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18 J. Korean L. 1 (2018-2019)
Becoming Outsiders within: A Feminist Socio-Legal Study of Surname Inequality as Sex, Race, and Marital Status Discrimination in Taiwan

handle is hein.journals/jkorl18 and id is 9 raw text is: Journal of Korean Law I Vol. 18, 1-58, December 2018 Becoming Outsiders Within: A Feminist Social-Legal Study of Surname Inequality as Sex, Race, and Marital Status Discrimination in Taiwan* Chen Chao-ju** Abstract This article is a social-legal inquiry into the inequality of surnames in Taiwan and an endeavor to deliberate on its theoretical implications so as to fashion an account of East Asian feminist jurisprudence for surname inequality as sex, race, and marital status discrimination in Taiwan. Taiwan is a country where patronymic naming for children still prevails but patronymic naming for married women (prefixing husband's surname) has become rare, and where marital name law and children's name law have been reformulated in a gender-neutral fashion and in a contract model. Married women have become name keepers, but mothers remain outsiders within. Tracing the different trajectories of marital names and children's names in life and law, this article discusses how and why surname equality remains a goal rather than a reality in Taiwan despite liberal legal reform that has abolished patronymic rules and the prohibition against using indigenous people's traditional names, while also acknowledges the law's power to change. It begins with an investigation into the development and practices of marital surname law, followed by a critique of children's surname law by revealing the different faces of discrimination against different mothers as outsiders, and ends with a discussion of the limitations of liberal law reform and with a proposal for change. It will be revealed that women's experience as well as feminist legal mobilization facilitated the change of law, and that women's situation under law varies in accordance to their marital and ethnic status. It will be argued that the formal transition of name laws from status to contract creates a * An early version of this article was presented at the international Conference on Surname Issues in Emerging Feminist Jurisprudence in East Asia, hosted by the Asia-Pacific Law Institute & Institute for Gender Research, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, November 24, 2017. I am grateful to Hyunah Yang for organizing the conference, my fellow presenters Ishida Kyoko and Hyunah Yang, commentators Hong Yang-hee and Hong Chan- sook, Bae Eun-kyung, Oh Seung-Yi and conference participants for their productive suggestions and discussions. All errors are mine alone. The research for this article was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 105-2420-H-002 -017 -MY3). - Professor, National Taiwan University College of Law

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