Breaking through the “Glass Ceiling”: Gender and Arts Leaders in Vietnam

Despite gender equality being officially advocated in the Vietnamese government constitution, the percentage of women as head or deputy head of government departments has fallen over the last ten years (Truong, 2008). Given that women participate and contribute to all areas of life and work, the percentage of women in key leadership positions on people's committees (approximately 10 percent), remained low over the past twenty years. Not surprisingly, then in the arts sector in Vietnam, male leadership is a dominant trend. This is a trend that is also seen in Australian arts upper management, but female leadership (in middle and upper management) is much more common in Australia than Vietnam. Specifically, it is observed that women in upper level management in many art-forms are underrepresented in the arts sector in Vietnam. This paper sets out to provide a snapshot of gender equality in the arts sector in Vietnam. In a review of the literature, we identify the gap in women's leadership in the arts. We aims to explore constraints to female's career advancement and progression in arts management and to discuss theoretical perspectives behind these constraints in the current context of economic and cultural globalisation in Vietnam.