Women and Public Facilities in Taiwan
Revising Policies on Public Spaces
Herng-Dar Bih, translated by Susanne Ganz
S
pace is socially constructed, just like language. The arrangement of space reflects and reinforces gender, eth-nicity, and class relations in society. However, teachers and designers in the field have been utterly insensitive to gen-der. Only after the emergence of the women's movement and feminist thinking did people awaken from their 'gender-blind* consideration of public spaces.Awakening, tbe first feminist organi-zation in Taiwan, was founded in 1982. Many other women's groups were formed after the abolishment of martial law in 1987. Since then, 'gender and space" poli-cies were promoted in tbree ways: i) Legislation: for example, the Sexual
Assault Prevention Act. the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act. the Gender Equality in Employment Act. and the Gender Equity Etlucation Act were all passed within the last ten years, ii) Participation in a Government
Committee: the Commission on Women's Rights Promotion issued the Women's Policy Guidelines in Taiwan with a chapter on women's safety in public spaces.
iii) Social Movement: particularly the Women's Toilet Movement and the campaign for breastfeeding rooms, which 1 discuss in this article.
Although feminist thinking is still neglected in most educational settings within tbe fields of urban planning and architecture, ibe past decade has wit-nessed significant progress towards more gender-sensitive policies and their imple-mentation in the areas of public restrooms and breastfeeding rooms. These are two factors wbicb greatly affect women's abil-ity to be mobile, to participate in the pub-lic domain and to engage in work outside their homes.
The Women's Toilet Movement: Demands for New Policies
In 1996, Wang Ching-ning, tlie head of the Women's Studies Club at Nation;il Taiwan University (NTU), was elecicJ head of the National Taiwan Universit\ Student AssiKiation on a gender platform tbat included improving the women's toi-lets on campus. Also in 1996, Peng Yen-wen, a graduate student at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning. tt«ik an elective independent studio course focusing on toilet planning and design. During the tenn. Peng, the NTU Student Association, and the university's Research Center for Gender and Space joined bands to conduct a comprehensive survey of tbe more than 100 campus toilets. They surveyed tbe number of female and male toilet stalls and the availability of urinals, in addition to assessing tltxjr space, lighting, ventilation, location, flooring, washbasins, coat hooks, waiting space, doors, and barrier-free facil-ities. Seizing the opportunity of Women's Day on March 8, the student association released its inspection report on campus women's restrooms at the campus entrance. It was called 'Tlie March 8 New Position on Women's Toilets Allows Me to Pee at Ease.' Aside from announcing tbe survey results, a piece of street theatre was per-formed which caught tbe eyes of various television stations and print media. A suc-cessful press conference greatly encouraged the survey organizers. On May 4, together with tbe Coalition of Female Students of Universities, tbe NTU Student Association and Research Centre for Gender and Space held another press conference in one of the men's rooms at tbe Taipei Railway Station with the slogan: 'Seizing the Men's R(M)ms.' On May 5. they beld a male versus female urinating competition at Ta-An Forest Park to measure the average time
Taiwan's Women's Toitet Movement banner; "The March 8 New Position on Women's Toilets Attows Me to Pee at Ease."
men and women take at a urinal and water closet. These two events brought to public attention the inequal gender distribution of public restrooms.
The women's toilet movement contin-ued to gain momentum. Witb strong public pressure, officials at all levels and people's representatives, one after tbe other, expressed their concem. They demanded that the Construction and Planning Agency, which oversees public restrooms, change the existing regulations. On October 21, 1996, the Ministry of the Interior amended tbe relevant section of the "Technical Regulations for Buildings
— Building Facilities' and markedly
raised the number of women's restrooms in public buildings. Under the new regu-lations, elementary and junior high schools, for example, have to provide one toilet for every 50 males, one urinal for every 30 males, and one toilet for every 15 females. Under the old regulations the ratio was one toilet for every 35 females.
Since many public restnx)ms charged a fee to female users, while males diti not have to pay anytbing. protests were held at the Taiwan Mott)r Transport Company's west-side bus terminal against regulations
ing women users to pay. Soon, women's restrooms at highway rest stops no longer charged female travelers for toilet use.
