Domestic Work Influencers in Vietnam: The Commodification of a Labour Taken for Granted

Abstract

Following the 1986 reforms Vietnam’s economy grew rapidly, driven largely due to women’s participation in its factory labour force. However, this empowerment also came with a domestic double burden. Today, because of new technology, factory workers, turn to social media to subsidise their income, using domestic and care work as the videos’ subject. This research sought to analyse this content using Ethics of Care and Critical Discourse Analysis to understand how digital portrayal of domestic and care work reinforces or challenges the current gender norms, as well as how this commodification affects the portrayal of said labour. The results revealed that while there is a slow shift towards changing gendered norms within the society, specifically by young Vietnamese men, showing a slow move towards a new masculinity, the findings show that women are still performing majority of the care work. Not only that but given the phases and aspects of care work seen within these videos, the format of these videos appears to further invisibilise this labour, and devalue both it, as well as aspects of femininity. In the end, it is evident that the portrayal of gendered norms is lagging behind slowly changing norms.