AMBITION, ACTIVIST ROLE ORIENTATIONS, AND ALIENATION AMONG WOMEN LEGISLATORS IN TAIWAN - THE IMPACT OF COUNTERSOCIALIZATION

Confucian societies have a well-deserved reputation for possessing pat riarchal cultures which confine women to subordinate roles and almost entirely exclude them from the public sphere. In Taiwan, however, wome n have done quite well by international standards in winning legislati ve elections. This paper applies ''countersocialization'' theory to ex plain women's growing role in Taiwan's electoral politics. It finds th at the careers of women politicians in Taiwan are strongly conditioned by their exposure to countersocialization, primarily in terms of thei r adult family environments. These findings are quite consistent with the arguments based on socialization theory that women's entrance into public life depends upon an individual psychological reorientation in which ''political women'' reject traditional cultural norms that limi t them to subservient and privatized roles. Such a reorientation can b e stimulated by a variety of factors to which an individual woman migh t be exposed-a mother's role model proving that women can have broader horizons, social and generational change legitimating more active rol es, and (most importantly in our data) an adult family and spouse enco uraging and supporting her ''empowerment'' in public affairs.