As a result of the women's toilet Tiiovement of 1996, public restrooms and related gender issues received widespread attention from the general public and the government. Women were consulted in the formulation of laws, policies, planning, and design. The Taipei City Government designated 2001 the 'Year of the Public Toilet' and declared that making the nec-essary improvements was an important duty for the city's administration during that year. Public toilets were required to become 'not dirty', 'not smelly', and 'not wet.' Not only did the ratio of men's to women's restrooms reach the standard of one to three, but women's toilets in public spaces around Taiwan also started to improve in the following ways:
• Direct redesigning of men's rooms into women's rooms: for example, after the 'seizure of men's rooms' at the Taipei Railway Station, one men's toilet was redesigned into a women's toilet. • Flexibly regulating use: during events,
performances, or exhibitions in places sucb as the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and the Taipei World Trade Center, cer-tain men's restrooms are assigned for female use simply by hanging a sign on the doors.
• Switching the location of male and female restrooms: for security and privacy reasons, women's nx)ms were in the past often put in corners that were far away from tbe lines of movement. As a result, contrary to what was intended, they bcctunc diingerous spaces. Out of safety considerations, tbe New Student Building at National Taiwan University converted the men's axinis near lines of movement close to staircases into women's rooms. At the same time, women's rooms, which were hidden behind the staircases so that passers-by were not able to see tbem, were changed into men's rooms. • Women's restrooms were fitted with
alarm bells and otber service equipment sucb as hooks, toilet paper, and liquid hand soap.
• The women's restrooms at highway rest stops no longer charge fees for use.
Although the Women's Toilet Movement has brought about some impor-tant cbanges, there is still a lot for us femi-nist activists to do. The new regulations for toilets in public buildings do not apply to existing, older buildings. Since most toilets are in existing buildings, women will have to continue lining up for quite some time. We need to persuade government., schools, and corporations to reconstruct, refurbish, and bring the toilets in their existing build-ings up to new standards. We also need to propose unisex toilets. These will provide more choices for women, reduce time spent waiting in line-ups, and solve the obvious difficulties experienced by transgendered people. Thirdly, given the inequality between men's and women's toilets, we must encourage women to use men's toilets when there are no male users — provided they take tbeir personal safety into account. New Planning and Design Standards for Breastfeeding Spaces
The World Health Organization adopted an important resolution in 2002 declaring that receiving breast milk is an infant's basic right and suggesting tbat breastfeed-ing should continue until the child is more than two years old. Yet statistics show that Taiwan's breastfeeding rate gradually declined from 95 per cent in 1962 to 40 per cent in 1996. In 1999. the rate of women who breastfed during their stay at hospital maternity wards, rose again to 55 per cent, but only 20 per cent of these mothers continued to breastfeed six months after giving birth.
The Gender Equality in Employment Act, which was adopted in 2001 by the Legislative Yuan (the legislative assembly of Taiwan), stipulates in Article 23 that: "An employer with more than 250 employees shall set up child care facilities where mothers can breastfeed and change babies.* However, even if breastfeeding rooms may be helpful to breastfeeding women at work and when tbey go out. the rtwms exist only in name if they are set up in inappropriate locations or if they are not well maintained, A survey was recently conducted of 381 breastfeeding rooms, which had been set up by the private sector witb subsidies from the Department of Health. The survey found
that the average user rate for such rooms in schools, public transit stations, and public office buildings stood at less than 20 visits per month. !n three locations, the user rate for these breastfeeding rooms stotHi at zero, including the one at tbe Tataka Visitor Center in Yushan National Park. Seventeen breastfeeding rooms were transferred to other uses or closed after the government subsidies ran out. The survey also discov-ered that the design of some breastfeeding rooms was not discrete enougb. that signs were not clear enough, and tbat some rooms were simply t(.K) small (only 1 ping or 3.3 square meters). Some breastfeeding rooms were even locked during business hours for more 'convenient' control. Often people did not know how to get the keys and gave up trying to use the r(X)ms.
A survey by the Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan found that many breastfeeding women in Taiwan make do with whatever kind of room is available. Tbe most common deficiency of breast-feeding rooms is that the place is only shielded with cloth curtains and thus lacks privacy. Tbere is also t(K) little space, tables and seats are often not strong enough, and there are no electrical outlets. Even if tbe user rate is low. we should not deny the need for breastfeeding ro(.ims; instead we must enforce standards and improve their location and accessibility. For example, locating breastfeeding rooms in remote comers of public places gives the problem-atic message that breastfeeding is an activity that should be done clandestinely.
