DOCSLIB.ORG

Female Academics in Vietnam: What Helps and Hinders Career Advancement

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Female Academics in Vietnam: What Helps and Hinders Career Advancement Female Academics in Vietnam: What Helps and Hinders Career Advancement Hang Thi Viet Vu Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2018 Melbourne Graduate School of Education The University of Melbourne ABSTRACT Adopting a critical feminist approach, this study examines facilitators of and inhibitors to Vietnamese female academics’ advancement. Vietnamese women are considered to have greater freedom than their counterparts in other Asian countries, and Confucianism is often viewed as the main contributor to the persistence of conventional gender roles and norms (Èzbilgin & Syed, 2010; Turley, 1972; United Nations, 2002; A. N. Vo & Harvey, 2009; World Bank, 2011). Publications by the current government also suggest that Vietnamese women enjoy a number of rights and privileges accorded by the communist state. The present study, however, brings to light a more nuanced set of factors impacting women’s place in Vietnamese professional life. To some extent, the findings echo the themes commonly found in the literature regarding the underrepresentation of female academics in senior positions worldwide, including family constraints in terms of unequal share of housework and care work, patriarchal organisational culture, sexist assumptions underlying performance appraisal expectations, and overt sexism. Yet the study found a number of historical, cultural, and political factors that are peculiar to the Vietnamese context. These include propaganda by the communist government portraying women’s roles as ideal domestic worker and carer, so-called benevolent sexism, promotion and retirement policies in higher education, the particular Vietnamese expectations of motherhood including the sociocultural context of Vietnamese mothers’ obsession with children’s education, Vietnamese ‘village culture’, and stressors associated with familial harmony given these expectations. i The interaction of these factors has created formidable barriers to Vietnamese women’s career aspirations and their progression to the upper ranks in academia. These findings demonstrate the need for formal interventions at the organisational level, improvements in education with regard to curriculum, textbooks, the teaching profession, and career counselling, dismantling the patriarchal laws and policies, more effective enforcement of regulations that promote gender equality, less distorted media representation of women, and the introduction of women’s support groups and developmental programs. The study makes several contributions to the literature of an under-researched area. This study is among the first attempts to challenge the claim that Vietnamese women have enjoyed greater freedom and equality compared to their counterparts in other Asian nations. In addition, it provides an important insight into the impact of Communism on gender issues in Vietnam, which has often been overlooked in previous studies. It also discusses the challenges of applying some major, Western feminist epistemologies to the Vietnamese context, as well as investigating both the hostile and benevolent forms of sexism embedded in Vietnam’s legislative framework, printed texts and organisational practices. Finally, while the study gives primacy to Vietnamese female academics’ accounts, it also appears to be the first that includes men in the research sample. Investigating the opinions of men who hold key decision- making positions in higher education helps reveal new insights and provides a way to further examine gender relations and to contribute to creating better access for female academics to reach senior positions. ii DECLARATION This is to certify that (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Full name: Hang Thi Viet Vu Signed ____________________ Date ____________________ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This PhD research is funded by the Australia Awards Scholarships and Australia Awards Leadership Program. Without the scholarship, which covered my tuition fee, stipends, and airfares for fieldwork, I would not have been able to complete this study. I would like to express my profound gratitude to my two supervisors, Professor Emeritus Gabriele Lakomski and Dr. Emmaline Bexley, for their valuable guidance, sage advice, and unswerving support during my four-year academic journey. Thanks to their share of knowledge, skills and expertise in our inspiring discussions, I have sharpened my research skills and learnt a great deal. Their insightful comments and timely feedback on my writing also helped improve the quality of my thesis. I also wish to acknowledge the contribution of the thirty-five participants who generously granted me time for interviews, answered all the questions with great detail, and helped me contact other participants. I am particularly indebted to my friends Mai Anh, Thach, Hiep, Phuong, Yen, and Chinh who were the primary point of contact with a number of participants. Without their help, it would have been difficult to access the majority of the participants. My heartfelt thanks also go to my two sisters, Huong and Ha. Due to their extensive experience working in higher education and their wide range of networks, they introduced me to a number of participants and helped me make useful connections in the five target institutions. My completion of this project could not have been accomplished without my beloved husband’s support. He left a high-profile career in Vietnam to iv accompany me to Australia so that we could stay together, and has always been a source of comfort. My sincere thanks are also due to a number of friends, especially Huyen, who had offered to take care of my daughter and arrange playdates for her when I was busy working on my research during the school holidays or at the weekend. Their sympathy and valuable