VOA慢速英语--男性在越南的性别平等制度中仍然占有优势

Men Still Have an Edge in Vietnam’s Gender¹-Equal System

If a basic value of communism is equality, then men and women in the Socialist² Republic of Vietnam would appear to have reached it.

Women is this country of 100 million people run big companies, lead government ministries³ and fill jobs usually held by men around the world, like building industry laborers⁵ or police officers.

A great deal of data shows that Vietnam is ahead of most other countries in gender equality. But in reality men still have a lot of advantages.

An employment services business, Adecco Vietnam, says the average income of women in the country is $224 a month. It says that represents 81% of the average income of men.

But women also do unpaid⁷ labor⁴. When the workday ends, Vietnamese women have an average of five hours of work at home. They clean or take care of sick relatives.

“Every day has just 24 hours, to be divided among work, family, and oneself,” said Nguyen Hong Phuong. She is the director of finance at Adecco Vietnam. “It will not always be divided evenly.”

Men’s advantages begin at birth. Most parents want a boy and not a girl. During childhood, boys are not expected to help with housework. This continues when they become men. Mothers are replaced by wives where housework is concerned. Men still rule the home.

Adecco Vietnam says 73.9 percent of men have employment with foreign-invested companies, but only 67.7 percent of women. It says that during job interviews, women are often asked about their plans to have children and if they would leave work for family. A recent study from the United States Agency for International Development says a major goal of working women in Vietnam is to find an employer that has a reasonable parental⁸ leave policy.

As in so many countries, women in Vietnam experience poverty and the repercussions⁹ of natural disasters. The Vietnamese government has established programs to help women, such as Technologies for Equality. It is a competition run by the Women’s Initiative for Startups and Entrepreneurship supported by Australia and Ireland, among others.

The competition seeks inventions that can improve the lives of women in the countryside. Winning entries can receive up to $7,000.

The mobile app Safe Journey is among the inventions in the competition. The app helps migrant workers, mostly women, find jobs and housing in Vietnam’s cities. Another entry is for a processing center where ethnic¹⁰ minority tea farmers can process their crops for higher value-added products.

The winners will be announced later this month.

At an event to launch the competition, the Vietnamese Vice⁶ Minister of Science and Technology said the goal was to get women and girls from the countryside to do well in the employment market.

Vietnam has had a lot of success with gender equality. Almost 71 percent of women work. Women make up 25 percent of company leaders. Rates of sex-based violence are very low.

However, as good as it is, Vietnam still has work to do to reach complete gender equality.

I’m Susan Shand.

Words in This Story

data – n. facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze¹¹, or plan something

gender – n. the state of being male or female

advantage – n. a good or desirable quality or feature

app – n. a computer program that performs a special function

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

3 ministries   

（政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期

参考例句：

• Local authorities must refer everything to the central ministries. 地方管理机构应请示中央主管部门。
• The number of Ministries has been pared down by a third. 部委的数量已经减少了1/3。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

6 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

7 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

8 parental   

adj.父母的；父的；母的

参考例句：

• He encourages parental involvement in the running of school.他鼓励学生家长参与学校的管理。
• Children always revolt against parental disciplines.孩子们总是反抗父母的管束。

9 repercussions   

n.后果，反响( repercussion的名词复数 )；余波

参考例句：

• The collapse of the company will have repercussions for the whole industry. 这家公司的垮台将会给整个行业造成间接的负面影响。
• Human acts have repercussions far beyond the frontiers of the human world. 人类行为所产生的影响远远超出人类世界的范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

11 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。