【Reported by Yan-ling Chen, Tamkang Times】Tamkang University’s Gender Equality Education Committee, Female Faculty Alliance, Employee Welfare Committee held the 2014 “International Women’s Day” in the Chung-Ling Memorial Hall on March 4th. This year’s discussion was lead by President Flora Chia-I Chang and revolved around the book, “Lean In” written by Sheryl Sandberg. This book focuses on women in the work field and how to overcome challenges they may encounter on the way. In attendance was Chairperson of the Female Faculty Alliance and Dean of the Office of Physical Education, Shu-feng Hsiao, Dean of Academic Affairs, Chih-en Ko, Office of the Dean, Sheue-fang Song, Executive Director of EMBA, Chiang-feng Lin, Director of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Hui-Huang Hsu, Executive Secretary of the Gender Equality Committee, Wen-Chih Huang, and 160 members of the university faculty.

President Chang expressed that Sheryl Sandberg’s book could be applied in every aspect of life for females. There are many issues that women struggle with in society and much of it is overlooked by both men and women. She stated, “I also think it is important that we purchase more gender equality educational books in the future. In order to bring balance to gender issues in our society, we must first have the resources to make people more aware.” Shu-feng Hsiao also shared her thoughts of Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Women are never satisfied with their effort and it does lead to insecurities in the workplace. This can result in a lack of communication which ultimately leads to a major factor to the imbalance of gender equality especially pertaining to careers such as politics.”

Dean of the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Li-Chiu Chang, expressed, “This book is about the belief in women’s abilities and choosing to utilize their rights. The overall message is that women must first eliminate the obstacles in their hearts before they are able to deal with the obstacles in their life. Also men must be made aware and educated on gender issues so that a balance can begin to take place.”