I.

Introduction

Gender equality is fundamental to the world because it plays a critical role in the maintenance of
sustainable development (WEF, 2015). According to Grosser (2019), this term represents the
balance on the basis of all human rights and opportunities for both genders. The importance of
gender equality has gained public concern since the growing role of private sector’s
accountability and responsibility in a system of both societal governance and citizenship in
which citizenship goals cannot be reached without the equal women’s participation rights to
make political decisions (Grosser 2009, pp. 293- 294). The system is considered as provision of
society direction (Peters, 1997, pp. 51- 52). Hence, the source of inequality is studied in depth
and revealed via the paper of Htun and Weldon in 2010, including religions of nations, nature of
culture and tradition, and social, political and economic development trends. Regarding the
business aspects, there are also several academic models referring to various approach to
business ethics including of CSR stakeholder theories and feminist hypothesis, which will
provide a thorough understanding of how women should be treated in the business context.

As majoring in women’s status at the workplace and political presentation, a general overview of
progress to close the gender gap is provided at the global, national and organizational levels. A
future prediction then is delivered regarding the trend all over the world. The findings all indicate
a positive movement on legal protection and citizen’s awareness; however, there are regions that
are incapable of eliminating the discrimination due to the resistant traditions and cultures such as
Arab States and Asia (ILO, 2018). Specifically, Vietnam is doing well within the legal aspect but
needs to be faster to keep track with global development.

As majoring in the business degree and desiring to be an entrepreneur in the export industry I
realize that women are the main contributors, my critical considerations will focus on potential
ethical issues and building CSR projects to improve the gender parity under my control. This
paper mainly discusses the gender equality between women and men, thus the sexual diversity
LGBTIO+ will be excluded.
II. Literature Review

1. Gender Equality Definition

According to Council of Europe (1998 pp. 7- 8 cited in Grosser, 2009, p. 291), gender equality is
defined as equally visualizing, empowering and participating both sexes in all aspects of life
including both public and private ones. This definition was emphasized not to be mistaken with
sameness, but to respect each gender’s conditions and lifestyles as the norm.

2. Identification of gender- related problems

a. Sources of Gender Inequality

According to Htun and Weldon (2010), the sources of gender inequality come from religion,
tradition, culture and political- economic structures in a particular context of a country. There is
a concept of “female quotas” applying for women in voting cases where women’s vote requires
more female legislators than men’s (Hao, Chang and Sun, 2018 cited in Ionescu 2018, p.166).
The socialist feminist theory also asserted the power of perspectives and origins of gender in the
gender inequality in regard of women’s rights in the society and in the workplace (Hartmann,
1981 and Jaggar, 1983 in Bourne, 2010). Social feminist theory also agreed that the deep source
of discrimination between male and female in business is their ongoing socialization process
differences and political and social power differences (Black, 1989, Fischer et al., 1993 & Orser
et al., 2010 cited in De Vita, Mari and Poggesi, 2014). The socialist feminist theory directly
concerns the relationship between gender and power inequality against women and the surplus of
women’s non- paid domestic work situations in many nations due to their traditional religious
roles as a mother and a wife whose main “functions” only include cleaning, cooking, dressing
and feeding (Bourne, 2010).

b. Types of Discriminations in workplace

Discrimination based on gender is a form of gender inequality (Kira et al., 2012). Apart from the
unfair payment between genders as presented above, discrimination at the workplace can be
shown in limitation of promoting and decision making power and different policies applied for
different genders (Johns, 2013). Other types of gender discrimination can be mentioned are

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occupational sex isolation, wage disparities and authority differences between genders (Bobbitt-
Zeher, 2011).