assistance are much appreciated. I also want to show my gratitude to my parents, who made me aware of the importance of a good education and academic achievements from early childhood, set high academic expectations, inspired my love of reading, and worked hard to pay for my tuition in the best-performing schools in my home city. When I came back to Vietnam to collect data, my father drove me to all of the interview venues, waited for me between interviews, and took me home safely. During the last stage of my research, my mother also came to Australia to help me with childcare and housework in two months so that my husband and I could concentrate on our studies. Their unwavering support and much- needed help have proved invaluable to the completion of my thesis. Last but not least, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my daughter, who has been my biggest source of inspiration for me to complete this challenging academic journey. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................. i Declaration ......................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ...................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ................................................................................................... xii Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework and Methodology ......................................... 8 2.1 Research paradigm ..................................................................................... 8 2.2 Feminism: feminist theories and gender .................................................. 11 Feminist standpoint theory ......................................................................... 12 Feminist empiricism .................................................................................. 16 Feminist postmodernism ............................................................................ 18 Postcolonial feminism ................................................................................ 20 Critical feminism ....................................................................................... 20 The concepts of gender and gender relations ............................................. 23 2.3 Strategies of Inquiry ................................................................................. 25 Case study .................................................................................................. 26 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis ................................................. 28 Site and sample selection ....................................................................... 28 vi Research instrument and analysis .......................................................... 34 Limitations ................................................................................................. 36 Ethical considerations ...............................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Vietnamese Intellectuals
    Site d'origine David Lan Pham The Vietnamese intellectuals The Vietnamese people are studious. The lettrés have been well respected in society. Some famous scholars were from ordinary families. The Vietnamese were deeply influenced by Confucianism as soon as they got in touch with Chinese culture. Society was composed of four cardinal occupations of which the top was studying. The intellectuals in feudal time. Under the Ngo (939 – 965), Dinh (968 – 980) and Earlier Le (980 – 1009) dynasties almost all the intellectuals were Buddhist monks. The triennial contests took place in 1075 under the Ly. The next year the Quoc Tu Giam (National College) was opened. In 1080 the first Academy was created. The doctoral contest was held in the capital, Thang Long in 1232. The King recruited talented men through the contests. Everybody, regardless of their social classes, could be recruited provided that they passed the contest. In reality, few needy students passed the contest to be appointed by the King. In the olden time there were no public schools. Education was given by retired mandarins or dissatisfied scholars at home. Not many people could send their children to these private schools. On the other hand, they needed their children to help them in farming. After the coup d'etat of 1527 many pro-Le students boycotted the triennial contests organized by the Mac. Some mandarins resigned. Some killed themselves to show their loyalty to the Le. Some tried to resist the Mac to restore the Later Le. It was the beginning of the one hundred-year civil war in our country.
    [Show full text]
  • A New Perspective on the Vietnamese Revolution
    Journal of Southeast Asian Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/SEA Additional services for Journal of Southeast Asian Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Triumphs or tragedies: A new perspective on the Vietnamese revolution Tuong Vu Journal of Southeast Asian Studies / Volume 45 / Issue 02 / June 2014, pp 236 - 257 DOI: 10.1017/S0022463414000083, Published online: 19 May 2014 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022463414000083 How to cite this article: Tuong Vu (2014). Triumphs or tragedies: A new perspective on the Vietnamese revolution . Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 45, pp 236-257 doi:10.1017/S0022463414000083 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/SEA, IP address: 71.215.180.135 on 29 May 2014 236 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 45(2), pp 236–257 June 2014. © The National University of Singapore, 2014 doi:10.1017/S0022463414000083 Triumphs or tragedies: A new perspective on the Vietnamese revolution Tuong Vu A new perspective has begun to challenge both the conventional portrayal of the Vietnamese revolution and the communist account of its success. This essay takes stock of new research that presents revolutionary Vietnam in a more complex and less triumphal way. It is argued that Vietnam’s nationalist revolution (1945–46) should be conceptually distinguished from the subsequent socialist revolution (1948–88). The former had a distinctly urban and bourgeois character, was led by a coalition of the upper and middle classes, and lacked ideological intensity. The latter was imposed from above, based on socialist visions, and dependent on foreign assist- ance.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnam : a New History Bibliography
