![]() Her account drew an outpouring of support online and a swift apology from William Lai, the DPP’s chairman and presidential candidate. In the post, a former DPP staffer claimed her supervisor dismissed her workplace sexual harassment complaints and discouraged her from reporting the incident formally. The line was referenced at the top of a Facebook post that kicked off the whole #MeToo storm. Otherwise, we’ll slowly wither away and die,” she tells her. ![]() “Let’s not just let this go, OK? We can’t let things go this easily. In it, one of the characters, a senior party member, promises to seek redress for an incident in which a junior staffer had been groped by a colleague, despite pressure from higher up to hush up. Courtesy DAMOU EntertainmentĪ central rallying point for Taiwan’s #MeToo reckoning is a powerful line from one of the best known scenes in “Wave Makers” involving two of the show’s main characters. The main story line of "Wave Makers" features the solidarity and support between its two female protagonists. “It also gave victims who came forward a common reference point around which they could rally support and strengthen solidarity,” he said. Since its release in late April, the hugely popular show has provided a common language for discussions about sexual harassment, said Wen-Ti Sung, a political analyst based in Taipei. “There had been so many incidents like this, but they couldn’t be discussed or told,” Chien said. “Cases have been popping up in all walks of life recently, and you can see why it resonates,” said Chien Li-ying, who co-wrote the script with Peng Wei-chao, more commonly known by her pen name “Cynical Chick.” They said they had not expected such an impact and were now witnessing “high waves” being made every day. The turn of events took the creators of “Wave Makers” by surprise. ![]() Since then, the storm has spread from the center of political power to other parts of society, with a growing list of allegations hitting academia, sports and cultural circles as well as the island’s exiled mainland Chinese dissident community. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party has also been hit, and has vowed to probe a sexual harassment allegation against one of its lawmakers. ![]() “As the former party chairman, I should bear full responsibility,” Tsai wrote in a Facebook post on June 2, pledging to “reflect on our mistakes.” ![]() The allegations have rocked the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), prompting resignations in its upper ranks and public apologies from President Tsai Ing-wen. With tensions between Taipei and Beijing running at their highest in decades, the fallout from the #MeToo revelations risks adding more uncertainty to the all-important presidential race. Since late May, the show has sparked more than a dozen real-life #MeToo accusations involving political figures on the self-ruling island, as it too gears up for a presidential election in January. Though branded as a political drama, it is the show’s sexual harassment plot line that has attracted the most attention and made waves in real life. The series, “Wave Makers,” follows the fictitious lives of a team of campaign staffers in the run-up to a presidential election in Taiwan. Five years after #MeToo took the world by storm, Taiwan, a liberal democracy that has prided itself on gender equality, is facing its own reckoning over sexual harassment – brought about by a hit Netflix series. ![]()
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