Nor are breastfeeding rootns well designed in public transportation systems. Only 19 of 105 railway stations have breastfeeding rooms. Only four express trains are equipped with a breastfeeding room. On long distance trips, breastfeeding mothers have to express their breast milk or breastfeed their babies in the toilet. Besides the discomfort and inconvenience for mothers, other passengers and cleaning staff complain about the toilets being wcu-pied for too long. Last November one woman wbo breastfed her baby in the Taipei Story House was forced to leave the building because of her 'indecent' behav-iour. After that, more than 30 members of the Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan
came to nurse their babie.s in the Taipei Story House to demand the right to breast-feed in public. In response, the Taipei City Government is now proposing to adopt the 'Taipei Public Space Breastfeeding Ordinance' which would include fines of NTS30,0(K) (approx. US$ I,O(K)) for any-one who interferes with or prevents mothers from breastfeeding their children.
Breastfeeding the next generation should be seen as a sacred task, but in many soci-eties breastfeeding mothers are not given the respect Ihcy deserve. The Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan has therefore launched a movement for the improvement of breastfeeding rooms. Tbe first location was set up in the A8 Building of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taipei City's Sinyi District. The A.sstxiation spent between NT$20.0(X) iind NTS30.(XX) out of its own budget to create a breastfeeding room within a limited space. The nwm was designed to focus on ihe needs of mothers and infants so it is more irequently used. The seats, for instance, which originally faced curtains directly, were turned sideways so that a mother can conveniently draw the cur-tains to increase her sen.se of security. The A.s,sociation asked specialists to create chairs of different sizes and heights to accommtxlate mothers and children with different body shapes. This breastfeeding room also provides leg rests and fold-ing tables for belongings. Breastfeeding room designed
by the Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan
Decision-Makers and Users: The Gender Gap Remains
Policies, plans, and the design of pub-lic places still do not reflect women's needs and often exacerbate di.scrimination against women. A very important reason remains that the majority of people who make decisions about policy, planning, and design in Taiwan are male. Rarely do these men recognize the value of
consult-Department
Grad. inst. of Building and Planning. National Taivi/an University
Department of Urban Planning, National Cheng Kung University
Department of Architecture National Cbeng Kung University
Department of Architecture Tamkang University's Department of Urban Planning, Feng Chia University's
Department of Architecture Feng Chia University's Department of Architecture Chung Yuan Christian University's
Dept. of Architecture and Urban Design
Cbinese Culture University
Number of female fuLl-time teachers Q 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 Number of fuU-time teachers in total 7 U 24 19 20 12 15 Per cent of female full-time teachers 0% 7% 4% 11% 8% 15% 8% 13%
ing citizens and users, especially when these citizens and users are women.
This problem may well stem from deeply entrenched inequalities within the space planning professions themselves. In tbe university programmes, which train the next generation of design professionals (e.g., architecture, planning, and land-scape architecture), women teachers are vastly under-represented. Male-female teacher ratios in Taiwanese programmes are listed in Figure 1.
Moreover, women account for roughly 20 to 30 per cent of tbe students in plan-ning aitd design professions and the share of licen.sed female architects is a mere three per cent. Outside the university envi-ronment, women are even more under-represented. The Taipei Urban Planning Committee has just four women among its 21 members. The same goes for the Taipei Urban Design, Land Use and Development Permit Review Committee. Amazing changes reflecting women's needs have occurred over the past decade in Taiwan. However, much more remains to be
changed. More feminists need to participate in the planning and design of space and more planners and designers need to become feminists. More women are needed in powerful positions that enable them to make decisions about the built environment. And perhaps most importantly, gender mainstreaming is needed to bring abimt the kinds of systemic change that can contribute to the creation of more gender equitable cul-tures, values, processes, and decisions. S
Herng-Dar Bih, lhdbihianlu.edu.tw) is Associate Professor at Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at the National Taiwan University, Taiv^an. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology from City University of New York. His researcfi Interests include environmental psychology, gender and space, and qualitative research methods.
Further Reading:
Greed Clara, Inclusive Urban Design:
Public Toilets, Architectural Press,
Oxford UK: 2003