    VIETNAM : A NEW HISTORY BIBLIOGRAPHY Books, Book Chapters, Articles, Theses and conferences. Abuza, Zachary, Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001. Affidi, Emmanuelle, “Créer des passerelles entre les mondes… L’œuvre interculturelle de Nguyen Van Vinh (1882-1936) ”, Moussons, no. 21, (2014), pp. 33-55. Affidi, Emmanuelle, “Vulgarisation du savoir et colonisation des esprits par la presse et le livre en Indochine française et dans les Indes néerlandaises (1908-1936)”, Moussons, nos. 13-14, (2009), pp. 95-121. Ageron, Charles-Robert, “L’Exposition coloniale de 1931: mythe républicain ou mythe impéria l”. In Les lieux de mémoire. La République, edited by Pierre Nora. Paris: Gallimard, 1997 (1st Publication in 1984), pp. 495-515. Ageron, Charles-Robert, “L'opinion publique face aux problèmes de l’Union française (étude de sondages) ”. In Les chemins de la décolonisation de l'Empire français, 1936-1956, directed by Charles-Robert Ageron. Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1986, pp. : 33-48. Ageron, Charles-Robert, France coloniale ou parti colonial? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1978. Ai Nguyen, Lai and Alec Holcombe, “The Heart and Mind of the Poet Xuan Dieu: 1954–1958”, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5, no. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 1-90. Aimaq, Jasmine, “For Europe or Empire?”. Lund: Lund University, 1994. (PhD Thesis). Aldrich, Robert, “Imperial Banishment: French Colonizers and the Exile of Vietnamese Emperors”, French History & Civilization 5, (2014). Available Online at: http://fliphtml5.com/vdxa/dxse Aldrich, Robert, “France’s Colonial Island: Corsica and the Empire”, French History and Civilization: papers from the George Rude Seminar 3, (2009), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Südostasien Hundred Flowers in Vietnam 1955-1957
    HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITÄT ZU BERLIN Philosophische Fakultät III Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften Seminar für Südostasien-Studien Südostasien Working Papers Heinz Schütte Hundred Flowers in Vietnam 1955-1957 No. 22 Berlin 2003 Heinz Schütte Hundred Flowers in Vietnam 1955-1957 No. 22 Berlin 2003 SÜDOSTASIEN Working Papers ISSN: 1432-2811 published by the Department of Southeast Asian Studies Humboldt-University Unter den Linden 6 10999 Berlin, Germany Tel. +49-30-2093 6620 Fax +49-30-2093 6649 Email: [email protected] The Working Papers do not necessarily express the views of the editors or the Institute of Asian and African Studies. Although the editors are responsible for their selection, responsi- bility for the opinions expressed in the Papers rests with the authors. Email:[email protected] Any kind of reproduction without permission is prohibited. Table of content 1. Introduction 7 2. Anti-colonialism, national revolution and the Chinese influence 8 3. The enigmatic Nguyen Son 10 4. Writers and artists in the Resistance 12 5. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Tran Dan and the 32 points 16 6. The antagonistic contradictions of 1956 20 7. Cent Fleurs écloses: Giai Pham 23 8. Cent fleurs écloses: Nhan Van 27 9. Epilogue 30 5 1. Introduction The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) which emerged from the eight-year resistance war against the French colonial regime and the Geneva Convention on Indochina in 1954, was, soon after the return of the victorious troops of the People’s Army to Hanoi, afflicted with two severe inner-political crises – a rural and an urban one whose latter, as will be shown, was at least partially fed by the former.
    [Show full text]
  • Universality and Particularity of Human Rights: a Vietnamese Buddhist Viewpoint
    Human Rights in Southeast Asia Series 1 14 BREAKING THE SILENCE UNIVERSALITY AND ParticuLARITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A Vietnamese BUDDHIST VIEWPOINT Vo Van Ai The debate on universality and particularity of human rights in Southeast Asia is overshadowed by the “Asian Values” premise which contends that human rights are not universal, but “Western-imposed” or contingent on national cultural and religious particularities. Taking Vietnam as a starting point, the author argues that human rights are a fundamental and an ancient feature of Asian culture, rooted in a cultural heritage many thousands of years old The debate on universality and particularity of human rights inevitably raises the spectre of “Asian values” – the concept advanced by a group of Southeast Asian leaders in the 1990s and formally enshrined in the “Bangkok Declaration” to the UN World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. The concept collapsed after a financial crisis in 1997 caused Southeast Asia’s economic bubble to burst; but it still haunts international fora, generally as a justification for escaping international human rights commitments. This paper considers this argument from a Vietnamese perspective, examining both official and popular perceptions of human rights, the conflicting imperatives between the official government human rights discourse and internal policies, and the relevance of the cultural heritage – especially Buddhism – in the development of a contemporary, dynamic human rights culture in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in general. Universality and Particularity of Human Rights: A Vietnamese Buddhist Viewpoint 15 1. Universality vs. Particularity of Human Rights When considering universality and particularity of human rights, two false premises must be exposed.
