Finances, Family, Fashion, Fitness, and … Freedom? The Changing Lives of Urban Middle-Class Vietnamese Women

Leshkowich, Ann Marie

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2306-1_6

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…As Ann Marie Leshkowich (:95) describes, middle‐class Vietnamese women “present themselves and their families in modern, attractive ways, while avoiding displays that might seem decadent, crass or inappropriate.” Accordingly, the women in my study felt great pressure to behave, dress, and talk in particular ways. Much of this was connected to consumption and fashion.…”

Section: The Burden Of Sociocultural Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It My Job to Make Him Care? Middle-Class Women and Gender Inequality in Ho Chi Minh City

Higgins¹

2015

Anthropol Work Rev

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Despite considerable material and social gains, urban middle‐class women in turn of the 21st century Vietnam continued to face gender inequality. Although the nature of gender inequality had certainly changed in the preceding approximately two decades, it nonetheless continued to impact these women's lives, showing little or no sign of abating. Investigating these developments for more than a decade, the research upon which this article is based provides ethnographic evidence of the persistence of gender inequality, documenting the disproportionate share of work or burden with which middle‐class women were shouldered. This burden came in three basic arenas: work outside the home, work inside the home, and sociocultural or symbolic work. Combined, these three pillars of inequality demonstrate that gender norms and expectations in Vietnam, while certainly not static, are best understood as a refashioned version of the longstanding imbalance between men and women in a society wherein healthy gender relations have remained at least partly illusive.

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Section: The Burden Of Sociocultural Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It My Job to Make Him Care? Middle-Class Women and Gender Inequality in Ho Chi Minh City

Higgins¹

2015

Anthropol Work Rev

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“…Managing impressions and controlling what can and cannot be seen drives the social life of elites in today's Vietnam, where holding great wealth brings both admiration and great risks (Leshkowich , 2011a, 2011b). If wealthy Vietnamese are increasingly powerful, they are also vulnerable to theft and accusations of corruption (Gainsborough ; MacLean ).…”

Section: The Man In Chargementioning

confidence: 99%

“…While Saigon's entrepreneurs once faced re‐education in the years following the Liberation/Fall of Saigon in 1975 (Duiker :16), by the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, entrepreneurs were increasingly celebrated for their expertise and moral qualities. As Leshkowich notes, the “businessperson or entrepreneur earned praise for contributing to the nation, even amid accusations of corruption,” and they are celebrated in new events such as a national “entrepreneurs day” (2011:282, 284). These new discourses literally “take place” in the spaces frequented by these entrepreneurs, especially upscale cafes.…”

Section: Embodying the Boss: A Vigorous Moral Callingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this way, Vũ playfully mocks a more common sentiment in Vietnam, “that doing business entails modern expertise that can be acquired through education and credentials. Bookstores lined with the Harvard Business Essentials series and other manuals promote entrepreneurial self‐help” (Leshkowich 2011:284). By placing himself above this rising credentialed class, which is otherwise generally admired, Vũ places himself in an entirely different class, one that cannot be attained through hard work but is occupied only by those called to it by good fortune.…”

Section: Embodying the Boss: A Vigorous Moral Callingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By “intimate,” I refer to the way “social meanings and relationships” such as ethnicity, gender, and kinship, identity formation (not to mention class and morality) enter into otherwise abstract economic processes (Wilson :9). On the notion of gendered constructions of class in Vietnam, see Leshkowich (2011). …”

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The Boss: Conspicuous Invisibility in Ho Chi Minh City

Harms

2013

City & Society

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This article introduces the figure of the Vietnamese boss, (ông chu ? ), in this case, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of a Ho Chi Minh City securities trading company. The boss's body techniques, lifestyle choices, and movement through different spaces in the city offer a view into the "everyday presentation of wealth" among business leaders who drive much of the economic transformation in contemporary Vietnam. In order to illuminate how the figure speaks to a particular moment in Vietnam's great urban transformation, the essay describes practices of "conspicuous invisibility" through which the boss manages what can and cannot be seen about his wealth. As a figure, the boss stands out against the background of economic privatization, the emergence of a stock market, rapid urbanization, and the changing moral valuation of those who accumulate wealth. The article also suggests that conspicuous invisibility both produces and is produced by new kinds of urban spaces. [Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, New Urban Zones, elites].

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The Gendering of Market Trade

Horat

2017

Trading in Uncertainty

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Finances, Family, Fashion, Fitness, and … Freedom? The Changing Lives of Urban Middle-Class Vietnamese Women

Cited by 28 publications

References 24 publications

Is It My Job to Make Him Care? Middle-Class Women and Gender Inequality in Ho Chi Minh City

Is It My Job to Make Him Care? Middle-Class Women and Gender Inequality in Ho Chi Minh City

The Boss: Conspicuous Invisibility in Ho Chi Minh City

The Gendering of Market Trade

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