A Quick Guide and Diligent Homework on Sexual Harassment

Ch'en Wei-t'ing is truly a political star; after revealing a past instance of sexual harassment, it sparked a variety of discourses. Many of them are fascinating, ranging from gender to power and politics (seems the judiciary was missing?), with methods stretching from analysis to field research and 'exposing the inside story.' Newspapers even published a 'quick guide' for him containing all sorts of content, citing various perspectives to facilitate comparison and analysis by netizens. He does not have many friends and relatives; those close to him are mostly comrades, and friendly remarks are like those of family. Family is usually those who will not sever ties with him when 'trouble strikes.' Among those not close to him, some are admirers while others are detractors. Following Ch'en's sexual harassment incident, many articles are worth sharing. This is bound to miss some, but please allow me to casually supplement them here.

If you sympathize with Ch'en Wei-t'ing, you should read the interview 'Desire Hurts—Ch'en Wei-t'ing / Huang Wei-chieh as a Diseased Body.' This article gets close to his life, and if it evokes your compassion, you will know that for a young man growing up this way, committing 'only' sexual harassment can also be considered fortunate.

If you want to understand the shadows cast by being sexually harassed, you should read the widely shared experience of someone who has been through it, 'Your Loneliness Created My Shadow.' You will also know how despicable an act it is to let others live in the shadows for a lifetime just for the sake of one's own minor selfishness and desires.

If you also want to understand how the structure of sexual power dominates our language, thinking, inertia, and consequently becomes an unbreakable social structure, you should look at the analysis 'Sexual Liberation of Sexual Harassment Victims.' Perhaps, mixed with everyone's own pleasant or painful growing experiences, we finally realize that we also seem to be accomplices, using self-righteous morality to make victims bear excessive suffering, while at the same time allowing the perpetrators to shoulder all the responsibility for the pressure we imposed on the victims, all the while considering ourselves noble.

The above are some quick guides compiled for your consideration.

The Judiciary as a Perpetrator

However, in the judiciary—a realm that appears so solemn—there are some issues that require our own thinking and cannot be answered through quick guides; this requires diligent homework. Taking the aforementioned articles as examples, cutting in from various angles while simultaneously demonstrating the complexity of gender issues, our first reflection is that in judicial proceedings, such discourse is almost completely absent. The power wielded by prosecutors and judges is immense, tightly grasping the defendant with one hand and controlling the victim with the other. The outcome of the story depends on which party they trust more, but in any case, they are rarely perceived as the side exerting pressure.

What kind of privilege is this? Behind the high walls erected by the law, suddenly all discourses and languages become uncrossable. No one can dispute this; Taiwan's society remains silent and lets the judiciary dominate gender and power. Never has such diverse and rich discourse been able to enter the closed judicial system, let alone run rampant and fight battles with the judiciary as the battlefield. Consequently, judicial personnel are left to arbitrarily use impoverished legal vocabulary to crudely interpret sexual consciousness and agitation, once again forming another kind of imprisonment-like hegemony. Sometimes the defendant is abused, and sometimes the victim is traumatized anew. On the surface, the 'problem' of the incident is resolved; in fact, it is merely an infinite loop of self-soothing cycles. The judiciary displays its violence, inflicting it upon everyone, yet is still considered a hero.

It is not just sexual power; too many other complex power structures experience the same problem. The crudeness and brutality of the judiciary go unquestioned, yet the products of judicial domination are competitively worshipped without controversy, making it simply an arena of naked power. The roles of defendant and victim are merely entry-level symbols; once they enter the judicial arena, they are both dominated objects to whom the true power-holders arbitrarily affix labels and meanings—this is a far more brutal violation and harassment. There is no other solution; it depends entirely on the extent of the people's consciousness and awakening, to force back judicial brutality to a reasonably acceptable boundary.

Protecting Privacy or Refusing Oversight

The second layer of regret is that everyone chases after the 'truth' and details of the facts, competing for the power to interpret them, while rarely being alert to how these factual details were actually obtained, or how and with what qualifications one has to interpret them. Although Ch'en Wei-t'ing 'exposed himself,' how the deferred prosecution agreement leaked is no longer investigated deeply. As the media digs deeper and closes in—from the bus driver to the handling police officer—whether the victim from back then will be dragged out is something we must pay attention to, and it requires media self-regulation and reflection. As we sympathize with or speak on behalf of the victims and continuously denounce the perpetrators, we probably need to remind each other even more how to face the dilemma when the real victim is 'human-fleshed' (doxxed) and appears. Whether we should hold the unscrupulous media accountable or force the victims to speak the same language as us (if it is different) is worth our deep reflection. Of course, shifting all the blame onto the perpetrator is an easier way out.

What should concern us even more is the possibility of those holding power being subject to oversight. In practice, there is no established rule or method for whether an indictment should be published. In short, individual prosecutors' offices publish them when they deem it necessary, and do not when they deem it unnecessary. However, as for what circumstances constitute 'necessary,' they can never give a reasonable explanation. Not only does this fail to convince the people, but it merely demonstrates the arbitrariness of judicial power-holders. As for deferred prosecution or non-prosecution disposition documents, they are not published at all. On the one hand, this of course takes into consideration the parties' reputation or right to privacy, but deferred prosecution and non-prosecution ultimately have the same effect as an acquittal judgment. If judges are required to publish acquittal judgments for public scrutiny, one cannot help but suspect that the argument of protecting the parties' reputation or privacy is more like an excuse to evade the possibility of prosecutors being subjected to oversight.

Taking Ch'en Wei-t'ing's case as an example again, under the current system, the deferred prosecution disposition document should not have leaked, yet it was 'generously' circulated in the media. Its format is not an official copy, meaning it must have been leaked by an authorized agency within the prosecutor system. Shouldn't prosecutors thoroughly investigate whether there is a risk of leaking secrets or violating the Personal Data Protection Act? If they are unwilling, and those who wish not to be exposed end up being exposed anyway, who exactly should bear the relevant responsibility?

If prosecutors take no action and simply let the relevant people be 'doxxed' by the media, while contrasting this with the Ministry of Justice's habitual and solemn oaths to protect privacy and personal data, fiercely opposing the publication of non-prosecution or deferred prosecution documents, yet turning a blind eye to such 'foul play' of 'leaking through channels,' it inevitably leads people to question whether the official rhetoric is simply 'two-faced.'