ABSTRACT
This chapter examines understandings of feminism in Vietnam by identifying scholarly currents that both resonate with and challenge global perspectives. Affinities with global scholarship are epitomized in the Vietnamese context by contestations over the long-standing sociopolitical goal of ‘Equality between Men and Women’. A shift has taken place, though, from an explicit focus on women (in the tradition of women’s studies) to a greater focus on relations between women, men, and other groups (in the tradition of gender studies), and still more recently to an approach that highlights gendered complexities (in the tradition of intersectionality). Meanings of feminism, gender, and intersectionality reflect conditions, experiences, and tensions that are specific both to Vietnam and the Asian region, yet they also tap into international research, findings, and positions. The chapter is composed of three sections: first, an examination of understandings of feminism and their relation to gender and intersectionality studies; second, a historical overview of three waves of influential state-feminism by tracing developments from the colonial/anti-colonial period to the present; and third, an exploration of feminism, gender studies, and intersectionality across key societal themes, including family, population control, masculinity, gendered violence, LGBTQ, labor, economy, migration, and social class. One provocative question emerging out of the chapter concerns whether and to what extent feminism in Vietnam can be viewed as a state ideology. The chapter thus asks whether increased differentiations of social life in Vietnamese society against the backdrop of marketization and globalization have transformed the relationship and balances between official ideological approaches and diverse interpretations of feminism, as shaped in the borderlands between the state and non-state realms.
