Workshop on “The Invisible Bias Towards Women”
Hoa Sen University (HSU) organized a workshop on “The Invisible
Bias Towards Women” on June 15, 2012. The workshop drew 60 HSU faculty and
staff participants as well as friends from surrounding communities. Dr. Thai
Thi Ngoc Du introduced the workshop by extending her sincere thanks to all
participants. This was the very first workshop on the subject of invisible bias
towards women held by the Gender and Society Research Center in collaboration
with The General Educational Program.
The purpose of the workshop was to identify traditional ingrained biases on
the roles of women in the family and society, and the traditional “Three norms
and four required qualities” (Tam tong tứ đức) based on Confucian-dominant
ideology. The traditional roles for a woman overwhelmingly define a “good”
woman – a string-tightening and limiting of women’s rights and equality. The
three norms are: obedience to the father before marriage, obedience to the
husband after marriage, and obedience to the eldest son after the death of her
husband. The four required qualities are: hard-working, being beautiful, being
well-spoken, and being well-behaved. In addition, analysis and discussions not
only contribute to raising awareness activities and identifying invisible biases
in order to free men and women from such die-hard Confucian philosophy, but
also to promote gender equality in the school and in the society at large.
The workshop agenda included three report sessions and one discussion
session; they were:
• Traditional roles of Vietnamese men and women presented by Dr. Thai Thi
Ngoc Du
• Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Inspiration from the title of a book by
George Lakoff) reported by Dr. Pham Quoc Loc
• Traditional women, women’s traditions: Real and Fake, Fake and Real,
presented by Dr. Bui Tran Phuong, and . . .
• Discussion session.
Dr. Du first explained the reason why the title of the workshop was
“Invisible bias towards women”. In her opinion, with regard to bias against
women and men it has, as the saying goes, taken a lot of “paper and ink” and
many stakeholders a long time to realize this phenomenon; however, when coming
to invisible bias, it is not easy to identify or see it through ordinary
perception, attitude, and behaviors. In the modern era, no one would dare to
say, frankly and candidly, that “it is less likely that women are as
intelligent as men or women’s roles are only to maintain the race and to stay
within the confines of the home for the purpose of caring for the entire
family.” As a matter of fact, on the advancement of women’s paths, women are
very aware of their limitations and they encounter numerous barriers coming
from invisible biases or “glass ceilings”. In these modern times, to some
extent, women are busy with work and obtaining certain gender equality. A very
common question that has been asked of women in research or by the mass media
field is “If you have to choose between family and career, which one do you
choose?” Why do people ask this question of women only? Why not men?
Second, Dr. Loc cited a conventional assumption that since men are not
women, they should be allowed to talk about their own issues and let the
Women’s Union, the organization representing women, discuss their own
issues. Men use that assumption to manipulate and devalue women. As insiders,
the women’s voices certainly have validity and reliability. Apparently, men are
not the outsiders in the history of the so called “women”, “femininity”, or
“feminine”. Patriarchal ideology has been upheld, nurtured, and reinforced over
time through education, culture, social organizations and the system. That was
why we gathered today to discuss the “invisible biases against women”. The
deepest culture of ideology is invisible. When we are called women, our
nonsense utterance of the word “women”, we are exhorted to be women, remain
women, and become women. That is, we contribute to “femininity” unconsciously,
and unconsciousness produces many invisible reactions.
During the third part of the workshop, Rector Bui Tran Phuong shared with
the attendees that for more than 20 years she has conducted surveys on the
characteristics of traditional Vietnamese women. Her targeted respondents as
young intellectuals, male or female from different age groups, gave the same
answers. The responses on traditional Vietnamese qualities were responsible,
tolerate, loyal, obedient, resilient, irrational, diligent, content,
submissive, humble, and loving. Some unpopular characteristics are intelligent,
strong, good at managing finances, willing, subtle, and fulfilling
responsibilities. Men respondents additionally mention the eight “golden” words
first used by Uncle Ho to praise southern women: anh hùng, bất khuất, trung
hậu, đảm đang (heroic, indomitable, loyal, and resourceful). By resourceful he
meant that women take charge of production, reproduction, and community activities,
along with being profound and quiet characters. The findings indicate that the
influence of tradition is too strong and too deep so that, consciously or
unconsciously they occupy the minds of many Vietnamese. Patterns of traditional
gender are hard and profound. Dr. Phuong raises the questions: “Do the
traditional values deserve such an important position in our hearts and minds?
