Since the emergence of the feminist movement in Taiwan by the 1970s, Taiwanese society has transformed itself from a culture deeply rooted in Confucian gender traditions to one that underlines women’s empowerment and gender equality. Not only does the society engage more issues in relation to women, reflecting the changes in socio-politics and cultural conditions, the general perspectives in which the same issue is discussed also change. Into the 21st century, Taiwan continues to change, witnessing more reconsiderations and confronting new challenges on all possible gender issues.

In this course we explore Taiwanese women’s conditions of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on the more modern period, that is, the mid-to-late twentieth century to the present day. With a brief introduction of what Taiwanese women’s traditions may involve and how Taiwanese women modernize, we explore how the feminist movements unfolded, how they reflect or change Taiwanese women’s social status, the rise of women’s studies and/or feminist scholarship, sexual violence, sex work, and lesbian issues. We also reflect on issues of migration and global human flow, and discuss how the introduction of immigrant spouses as well as migrant workers may compel us to rethink women’s issues in contemporary Taiwan.

Doris T. Chang. Women’s Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan. University of Illinois Press, 2009 R.W. Connell & James W. Messerschmidt. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society. (19:6), December 2005. 829-859. Hsiao-chin Hsieh and Chueh Chang. “The Development of the Women’s Movement and Women’s/Gender Studies in Taiwan.” Gender, Culture & Society: Women’s Studies in Taiwan. Wei-hung Lin and Hsiao-chin Hsieh, eds. Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press, 2005. 21-79. Yu-Ying Hu. “Mainstreaming Female Masculinity, Signifying Lesbian Visibility: The Rise of the Zhongxing Phenomenon in Transnational Taiwan.” Sexualities (22:1-2), 2019. Deniz Kandiyoti. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender & Society (2), September 1988. 274-290. Andrea Dworkin. “Gynocide: Chinese Footbinding.” Woman Hating. Plume, 1974. 95-117. Dorothy Ko. “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinging in Seventeenth-Century China.” Journal of Women’s History (8:4), Winter 1997. 8-27. Gayle Rubin (1975). “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” Toward an Anthropology of Women. Hong-Zen Wang and Ching-Ying Tien. “Who Marries Vietnamese Bride? Masculinities and Bross-Border Marriages.” Cross-Border Marriages with Asian Characteristics. Hong-Zen Wang and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, eds. Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2009. 13-37. Yang, Chia-Ling. “Competition and Change in the Discourse on Abortion in Taiwan.” Struggles for Reproductive Justice in the Era of Anti-Genderism and Religious Fundamentalism. edited by R. Selberg, M. Kolankiewicz, and D. Mulinari, 133-154. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. Chen, Mei-Hua. “Sex and Work in Sex Work: Negotiating Sex and Work among Taiwanese Sex Workers.” In East Asian Sexualities: Modernity, Gender, and Sexual Cultures, edited by Stevi Jackson, Jieyu Liu, and Juhyun Woo, 104-122. Zed Books: 2008. Ding, Naifei (2000). “Parasites and Prostitutes in the House of State Feminism.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (1:2) Hwang, Shu-Ling, and Olwen Bedford. “Precursors and Pathways to Adolescent Prostitution in Taiwan.” The Journal of Sex Research 40, no. 2 (2003): 201-210. Lan, Pei-Chia. (2008). “Migrant Women Bodies as Boundary Markers: Reproductive Crisis and Sexual Control in the Ethnic Frontiers of Taiwan.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (33:4). Ward, Thomas J. “The Comfort Women Controversy – Lessons from Taiwan.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 16:8, no. 5 (2018): 1-13.