3. Gender Equality and Ethics

The feminist theories including gender equality and citizenship have paid too much attention to
citizenship expression while the role of ethics is significantly essential (Rees, 2005). Business
ethics refers to the research of business conduct, circumstances and decisions that judge its issue
of right and wrong (Crane et al., 2019). Thus, anything that gives a sense of ‘wrong’ in a
business context can be listed as business ethical issues, including lack of women’s rights and
unequal pay between male and female (Jones, Parker and Ten Bos, 2005).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is broadly referred to the paradigm of the businesses’
obligations to the society in which they are operating (Brown and Forster, 2013). This paradigm
including legal, economic and ethical responsibility factors were shown in the three- domain
conceptualization introduced by Schwartz and Carroll (2003), which then added the fourth
aspect: ‘philanthropy’ in line with the ethical one. The ethical element is not compulsory but it is
expected by the society that business entities have moral and ethical responsibilities to the
society to do the right things which are in line with belief and respect of its stakeholders (Carroll,
2004). According to the stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984, p. 49 cited in Fernando and
Lawrence, 2014), stakeholder of a business refers to all individuals or groups that can affect and/
or be affected by business decisions while achieving its goals.

In terms of the connection between gender and CSR, Crane, Matten and Moon (2004) intended
to adopt stakeholder theory regarding women’s political, economic and social rights,
participation, representation and democracy issues as a stakeholder role at both corporation and
social/ citizenship level and concluded that their actual responsibility and role are still debatable
following their different relationship with the firm. Following the theories, rights of women
should be ensured, however, the discrimination they faced is still undeniable and it is presented
clearly in how they are underestimated and low participation in companies, corporate bodies and
trade unions (Lister and Campling, 2017). Therefore, companies which pursue gender equality in
its business would gain a plus in the ethical dimension in the CSR model and in serving the
interests of its stakeholder and as a result, will build a good reputation in public eyes.

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III. Current Gender Equality Overview

Having a fair respect to both genders is an ongoing discussion related to fundamental human
rights, then being a part of 17 goals set out in 2015 by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The facts and figures in the flagship 2019 report of the
UN working on the assessment of progress and challenges to implement the SDGs indicates that
females have experienced disadvantages in accessing opportunities to play a dominant role in the
economy and politics, apart from inadequate supplements of essentials. However, it is
undeniable that nations and their authorities have been taking action to reduce the inequality of
gender (The United Nations, 2019). The Women, Peace and Security Index in 2019 delivered by
the Georgetown Institute reflects that the trend is following a positive direction over the world.
There is a significant improvement among 59 countries compared with the 2017 result (GIWPS,
2019).

1. A favorable culture - Australia

Australia was recognized as one of the leaders in narrowing the gender gap (WEF, 2006). Until
2010, the Gender Gap Index 2020 report indicates that Australia was awarded thanks to
providing full access to necessities, especially education and health, hence ensuring the basic
requirement for women and girls. The national authorities have implemented some policies
relating to education to advance the status of health against gender discrimination because of the
realization of a reciprocal influence between health and education (Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare, 2018). Regarding the aspect of economic and political empowerment, Australia
appears to perform at a lower level, hence receive strong criticism from the UN (Nawaz and
Deegan, 2018). The explanation can be uncovered by the saying of the prime minister Scott
Morison that they all desire women to rise but not by beating someone down while pushing
others up (Karp, 2019).

On the other hand, it is undeniable that the national authorities have taken actions to upgrade the
legal system to offer a higher guard on feminist benefits (Nawaz and Deegan, 2018). Beside sets
of legislations related to marriage equality, the implementation of a fair pay and leave scheme for
parents and the abandon of sexual harassment, gender identity and family responsibilities, the
Government has forced and amended the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 in 2016 with a

3
highlight of the establishment of Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). This body plays
a role of monitoring the implementation of the Act as well as evaluating actions to maintain an
appropriate working environment among businesses (WGEA, 2018).

Under this great effort, Australia has at least 35% companies ranking in the top 200 of the world
that lead in gender equality according to the paper of EQUILEAP released in 2018. Until 2020,
RMIT University has held the citation of Employer of Choice for 13 years (WGEA, 2020). The
key achievement is that RMIT Council and the Executive leadership teams have reached the
balance in gender. Furthermore, promotion rates of applicants who are women have risen from
44% of all promoted candidates in 2016 to 63% in 2019 (RMIT News, 2020).