Are other countries or people influenced by such traditional values as are the
Vietnamese? In conclusion, her purpose for conducting the surveys were mainly
aimed to “reflect herself” and to answer questions as to how real the
traditional values are and how many Vietnamese generations are affected?
Last but not least, many participants shared their thoughts and ideas on invisible
biases in a frank manner. Culture and social construction and system shape
women’s social status. Therefore, people at an age greater than 40 have
different views from those of the younger generations. Younger generations have
more freedom and rights so they are more open and more confident than older
generations. For instance, one of the attendees said that her daughter and she
have some different views on love issues. Today’s youth in love can kiss and
embrace each other in public while older generations do not accept that.
Another female attendee said, “I still teach my daughters traditional roles and
character such as being gentle, kind, obedient, and to fulfill traditional
roles such as a good wife, a good cook, etc. I don’t want my daughter to be
different from people in this society. I am afraid of her being left out.”
Thus, she affirmed that there were both modern and traditional values in her.
She is sometimes confused as to how she should teach her child.
It is not important whether they are girls or boys with regard to how
children should be educated. It is, however, vital for us to respect them and
promote their potentials and their strengths as human beings. One participant
shared that her mom exhibits traditional values. She is not happy when her
granddaughters play football or play with toys meant for males. Her daughter
often speaks up that “it is not fair that her mother blames the granddaughter
only as a girl and not her grandson as a boy.” According to the participant, if
we are aware of whatever we do as being because of affection and respect or
because of being tolerant or being imposed upon, we will be able to orient,
guide, and educate our children towards gender equality. Boy or girl gender is
fine. Boys’ qualities should also be feminine and emotional; and vice versa; a
girl should be strong and determined. More importantly, we need to have
scientific research to help audiences understand the status of women and men
and their views in society.
In addition, Vietnamese women are generally taught “their identity” based on
the views of men who portray qualities of women. That is, men’s views here are
not for men alone, but they refer to the entire culture, politics, and society
system. In terms of sociology, researchers often conduct special or unique
situations in order to figure out trivial and specific behaviors, manners, and
words …in the daily life of women, which possibly shows that social pressures
may have a deeper effect than tradition. For instance, how people depict women in
the movies, TV, and billboards, and how people talk about adultery by women
compared with adultery by men. We need to perform micro-research to understand
invisible biases against women.
Gender biases, especially invisible biases towards women, need to be
identified and thoroughly analyzed. Raising awareness of gender equality is
necessary for the public and should not only be focused on the intellectual
class. In fact, this job is not easy. A research on violence shows that many
women in rural areas do not want to change their situations and current
positions because it makes the situation worse. Another is the election of
women. Many women do not support women in leadership because they mistrust
women’s merits and capacity. Therefore, the number of women elected is
very often low.
However, this is the reality. He stresses the point that, “Our society is a
patriarchal society.” Men create and maintain social orders. Men control a
society that benefits them. Men are shaped to be strong, active, and upright.
If men are considered not the same as the characteristics that have long been
in place, then they are discriminated against. If men are breadwinners in
the family and are unable to earn money as expected, how do these men feel and
how do people act toward them? These are the invisible biases against men. The
last discussion was about how social media reinforces women’s roles and sexual
oppression. Eighty percent of advertisements or billboards use women’s bodies
to sell their products. All these create invisible biases and the pervasive
devaluation of women.
All in all, the discussion in the workshop was “fired up” with the exchange
of ideas from the audience. They were excited and wanted to discuss and debate
these hot issues further. For that reason, the second workshop will be held in
the next few months and will be concentrated on a specific topic.
Doãn Thi Ngọc
http://gas.hoasen.edu.vn/en/gas-page/hoa-sen-university-workshop-invisible-bias-towards-women
