The Vietnam Women's Union and the Contradictions of a Socialist Gender Regime

Vietnam's transition from a centrally planned economy to a "socialist market economy under state guidance" since the late 1980s has provided women with unprecedented opportunities. Their increased mobility and economic power notwithstanding, Vietnamese women continue to be essentialised as mothers and carers in public discourse while their professional achievements and public lives are ostensibly de-emphasised. As the largest state institution tasked with representing women and advancing the Communist Party's women-focussed social and political agendas, the Women's Union plays a pivotal role in shaping the ideologies and values that serve to discipline women's gendered behaviours and regulate their gendered lives. In this article, I examine the femininity ideals promoted by the Women's Union in order to identify the contradictions in the Vietnamese socialist gender regime that subjects women to immense social pressure and perpetuates gender inequalities. The article invites re-thinking of the taken-for-granted relationship between women's political representation and their empowerment. It also reveals ambivalence in the socialist state's attempts to reframe socialist models of personhood at a time when the socialist national narrative is being challenged by globalisation, calling forth alternative modes of governance.