(reflective music)
- Look at this beautiful river.
Doesn't it look refreshing, inviting, full of life?
Now, imagine you were swimming in it.
But here's the thing
you don't actually know what's underneath.
That's exactly how female academic leaders feel in Vietnam.
Their life is like a river.
It flows on but no one knows what's below the surface.
It's difficult to see the full picture.
My study explores the under-representation of female
academic leaders in Vietnam.
There are 171 universities but only 13 female presidents.
That's the tiny 7.6%.
The number can tell us what's happening,
but they can't tell us why.
In the west,
a number of metaphor have been used
to describe female leaders' barriers.
You will be familiar with many of them,
like there's the glass ceiling, sticky floor,
or the labyrinth.
However, they make little sense for an academic leader,
like myself.
To understand the challenge that female academic leaders
have in Vietnam requires qualitative study.
I use a method called photo elicitation,
which involved asking participants to bring in photos
that reflected their lived experiences as female leaders.
In doing so,
I learned about their wishes, design,
feelings, motivations, belief systems.
I found that my participants conceptualise their career
as a journey,
but that journey is not on land.
It's in the water, in the river.
One dean told me that she found herself swimming
in the river on her own without any life raft.
The other found herself stuck in water wheel
trying to balance between work and family care.
All of my participants saw the uncertainty
of the river's flows, which could lift them up,
drag them down or wash them ashore.
For me,
the adverse environment that female academic leaders face
is better understood by researching the language
that they used.
The river metaphor will provide a clearer understanding
of the lived experiences of female leaders
and shed light on the challenges
that they have to navigate in academia in Vietnam.
Vietnamese women are like rain drops.
We were born from the water and we die to the water.
Where our life turn out,
depends on where the rain drop fall.
And my research is finally telling their story.
Thank you.
(reflective music)