According to the report about the Government and Law by the World Bank (2017), law and
regulation are forced to shape the code of conduct, instruct behaviors of persons and maintain the
social order within a mandatory guide system established by the Government. Human behaviour
can also be judged by moral values regarding the fairness and unfairness of that action (Petcu,
2010 cited in Bianca, 2016). It acknowledges that law is designed on the basis of morality (Popa,
2002 cited in Tãnãsescu, 2013), and represents as an example of Moral Absolutism theory.
Moral absolutism indicates an ethical view that all actions can be intrinsically sorted as true or
false under “universal ethical standards” (The Ethic Centre, 2018); consequently, the society will
share the same values and humans will be able to live in a safer community under the regulation
of authority. However, this theory does not take into account the variation of situations in reality
(McDonald and Svensson, 2010). Law, unfortunately, also cannot cover all possibilities that
actually happen.

2. An unfavorable culture – South Korea

In contrast, the International Labour Organizations (ILO) in 2018 asserts that Asian’s economy
gain from a dynamic change has not been enough to generate equal opportunities for both
women and men. By region, the progress toward gender parity of Asia as a whole still shows a
big gap since it will take around 113 years to reach the gap (WEF, 2019). According to Kim
(2019), the first criteria to get a job in South Korea is being a male due to the prejudice that
operating and inspecting trains is not a suitable work for women. As being the largest urban
subway of South Korea, the company’s discrimination reflects employers’ prejudice on female’s

4
ability (Kim, 2019). Hyunjung (2019) summarizes that despite being a developed country, the
employment rate of females reaches a peak at the age of 30 and begin losing since early 40 while
the overall numbers for wealthy economies are respectively 40s and 50s.

These unethical behaviors refer to the Moral Relativism theory, which is contrary to the Moral
Absolutism above. It suggests that morality varies from culture to culture, which means that an
action that is moral in one culture can be immoral in another one (Sikka, 2012). Graham et al.
(2015) also indicates that traditions and culture are important parts that form morality and its
development. Beside, they also imply a weakness of law as well as the Moral Absolutism
approach as an inability of regulating citizen’s prejudices raised with the culture's growth
(Bandura, 2014).

IV. Future Scenarios

1. Globe

Along with the attention paid for gender equality globally, the United Nations proposed the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2011 with the aim to be used globally (Salvia et al.,
2019). The initial social goals from this proposal include achieving better gender equality, health
and environment, education and resolving poverty and hunger by 2015 (McArthur and
Rasmussen, 2018).

However, due to the new and complicated issues in the process of achieving the goals, together
with the existing global problem, it was hard to achieve the MDGs by 2015 (Orzes et al., 2018).
Therefore, SDGs was created in 2015 to set goals for 2030 for world sustainability. There are 17
goals in SDGs including gender equality and female empowerment (Dlouhá and Pospíšilová,
2018) and they are considered the significant emergence of understanding and ensuring human
and environmental development until 2030 (Bebbington and Unerman, 2018).

The United Nation Global Compact is one of the famous CSR initiatives whose the highest
number of adopters worldwide (Rasche, Waddock and McIntosh, 2013). This implies the
significant attention from nations over the world in the sustainable development plans and goals

5
about gender equality. Therefore, it is forecasted that in the future, global business and society
will move closer to gender equality and women empowerment, although there are geographic
regions like sub- Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia and South Asia that might
move slower than others due to particular situations of the nations (Stotsky, 2016).

The goals that concerns about gender equality reflects the adoption of scientific CSR in social,
economic and ethical issues of the society (Bowen, 1953, Carroll, 1979, Friedman, 1970, Kotler
and Lee, 2005, Maclagan, 1998 cited in Costa and Menichini, 2013) as they satisfy the
expectations of its stakeholders at different levels, including individuals, communities and the
whole society, on the firm to do the right thing, which is addressing social issues, and
consequently, generate competitive advantages of a firm through its reputation and customer
loyalty (Costa and Menichini, 2013). Thus, obviously this global goal, which is proved to be
growing as a future trend, is a positive development as it benefits everyone.

