Looking again at Taiwan's Lü Hsiu-lien: A female vice president or a feminist vice president?

Abstract

In 2000, Lü Hsiu-lien was elected Taiwan's first female vice president, adding to the striking successes of Asian women in electoral politics. Lü differs from the majority of Asia's "ruling women" in two key respects: she was elected without reliance on "dynastic descent" and she has a long track record as a feminist activist. Her position as both a pioneering feminist and a female vice president prompts us to ask whether she was able to promote a pro-woman agenda during her tenure as vice president. We conclude that despite constraints on Lü's pursuit of an overt feminist agenda-including the patriarchal political culture and a gap between Lü and Taiwan's contemporary feminist movement-she is significant as a female leader who transcends both the Asian dynastic model and the tokenistic model of women as "flower vases," while also contributing vitally to the development of an indigenous Taiwanese feminist theory.