Too Feminine to Protect a Country?: The Gendered Experiences of Soldiers in the Taiwan Military 娘子軍衛國？─臺灣軍人的性別經驗

Sarah Liu

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Abstract

Progress has been made for women in the military; however, few studies examine the impact of women’s military leadership. This talk uses in-depth interviews with soldiers to study the influence of women’s representation and participation in the Taiwanese military. The preliminary findings show that gender stereotypes exist in the military; however, often these gender stereotypes are held by women soldiers. The preliminary findings also illustrate the (mis)conception of the princess culture in the military. The study contributes to an emerging scholarship on gender and politics and offers broader implications by providing nuanced theoretical insights by (1) addressing current gaps in literature on women’s military representation (2) by offering new empirical analyses of an important area, e.g. East Asia, that has been previously neglected in the studies of representative democracy; (3) by benefitting policy communities given the recent rise of women holding executive seats.

Speaker's Bio

Dr. Sarah Liu is Lecturer in Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research broadly focuses on the cross-national comparison of how contexts – women’s political representation, women’s movements, immigration, and COVID-19 – shape the gender gaps in political opinion and behavior. Her works are cross-regional with a focus on East Asia. Her research has been published widely in political science and gender studies journals and has appeared in the Washington Post Monkey Cage, the Conversation UK, BBC World, France 24, etc. She is the Associate Editor for Representation: A Journal of Representative Democracy and Coordinating Editor for Groups, Politics & Identities.

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: hl55@soas.ac.uk