Fembooks in the Alley — An Ongoing History of Women’s Rights Movement in Taiwan
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This article is part of the 22ed issue of LEAP — Voices of Youth e-letter. Subscribe now.
In the alleys of a university town filled with a cultural ambience, an unassuming bookstore stands there for decades. Fembooks, as the first feminist bookstore in the ethnic Chinese world, is a bookstore specifically sales books selected according to the principle of “written by women, write about women, write for women” and has operated with humble confidence for nearly three decades.
Established in Taiwan, the first in the ethnic Chinese world
Established in 1994, Fembooks is a special independent bookstore with the mission “To promote the women’s movement by cultural impacts”. Speaking of the background of the time, one of the founders, Chia-Li Wu, stated: “It definitely had a lot to do with the end of martial law.”
Before the 1990’s, Taiwan was under the control of the period of martial law. The martial law restricted the freedom of speech and assembly, but could not suppress those underground social movements, including those advocating for women rights. People adhering to their ideals privately set up a book club to exchange knowledge and information, gradually gathering enough power for reform.
After martial law was lifted, this long-suppressed energy came alive. Several scholars who had been long-term promoters of women’s rights started various advocacy campaigns. In addition, they hoped to call for awareness on equal rights by adding the new concepts of equality into people’s bookshelves and minds through books.
“Initially, we wanted to open a bookstore to fund the women’s movement,” recalled Chia-li Wu. The Awakening magazine, which had been established during the martial law era, was transformed into a foundation by several scholars. They also opened this bookstore in the name of the foundation. The intention was to grow the influence from a magazine into an entire library, while utilizing the income gained from book sales to support the development of the women’s movement.
As the first feminist bookstore in the ethnical Chinese world, Fembooks became popular with readers both locally and internationally as soon as it was opened. It also became an important presence in ethnical Chinese communities worldwide by attracting visitors from Hong Kong, China, and Southeast Asia and those who then became consistently visiting customers.
Wu believes that bookstores like Fembooks were established here in Taiwan due to its democracy and laws that gradually had been established, which also flourishing the civic organizations. These all benefit and became a strong hand that pushed Taiwan to the forefront of the women’s movement.
Nurtured by such an environment, gender rights issues had enough social spaces for discussion and dialogue, which paved the way for a bookstore like Fembooks to become a landmark of women’s rights promotion.
In its heyday, Fembooks operated its own publishing house, which put out hundreds of gender-related books, including those written by women as well as studies on homosexuality, gender education and more. The bookstore soon became a significant landmark for the dissemination of gender information and feminist teachings in Taiwan.
The Transformation Process Towards Pluralism
However, after nearly 30 years of glorious development, it was inevitable that the Fembooks bookstore would also encounter some misfortune, such as the passing of some founders and crisis due to the shrinking market. Nowadays, Fembooks is attempting to pace itself to gain a better footing business-wise.
The store management expanded their focus of attention to include issues of gender diversity. In addition to continuing support for women’s issues, Fembooks has been exploring various topics based on the recent social movements, such as queer rights, male studies, and gays, in attempts to attract new customer groups.
Bookstore manager Sophie Lee has observed that: “Over the past two or three years, in addition to the existing women customers, more physiological men have been walking into the Fembooks bookstore.”
In addition to professional writings from scholars of gender studies, Fembooks also contain a collection of various local and global gender-related biographies, novels, literatures and so on, which are focus on readers from different age and backgrounds. Sophie Lee stated that Fembooks is gradually attracting new customers such as family groups, which has become a place for parents and children to hang out together.
While facing with the pandemic and the strong impact of digitization, Chia-Li Wu admits that it is difficult for Fembooks to survive in the market only by selling books. Recently, they have focused on activation of the bookstore space and interactions via social media by hosting panels, renting out the bookstore space, and managing social platforms to invite more people to walk into Fembooks.
While the time continuously changes, but the existence of Fembooks stands still, reminding us of the desire to acquire the latest information and to pursue for equal rights for all. In the future, the goal of Fembooks is to transform into a non-profit organization in the hope of making the greatest contribution to public benefits without being concerned about the income.
It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, with the greenery extends from the plants on the window sill to the colorful painted wall, and so it is a perfect time for visitors in Fembooks to select a book from the shelves and sit comfortably on the seats while they start their unique and enriching journey in reading. The time they spend here in Fembooks will definitely broaden their horizons. Next time, if you happen to be in Taipei, feel free to arrange for some reading time at the Fembooks bookstore. You will not be disappointed!
Also in This Issue:
A Mother and Her Library: TaiMei Education Foundation
A rest and learning library for parents. TaiMei Library holds a space for parents and kids to learn with fun and create a mutual support community.
Author : Hsien Liu
Freelance writer / Graduate student in Journalism
