ABSTRACT
Democratization since the late 1980s has brought about legal reforms advancing gender equality in Taiwan. Though Taiwanese civil codes ensure daughters have the same inheritance rights as sons, parents traditionally leave more property to their sons than daughters. Daughters can fight such wills in court, but few do. Gender violence also remains a serious issue, but the government has yet to change its criminal statistics. In the Taiwanese context, the parliament is unicameral and active. It employs a parallel electoral system also known as mixed-member majoritarian alongside reserved seats for representatives of indigenous citizens. In Taiwan, women members of parliaments (MPs) use various strategies to work within and transform the institutions to achieve substantive representation of women (SRW). There were two major efforts made by the interviewed MPs to transform the institutions and both demonstrated SRW. The first was to establish a Gender Equality Commission within the parliament, and the second was to demand a one-third gender quota whenever possible.
