Sexism in Vietnam

I often lie in bed at night and wonder if my future might be different if I had been born in the West. I am speaking of course from the perspective of an Asian female, specifically, a young Vietnamese woman. I suppose I secretly envy Western women and their seemingly effortless lives of freedom and success.

It’s difficult to know where the blame actually lies. I guess our culture is partly culpable.  Thousands of years of patriarchal society have created a strong social belief that a baby boy is superior to a baby girl. And I presume this is the crux of the matter. The simple truth is that in Asia, boys are considered better than girls.  Yet this is problem that has incredibly far-reaching and socially damaging consequences.
Here in Vietnam, the media often raise the thorny issue of selective abortion. To read these articles, one might easily imagine that the professional, medical, and political elite of the country is committed to eradicating this misogynistic, hate-filled, and primitive practice. However, statistics alone are proof enough that society in general ultimately venerates this systematic execution of female fetuses and newborn baby girls.

According to a recent article, in some communes in the Red River Delta, there are, incredibly, up to 150 boys for every 100 girls. One official projection stated that between 2.3 and 4.3 million men will be unable to find wives by 2050. This startling statistic belies the social imbalance and ugly consequences that will be manifested by these numbers. To most people, it simply means that there are too many boys. But the social impact is far more devastating, particularly in developing countries such as Vietnam.  Firstly, a scarcity of women increases their demand, and so there is more pressure for girls to marry at a younger age and therefore drop out of school. This in turn leads to a step backwards in the educational rights of women in the country and causes a rise in less educated adults, who will soon become uneducated parents, which creates yet another generation of less educated children. Perversely, a shortage of women also means that the existing few need to be shared among the surplus of males. This directly leads to a rising demand for sex work, trafficking, and the further endemic degradation of women. It is no coincidence that prostitution is rife wherever there is a situation wherein the supply of females does not match the demand. This only helps to enforce the notion that women are somehow inferior to men. They are simply chattel, to be bought and traded. Frankly, as a young Asian woman, it horrifies me!

It would appear that selective abortion might be at the root of this issue, but as it has been pointed out by some scholars at the UN, the real culprit is simply inequality and misplaced values. In fact, the whole problem of gender-biased sex selection is exacerbated by patriarchal family values and amplified by male-oriented kinship systems, as well as by a lack of social and economic autonomy among women. This imbalance underlies the unjust position that Asian women find themselves in from birth, if indeed, they are allowed to be born at all.

By believing that boys are superior to girls, society itself is committing cultural suicide at the expense of girls in a vicious cycle, which continues to promote the birth of possibly mentally inferior males (assuming that many couples have to try many times before they succeed in producing male progeny) whilst forcing the vast majority of girls into a life of servitude both socially and economically. This discrimination denies girls their basic human rights, which include education and therefore job opportunities and the chance to function as a fully equal member of an egalitarian society. Not only that, but surely an educated mother is a better mother than an uneducated one, and aren’t women absolutely vital in many areas of the country’s workforce? Doctors and teachers, yes, possibly the backbone of society spring to mind!

It has been argued that a lack of political will might be at the heart of the gender imbalance problem, and that the government can implement rules for doctors and health care providers to prohibit them from informing prospective parents of the sex of the fetus. This totally unrealistic proposal suggests that parents who are forced to unwittingly have a baby girl will be equally as happy to bring her up as they would if she had been born a baby boy. Frankly, the notion that a prospective mother should not be informed about the health status of the baby growing inside her is ridiculous and demeaning. Even worse, this is simply opening the door for corrupt doctors to charge higher prices for parents who want to ‘secretly’ discover the sex of their baby.

Vietnamese women need to know the truth about their predicament, and this can only be done through education. Education is indispensable for women. Both sexes, at all ages, should equally receive and deserve the same level of education. Only in this way, can the possibility of a cultural change be fostered. We should navigate the arrow of justice in the forward direction, the way in which sexual equality should have been promoted from centuries ago. Selective abortion is backwards and detrimental to society and completely violates women’s rights. The repercussions can be seen in the increase in prostitution, trafficking, and child marriage that contain women in a position of second-class status in society.

How much longer do Vietnamese women have to suffer from this national and cultural sexism? When will women in Vietnam become truly equal and emancipated from this seemingly endless social servitude? Vietnamese women should be respected, educated, and employed. They must elevate from this injustice.  The nation is currently suffering from a gender-bias disorder. Effective solutions are needed to eradicate this social injustice. Vietnam should lead the Asia in this march towards the emancipation of women and the abolition of sexual inequality.

Trang Le
October 2^nd, 2014