2 Literature Review
2.4 Taiwanese Mothers in the Modern Era
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The social construction primarily focuses on a mother’s devotion to family and neglects her achievements, because the patriarchal system keeps operating under a particular ideology of family roles. Certain ideologies not only influence East Asian mothers historically, but also influence women in recent times to some degree.
2.4 Taiwanese Mothers in the Modern Era
Topics concerning mothers in Taiwan are quite diverse. Regarding Taiwanese mothers, Lee (2007) elaborated on the discourse of ideal mothers as it is constructed in Taiwan. Motherhood is an idea that has long been constructed in a patriarchy system (Lee, 2007). The ideology rationalizes the concept that women in Taiwan are born to be mothers (Lee, 2007).
The ideal roles of the family portray married women’s responsibility as domestic workers, while men work outside the home (Pan, 2005). This depiction was prevalent for most modern women even after the 1960s (Pan, 2005). According to Pan (2005), Taiwanese mothers with different backgrounds and jobs share a common belief that they are required to do more housework than men in a family. Consequently, patriarchal ideology operates as a tradition for most Taiwanese women to follow (Pan, 2005).
Taiwanese women are said to face a dilemma between career and family after marriage (Qian & Sayer, 2016). Most Taiwanese women bear the ideology of being good mothers, sacrificing themselves for marriage and family (Yi & Chien, 2001; Hsu
& Chiou, 2015). Married women make their decisions on whether to still work after marriage or pregnancy, which not only involve their attitude towards the issue, but mostly concern mother ideology framed as a traditional family responsibility (Yi &
Chien, 2001). Taiwanese women have to make compromises between family and individuals and take devotion toward their family and nurturing kids as their priorities
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(Yi & Chien, 2001; Lee, 2007; Hsu & Chiou, 2015). As Pan (2005) concluded, being mothers means sacrificing themselves. Taiwanese mothers do not dwell much thought on their own sake, but mostly about their husbands and kids. Mothers are prone to be the ones who quit their jobs for marriage or kids (Yi & Chien, 2001; Hsu & Chiou, 2015).
2.4.1 Working mothers and the existing ideologies
As I have so far discussed mothers’ sacrifice for the sake of family, it unquestionably prompts us to look into the aspect of the employment rate among Taiwanese women since they have faced pressure to quit their jobs in the past. However, the employment rate of Taiwanese women has increased from 45.64% to 50.92% over the past 20 years. Apart from higher educational levels and increasing job opportunities, legislation has spared mothers from choosing between a career and a family.
The policy of maternal leave and childcare leave without pay was established in Taiwan to relieve women from the pressure of nurturing children and to help them return to the workplace with ease (Ministry of Labor, 2017). With the help of regulations, the employment rate of women of childbearing age in Taiwan has been growing over the past 20 years (Ministry of Labor, 2017). Specifically, among married women aged from 15 to 64, the employment rate was 64.5% in 2017 (Ministry of Labor, 2017). The increasing employment rate of Taiwanese women reveals the fact that the ideology of fathers as providers in a family has gradually changed (Hung, 2015).
The responsibility of providing financial support no longer just belongs to fathers, but to mothers as well. Mothers’ role has transformed into more than just caregivers according to the current society, meaning that they are both mothers and workers at the same time (Hung, 2015). Nevertheless, the gradually shifting role of mothers has not
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Laws and policies in recent years have given mothers more equal environments.
Mothers are still facing an unbalanced situation since the regulations do not have an immense impact on the at-home scenario. As a study revealed, mothers still share a higher portion of housework in a Taiwanese family (Pan, 2005; Hung, 2015). Though mothers have increasingly become working mothers, they are still required to share more housework and be the caregivers in families, because this is rooted in social expectations (Hung, 2015).
Apart from inequality at home, working mothers confront other pressures in this patriarchal system. Keyser-Verreault (2018) explicitly addressed the beauty norms and mother ideologies that are somewhat intertwined together in our society. Keyser-Verreault (2018) also brought up the rarity of related research around such topics, which reaffirm this research study’s goal to investigate Taiwanese mothers regarding their self-presentation. According to that study, the beauty norms have influenced modern Taiwanese women’s appearances and behaviors. Several participants confessed that the social ideologies of beauty demand Taiwanese women be submissive, soft, and tender (Keyser-Verreault, 2018). Keyser-Verreault (2018) further evaluated how motherhood and ideal beauty tangled throughout the lives of highly-achieved mothers in Taiwan.
That study found that Taiwanese women face a dilemma when they feel obligated to bear children and stay beautiful at the same time. To be more specific, they feel stressed and are concerned about themselves frequently since they are expected to be skinny, young, and beautiful (Keyser-Verreault, 2018). They suffer from criticism of their failure at maintaining their beauty (Keyser-Verreault, 2018). Moreover, the ideologies persuade highly-achieved mothers to act “normal” or be “successful” in Taiwan by pursuing beauty.
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The ideologies overall transform into the criteria forcing mothers to match the representation of ideal mothers and to comply with mainstream beauty. Throughout the discussion above, a significant issue comes out in the literature. This issue concerns how the ideologies imposed on mothers affect themselves, which is worthy of more investigation.