Essay by Ngan Vu

In the paper, I analyses the convoluted mix among religious, traditional, and state ideology that confine women role in contemporary Vietnamese society. Since I am living in Bangladesh for my undergraduate, I will compare the intellectual context about gender issues in the two countries, and suggest a solution to solve the constraint for women in Vietnam.

In a rapidly developing economy like Vietnam, despite the ability to play more active role, Confucianism as central ideology for a thousand years is social constraint for women. Confucianism generates the role of women in family and society with their regulations: “Three subordinates” (at home, she is subordinated to her father, after marriage she is subordinated to her husband, and after her husband’s death she is subordinated to, or follows her son) and “Four virtues” (housekeeping skills, beauty, appropriate speech and moral conduct). These regulations promotes the martyr image of self-sacrificing women, require women to sacrifice her own needs and desires to the goods of family and community. Beside Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism (the three main religions) are also cultural norms that are confining women role as homemakers. Till now, the primary role of women in Vietnam is still seen as taking care of the family and children. Though shoulder a heavy burden of domestic chores, they are also still under domestic violence and have to work in low-paid occupations. Also, Confucius tradition that prefers boys to girls are putting more and more pressure on women, especially when central government of Vietnam legalized child policy that limits the number of children in each family to two children. Furthermore, the context of contemporary Vietnam’s political system witnesses a dangerous tendency to mix feminism with nationalism to promote self-sacrifice for the country (women and proletariat are considered the same). Marxism contributes to belittle individual needs, making women to think of family and the country needs as superior to their own, and causes them to view achieving their own desires or fighting for their individual freedom as a selfish act. Clearly, women Vietnam are facing range of issues that originate from religious, cultural and ideology norms confining them from playing more active roles in society.

The challenging here is to change these deep-rooted norms. I believe education is core point to change these norms. While in Bangladesh, where I am studying, department of Women and Gender studies have been established widely in renowned universities to address various gender issues, the only institution in Vietnam offering gender studies is Vietnam Women’s Academy. The course, which is titled as Gender and Development Studies, yet focuses more on developmental aspects. It demonstrates nothing but lack of recognition of gender issues in contemporary Vietnamese society, especially in intellectual context. This, I believe, is more dangerous because first step to solve a problem is to recognize it.

Last year, I co-founded an online mentorship project aiming to help Vietnamese students to enhance their necessary soft skills. The project is an initiative based on academic research I conducted before about Vietnamese youth’s soft skills. Applicants to my mentorship program were surprisingly comprised of 88 percent (239 out of 279) female high school and college/university students. Most of them expressed in interviews reasons for applying as wanting of confidence, weak public speaking and communication skills. This, I believe, is because of family orientation that is affected by above convoluted mix of social, religious, and somewhat state ideology norms. Girls are orientated to get married soon and be homemakers instead of climbing higher academic or career ladder. It makes female students incapable of enhancing their confidence and crucial soft skills since they do not have chances to step out of the home-school circle. Within a span of one year working as project leader, I created significant impact in small community by supervising 28 pairs of mentor-mentee. I see how a high-school girl who could not express her ideas clearly now study in one of the most renowned universities in Vietnam. Or another grade-12 girl who could not write a proper introductory essay now pursues her Bachelor in the Netherlands. The project, though small, help improve essential soft skills and therefore, opens to female students a possibility for better opportunities and step out of their familiar life circle.