    [Show full text]
  • Reversing the French Gaze: Four Francophone Vietnamese Women Writers from 1910S to 2000S
    Copyright 2016 Gloria Kwok REVERSING THE FRENCH GAZE: FOUR VIETNAMESE FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS FROM 1910S TO 2000S—MARGUERITE TRIAIRE, TRINH THUC OANH, LY THU HO, AND LINDA LÊ BY GLORIA KWOK DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Nancy Blake, Chair Professor Jack A. Yeager, Director of Research, Louisiana State University Associate Professor Marcus Keller Assistant Professor Alain Fresco Abstract This dissertation shows how Marguerite Triaire, Trinh Thuc Oanh, Ly Thu Ho and Linda Lê, four women writers of French expression, counter the Orientalist stereotypes propagated in colonial literature and media, and produce knowledge about the Vietnamese Other in their works. Their work is part of what is known today as Vietnamese Francophone literature (originally known as Vietnamese literature of French expression during the colonial period). My theoretical framework is necessarily hybrid, reflecting the syncretic nature of the Vietnamese Francophone literary production, Vietnamese and French. My work covers Edward Said’s Orientalism, the postcolonial feminism of Gayatri Spivak, Sara Suleri, Chandra Mohanty, and Rey Chow and the Western postcolonial theories of Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Homi Bhabha, as well as specialists in the field such as Jack Yeager, Nathalie Nguyen, Leslie Barnes, Tess Do, Eugène Pujarniscle and Louis Malleret. I also rely mostly on primary sources for the early women writers given the scarcity of secondary sources on their works. In this dissertation Orientalism is deployed as a model in the study of Vietnam as the Other.
    [Show full text]
  • The Communist Party of Vietnam at 83 Tuong Vu DOI: 10.1057/9781137347534.0006 Palgrave Macmillan
    Persistence Amid Decay The Communist Party of Vietnam at 83 Tuong Vu DOI: 10.1057/9781137347534.0006 Palgrave Macmillan Please respect intellectual property rights This material is copyright and its use is restricted by our standard site license terms and conditions (see palgraveconnect.com/pc/connect/info/terms_conditions.html). If you plan to copy, distribute or share in any format, including, for the avoidance of doubt, posting on websites, you need the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. To request permission please contact [email protected]. 2 Persistence Amid Decay: The Communist Party of Vietnam at 83 Tuong Vu In the last few decades the theoretical literature on communist regimes has closely followed the rise and demise of the communist camp. In the early 1970s when those regimes were at their peaks, analysts were preoccupied with the question of how they had successfully evolved and adapted after seizing power (Huntington 1968; Huntington and Moore 1970). Strongly influenced by modernization theories, this scholarship assumed that, as vanguard forces of modernization, communist parties were born to last. While most scholars failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, theoretical attempts have since shed much insight into the causes of that collapse (Kalyvas 1999; Ekiert 1996; Solnick 1998; Bunce 1999; Goodwin 2001). However, the litera- ture remains limited for the surviving communist systems in China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba. There, communist parties still dominate and, for China and Vietnam, have overseen successful economic reforms. Among analysts of China, a sharp debate exists between “optimists” (Shambaugh 2008; Nathan 2003), 1 who view the communist dictatorship as viable, and “pessimists” (Pei 2006), who emphasize decay and possible collapse.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender Equality and Women's Issues in Vietnam: the Vietnamese Woman—Warrior and Poet
    Washington International Law Journal Volume 10 Number 2 3-1-2001 Gender Equality and Women's Issues in Vietnam: The Vietnamese Woman—Warrior and Poet Wendy N. Duong Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wilj Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, and the Law and Gender Commons Recommended Citation Wendy N. Duong, Gender Equality and Women's Issues in Vietnam: The Vietnamese Woman—Warrior and Poet, 10 Pac. Rim L & Pol'y J. 191 (2001). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wilj/vol10/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at UW Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington International Law Journal by an authorized editor of UW Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright C 2001 Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal Association GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN'S ISSUES IN VIETNAM: THE VIETNAMESE WOMAN-WARRIOR AND POET Wendy N. Duongt Abstract: Exploration of women's issues in Vietnam strengthens the emerging voice of the "exotic other female" in contemporary international feminist discourse. Any women's movement in Vietnam today must be cast as the revitalization of the Vietnamese woman's collective cultural identity, rather than as a Western imported feminist doctrine. The Vietnamese woman's collective cultural identity is based on the history and cultural folklores of Vietnam, including expressions of feminist ideas in law and literature, and a long history of warfare and collective sufferings, wherein women have been seen as martyrs, national treasures, and laborers in war and in peace.
    [Show full text]