ABSTRACT
The pursuit of women’s studies in Taiwan is part of a global feminist project that seeks to promote women’s rights and advocates knowledge claims for women. The emergence of women’s studies at universities in Taiwan coincided with the women’s movement of the 1980s, an era when many forces began to fight the suppression of civil rights in Taiwan. Women’s movement activists and feminist scholars, whom I call pathfinders, played a central role in the struggle to establish women’s studies in Taiwan. These forerunners, with little or no direct support from the international community, created their own paths for overcoming the enormous obstacles presented by the oppressive, patriarchal political system and academic institutions of Taiwan (Lee, 1986; Ku, 1989, 1996; Hsieh & Chang, 2004).
