Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
A PUBLIC OUTCRY in Taiwan broke out in late December after a sexual assault case at a McDonald’s, which resulted in the victim committing suicide. McDonald’s is accused of inaction, which has led to a consumer boycott against the fast food chain.
The victim was a seventeen-year-old employee at a Taipei McDonald’s location, who took her own life in November after being sexually assaulted by a supervisor. Public outrage broke out after the victim’s mother posted about the incident on Threads, stating that the supervisor in question had arranged shifts in order to sexually assault her daughter. The victim’s mother also posted screenshots of the supervisor asking her daughter how much money he would need to pay for her to drop the suit. According to the victim’s mother, McDonald’s did little else besides send a fruit basket after the death.
McDonald’s has stated that after an investigation, it fired the supervisor. Yet McDonald’s has generally referred to the incident as one involving “sexual harassment” on social media. Otherwise, one has seen allegations that McDonald’s has sought to protect the victimizer because of his family connections.
The outcry on social media can be seen as a variation of a #MeToo case, then, even if the person who posted about the incident was not the victim but her mother. Taiwan saw an outbreak of #MeToo cases in 2023 focused mostly on individuals in the spheres of politics and entertainment after the hit television series Wave Makers dramatized incidents of sexual harassment and assault in electoral politics. Notably, Taiwan did not initially experience any outbreak of #MeToo cases at the time that the phenomenon first emerged on the Internet.
Photo credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
A post by a student from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School, Taiwan’s most prestigious all-male high school reacting in defense of McDonald’s, later provoked further outrage. Namely, the post doubled down not only on defending McDonald’s but also claimed that “A world without women’s rights would be awesome.” Other male students from National Hsinchu Senior High School and Tainan First Senior High School, among others, posted photos of eating at McDonald’s in defiance of the boycott.
While such posts can be seen as juvenile behavior from male adolescents, there has been increasing concern in past years that young men in Taiwan have come to embrace sexist worldviews as a reaction against what they perceive to be the rise of “political correctness.” Such men are sometimes seen as supporting former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je and his TPP, which has been noted to have mostly male attendance at its political rallies. Ko has made a number of forays into sexism in public statements and a number of the male political figures associated with his party are known for their macho public personas.
Public outrage regarding the case has also been reminiscent of anger after the November suicide of a civil servant who worked at the Ministry of Labor. Though the causes of the suicide were attributed to workplace bullying, like the McDonald’s case, there were allegations that a cover-up had taken place to defend the culprit.
The accused culprit in the Ministry of Labor case was the head of the northern regional office of the Work Development Agency, Hsieh Yi-jung. Hsieh was accused of having friends in high places that sought to cover up her actions and the controversy later led to the resignation of Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan. The Lai administration later named DPP legislator Hung Sun-han to Minister of Labor in her stead, hoping to stem the scandal by appointing one of the DPP’s best-known legislators.
Subsequent months saw various incidents of outrage against alleged cases of workplace bullying among public servants. But even while the McDonald’s case may differ, both cases broadly point to an issue with cover-ups at workplaces when it comes to instances of abuse.
Women’s groups as the Modern Women’s Foundation have been among those critical of McDonald’s actions. The Taipei City Department of Labor has also ordered McDonald’s to pay a 1 million NT fine. Yet it is to be seen whether there is a broader structural shift after the case, or anger remains confined to McDonald’s.