2. Vietnam

According to UN Women (2016), Vietnam has recently paid attention to gender equality,
especially protecting women rights and encouraging women empowerment via laws and
regulations, and gained some consideration results on improving gender equality in the
workplace. For instance, Vietnamese women now even have a greater number of official labor
contracts signed than men’s in the labor market (Cunningham, Alidadi and Buchhave, 2018).
The development of Vietnamese women empowerment actually goes along with the Vietnamese
economic development plan in growing sectors that require women- abundant labors like textiles
(UN Women, 2016). This positive progress together with the SDGs will encourage Vietnam to
continue attempting to reach gender equality and addressing the existing sensitive issues that
cannot be recognized and regulated by laws such as suffering isolation and sexual harassment at
the workplace (UN Women, 2016).

Since the future scenario in Vietnam is similar to the globe, it also benefits stakeholders in line
with stakeholder theory, including people and communities in the society through addressing
economic, social and ethical issues as in CSR model similarly to the above analysis.

6
V. Reflection

My dream job is to establish an apparel workshop collaborating with international brands to be

exported widely. This industry requires a significant number of female workers so I am
concerned about women rights and how to empower women in my workshop. It is because this
industry has been developing along with the growth in worker exploitation and firms in this
industry are referred to as ‘sweatshops’ (Hoang and Jones, 2012). Since main workers in this
industry are women, the maternity benefits such as maternity leave are not ensured for them to
have a healthy and balanced leave because if they have a long leave, it will affect the firm’s
profit. This situation raises concerns about CSR and ethical issues so as the future owner of a
workshop, I have to take responsibility for female employees’ rights to build a good image for
my business and gain competitive advantages from that.

Building image and gaining competitive advantages are only able to fulfill the economic aspect
of CSR model, to achieve ethical one, I also need to consider human rights and utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism refers to the act of generating maximum happiness and satisfaction of the greatest
possible number of people in a group, which matches the philanthropy aspect in Carroll’s CSR
model but more of a moral one (Renouard, 2011). Ensuring human rights of employees is a way
to act legally and to provide them a safe workplace, which satisfies their pleasure (Rawls, 2012).

VI. Conclusion and Recommendations

It is obvious that the legal and legislations do not always cover every disadvantage that might
happen to women although the Governments all over the world have been taking great effort to
narrow the gender gap. Then, next solutions may result from the inner strength of women. As
highlighting the support for women working in the textile industry, three following suggestions
would be effectively applied in the apparel sector. Below suggestions are considered on the basis
of the Human Rights approach with the target of following legal requirements to protect natural
and fundamental rights of a person (Slye, 1994) and partly in terms of caring.

7
 1. Transformation of informal to formal industry

According to the BSR business brief in 2017, the easiest way to empower women is helping
them with a stable well-being and finance. The industry is said to operate informally as including
home-based workers (Ascoly, 2014). Therefore, those charged with governance of the firm could
consider designing policies that advance the formality at the worksite. Apart from providing
clear information about working contracts, job requirements, working conditions and incentives
for workers, the promotion policy also should be public to gain the trust then boost productivity
and offer a chance for female workers to have a higher living standard.

2. A complete guard for workers

Furthermore, according to the CARE report in 2017, one out of three women working garment
factories in Cambodia has experience sexual harassment at the worksite, which in turn caused a
loss of US$89 million for companies as a whole. The company should have a department that is
responsible for addressing issues and dealing with these kinds of reports. However, this issue can
occur either at work or outside of the workplace. Therefore, the effort should not merely prevent
the violence at work, but also advance the awareness of different harassment patterns in public.

3. Supporting parental leave system

Lastly, women’s childcare needs should be recognized. Apparel female workers have difficulties
in remaining an efficient participation and long-term commitment when they have children.
Accordingly, policy makers can build a suitable maternity leave scheme to support high quality
childcare. Netflix and its unlimited leave policy must be an example, where new parents are
allowed to take as many working off during one year since the birth of their baby (Rosen, 2015).

VII. Limitations

This paper cannot cover the gender equality for other genders in LGBTIQ+ community due to
the limitations in word count. In fact, researches and journals about gender equality often focus
on equality between men and women and there is a lack of equality on rights of gender diversity.

8
The paper should also have covered more about how companies in the globe and in Vietnam
have been responding and adapting to the emergence of gender equality demand. However, due
to the word count limit, it has to focus more on gender equality at national level to ensure the
flow of the research and to provide a broad picture that reflects much of the topic.

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