The Contradictory Nature of Vietnamese Society in Relation to Gender Equality

Abstract

The inequalities in the status of women in Viet Nam have been addressed in many areas such as education and health and the Vietnamese government has gone further than many other countries within the Region to implement programmes to raise the status of women to promote gender equality. However, despite the progress as noted, traditional behaviour based on Confucianism is clashing with the movement towards gender equality especially in the area of gender selection. The gender selection in favour of the male gender is a main contributor to gender imbalance within Vietnamese society. The research being generated at present and which this paper is based on is, in the main, obtained from secondary sources across many disciplines. However, ongoing up-to-date findings obtained from surveys on youth and gender which is being undertaken by a NGO based in Hanoi will also be a contributory factor in this paper in that it will identify the continuance of the traditional behaviour argument.