Women In Vietnamese Society

One aspect of society I always keep an eye out for is the role and place of women where ever I may be traveling at the time. As I noted about Singapore, women there seem to have the best lot in all of East Asia, even Japan and South Korea. As for Vietnam, well here is what I wrote in my journal back on the 12^th of November:

I wonder what the status of women is here in Vietnam? I see many working, but I haven't seen any but one running a restaurant. Normally the restaurants, or the front part of it is where the food is prepared and served. The back half is where the family lives. The women, I assume because I don't see them, are cooking while the men take the orders and the money. The women, usually young women, late teens, early twenties, serve the food and the disappear. Obviously this is a poor anecdote to generalize from so I will wait and see what it's like in Saigon before pontificating any more.

What I've seen in Saigon has done little to alter my first impressions. All the restaurants are the same. So are the hotels, except for the one I am staying in, as one young lady seems to be the manager. As a general rule, the women do menial, shit work. Sometimes I'll see an older women running a kiosk or bodega, but that's only because her husband is sitting in the shade drinking beer with his buddies.

When I visited a government office for visa reasons what I saw was pretty much the same. The women, all young, do the menial work and the men sit around, collect the money, boss them around and pretty much seem useless. There are no women police, as I've seen in South Korea and Singapore. And there are tons and tons of them that fills the bars at night, 'bar girls' is what they are called. But that's just a euphemism. (Please Adrena, don't turn the comment thread in this post into another anti-prostitution screed. Let's just keep it to the role of women in Asian society, k?) They don't have any formalized representation in what passes for Vietnam's parliament, either. The only woman I know who's managed some national respect and success is the architect of the Crazy House in Da Lat. She has an interesting story. Her name is Hang Nga and her father was president of Vietnam in the early 80s. That goes a long way towards explaining the opportunities she's had. But still, she's an accomplished architect and she's earned the respect of her countrymen. It's a start, I suppose.

All in all, I fear the lot of women here in Vietnam is not very good. Job opportunities don't seem to be particularly fulfilling, nor do they pay very well. There are tons of pregnant women here in Vietnam and loads and loads of infants and young children everywhere. In that sense it is a healthy society, but I prefer to see women in places of real influence. Singapore, in my opinion, is the model for East Asian women to aspire too. Let's hope the future is better for the women here. They certainly deserve better.

Sean Paul Kelley is currently on a round the world journey, traveling from Singapore to Austin.

originally posted on November 23, 2008

Comments

[RynTheTyn]

You're only seeing one aspect of Vietnamese society and are overgeneralizing from what you see without bothering to talk to anyone or look at the bigger picture.

As a tourist, you don't see all the female university professors, even department chairs; who take turns with their husbands taking diplomatic postings; working in business--they're too busy to be hanging out in places that a tourist visits. Also, the men you see under the tree aren't usually the husband of the woman working, they're laborers on a break, or motorcycle taxi drivers waiting for people to hire them.

I'm not saying that women have it wonderful, but male or female, all but the top few percent of the population have to work hard for little pay in lousy conditions. Until recently most families were too poor to afford to educate all their children beyond the free compulsory grades. The sad reality is that people were forced to choose which child they could afford to send to college. In the last decade more families can to afford to send all of their children to college, not just sons. If you were to walk into any university across Vietnam, young women outweigh young men, and they're only beginning to enter the work force in recent years.

It's not fair to compare one of the most developed and prosperous countries in all of Asia, Singapore, with a country were most of the population still lives on less than 2 dollars a day.

[Sean-Paul Kelley - Huffpost Blogger]

Umm, what part of my post, where I write: "Obviously this is a poor anecdote to generalize from so I will wait and see what it's like in Saigon before pontificating any more."

Of course I am generalizing. But still, aside from the fact that I saw many, many young women going to school, which is a damn good thing, the general lot for women in Vietnam didn't seem to be very good.

Now, about Singapore. Yes, I use Singapore as the standard of excellence in the region. And for a reason. Women have it better there than anywhere in Asia, better than South Korea and better than Japan. And yes, I do realize it is a bit 'unfair' to compare Vietnam to Singapore when it comes to women's right, but Singapore is a goal to aspire to. And that's the whole point. I want to see women gain equality with men the world over.

[LMPE]

As I understand it, women in Vietnam vastly outnumber men due to the Vietnam War. Does this play any role?

[stayinsouth1981]

FYI, via CIA website:

Age structure Vietnam:
0-14 years: 25.6% (male 11,418,642/female 10,598,184)
15-64 years: 68.6% (male 29,341,216/female 29,777,696)
65 years and over: 5.8% (male 1,925,609/female 3,055,212) (2008 est.)