by Vu Kim Chung
27-9-1999
President Ho Chi Minh's vision of a socialist state underpinned by equality of the sexes remains far from reality in modern Vietnam, with a survey revealing women turn out up to 70 percent of the country's agricultural production. The survey, conducted by the Vietnam Farmers' Association and published in the Culture newspaper, found that 75 percent of heavy labour such as ploughing and harvesting was carried out by women farmers who worked on average four hours a day more than their male counterparts.
"That doesn't surprise me at all," said one 20-year-old woman from Hanoi.
"Vietnamese men are lazy. They are spoilt from the day they are born - all they are interested in is drinking, smoking and gambling and cheating on their wives," she said. Even in the cities the disparity between the physical efforts of men and women is striking.
An evening stroll through the streets of the capital reveals groups of men, served by young girls, drinking and playing cards at street-side cafes while other women, including their wives, daughters and mothers, haul water, prepare and cook food while tending to their children. Later, street-sweepers - all women - clear the day's detritus into the gutters before the city's garbage collectors, again all women, shovel the collected refuse into large metal carts before straining to push them to central collection centres.
"We don't like it much, but we can't complain about this social situation in case we get beaten by our husbands," said one young Vietnamese woman.
According to the Government's General Statistics Department, Vietnamese women have less access to medical treatment, social welfare and schooling - 17.7 percent of women are illiterate compared to 8.6 percent of men.
Hoang Dieu Tuyet, vice-chairwoman of the farmers' association, said the cultural importance of sons had also led to repeated pregnancies with obvious implications for the health of women.
"Ninety percent of female farmers who have two daughters are forced to have more children . . . wives in rural areas are even forced to seek other women for their husbands to help them have sons," she said. This has serious social implications in the family.