| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 性別研究所碩士班 === 95 === Motorcycles and scooters are a remarkable phenomenon in Taiwan. This thesis examines the history of motorcycles/scooters in Taiwan in the period between 1930s and 2007. Drawing on oral history interviews with 24 users of different generations, 2 owners of motorbike store, a scooter designer, and a manager of motor company and various printed materials, this thesis traces the historical shift of the user population and how scooters have come to populate Taiwan.
In the 1930s when the majority of the people were poor, most of the motorcycle users/owners were well-to-do male elites. By 2007, after Taiwan had been through industrialization, not only the number of motorcycles/scooters users has increased greatly, the users have also expanded to include both men and women, who may be rich or poor. This shift points to the fact that both gender and class relations have changed in the society.
The history of motorcycles/scooters in Taiwan can be divided into three periods. The first period, when motorcycles were a luxury, the users were predominantly the rich or elites, and women users were a minority. In the second period, the social meanings of motorcycles/scooters went through a change: motorcycle users were no longer exclusively elites and included the working class and peasants. Middle class users had a preference for scooters, particularly Vespa. In addition, increasingly women also used motorcycles/scooters for going to work or domestic chores. In the third period, scooters reached a status of extreme popularity. With several major technological improvements, scooters became very easy to operate and the most popular personal transportations. While motorcycles had become the working class’ common means of production, some middle class men also ride on motorcycles to show a supposedly working class kind of masculinity in order to distiguish themselves from the regular middle class man. The differences in terms of the strategies of using motorcyclse/scooters in these historical periods indicates the historicity of masculinities and femininities.
Not only did the increase of user population bring about changes in gender and class relations, the changes in technology itself also introduced new dynamics, especially the emergence of motorcycles/scooters for women users, which not only complicated the types and internal systems of motorcycles/scooters, but also forced other motorcycles/scooters to code the gender of their intended users. Therefore, new technological inventions changed gender scripts/implications of motorcycles/scooters. New technologies, such as automatic clutch and continuous variable transmission, had made scooters very easy to use, which is one of the reasons why scooters became so popular. However, this popularity did not apply to a few men users who wanted a challenge when operating a vehicle. They turned to motorcycles/scooters that were more challenging than the regular scooter in order to prove their masculinity.
Gender and class relations are embedded in the social history of motorcycles/scooters in Taiwan. Initially, the use of motorcycles by a few men meant social status and masculinity. Later on, certain type of scooters was associated with men of the well-educated class or men who did not engaged in physical labor. Finally, we also see the emergence of the women’s scooters that claimed to allow women to perform their femininity. In addition to the changes in users and their relationship with motorcycles/scooters, the transformation of motor technologies and internal systems are also critical to our understanding of scooters in Taiwan. Both exerted a great impact on the lives and mobility of people, and therefore the gender and class aspects of the society.
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