News, page 19, 1997-06-30)