Highland women "break down" prejudices

In the past, social prejudices along with many bad customs and backwardness were barriers that caused many women, especially women from ethnic minorities and mountainous areas of Thanh Son district, to live in isolation, without many opportunities to exchange, learn, and develop their own abilities. Over time, many women have now strongly risen up, daring to think and act, contributing to changing gender stereotypes, affirming the role, position, and ability of women in the new era of courage, creativity, knowing how to preserve happiness, and at the same time knowing how to seize and create opportunities for themselves and their families.

We met Ms. Le Thi Hoa - Head of the Women's Association of Bo Xo area, Yen Luong commune right at lunchtime, but she was still busy with work outside the cultural house of the residential area to prepare for the upcoming women's meeting... Although her job is not hard, there are days when she has to leave early and come home late, and sometimes she cannot take care of all the family matters, but Ms. Hoa is always supported by her husband and children. In the village, most of the people are Dao, so for many years, Ms. Hoa has had to work hard with the local government, especially the Women's Association of the commune, to propagate and mobilize people to change their concepts, raise awareness of gender equality, build cultural families, and happy families.

Ms. Hoa confided: “In the past, most women in the village stayed behind, working in the rear, only knowing how to go to the fields, embroider and sew, all big and small matters were decided by their husbands, but now things are very different. Through propaganda sessions and knowledge sharing, women have become aware of their responsibilities and power, so they have become bolder and more open to work with their husbands to develop the family economy as well as other jobs in society and also know how to beautify themselves.”

Ms. Hoa (4th from left) always actively participates in community activities.

Many women in the highlands have actively participated in social activities, affirming their role and position in the family and society. The concept of "Men build houses, women build homes" is gradually becoming more progressive, instead of doing housework together, taking care of and raising children together and creating a common family economy.

Born and raised in a mountainous area with many difficulties and hardships, at the age of 18, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (currently Director of Truong Foods Production and Trading Joint Stock Company) dreamed of spreading her family's traditional sour meat making profession to all regions of the country. Putting aside initial doubts and criticisms, to take the first steps, after many failures, she found the best way to preserve sour meat so that it could reach consumers.

In 2015, Ms. Hoa decided to establish Truong Foods Production and Trading Joint Stock Company in Thanh Son district. In the early days of self-management, there were many difficulties and confusion, especially in terms of capital. Hoa boldly borrowed 200 million VND from the bank to cover expenses and investments. Thanks to her perseverance, hard work, and self-research, Truong Foods sour meat has gradually gained a foothold in the market. Realizing that 4.0 technology is dominating, she has caught up with the trend, moving towards online business, selling online on social networking platforms and e-commerce platforms. Currently, her company has over 120 distributors, more than eight thousand points of sale in provinces and cities, and nearly 50 million people reaching social networking platforms. The whole country has known about the specialty sour meat product of Dat To and Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa is known as the golden girl in the innovative startup ecosystem of Vietnam, an inspirational example for women in general and young people in particular, not only in the mountainous district of Thanh Son but also in many other places.

Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (right) has taken advantage of social platforms to bring products to consumers.

In recent times, in order to promote the role and voice of women in participating in the economic and social development of the locality, the Thanh Son District Women's Union has deployed to all levels of women's unions to actively mobilize and guide women to participate in community activities such as: People's meetings, contacting voters in the area, contributing ideas to build the political system and organizing activities or associated with regular branch activities, at the same time equipping knowledge about gender equality, skills to implement gender mainstreaming for cadres in the political system, village elders, village chiefs, religious dignitaries and prestigious people in the community to create diversity in propaganda and mobilization work.

The district has also implemented the project "Implementing gender equality and solving urgent issues for women and children" under the National Target Program on Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas of Phu Tho Province (Phase One 2021-2025) in 62 extremely disadvantaged areas in 14 communes and launched 25 community communication teams in 14 communes with 175 members. Organizing communication sessions with the theme "Changing gender stereotypes in housework", propaganda on reproductive health, laws on domestic violence prevention, laws on children, gender equality with nearly 1,000 participants.

Women participating in household economic development have actively contributed to changing gender stereotypes in the district.

These practical activities and actions have created positive changes in improving the quality of life, promoting gender equality, ensuring the voice and real participation of women in local socio-economic development activities. They are opportunities as well as stepping stones and motivations for women in the highlands to become increasingly successful and assert themselves. They have become the most vivid examples to arouse and promote women's power in society.

Vy An