To reflect and call for youth’s voice to deconstruct gender stereotypes through the cinema’s lenses, UNDP Viet Nam is holding a film-making competition for film makers entitled “#HowAbnormal”. The competition welcomes Vietnamese independent filmmaking individuals and teams to propose their scripts and to receive funding for the film production.

In Viet Nam,

- Women are forced to retire at the age of 55 while men retire at 60. This partially results in the underrepresentation of women in the senior leadership positions: only a quarter of the National Assembly deputies in the current term are women.

- 79% of men think a woman's most important role is to take care of the home and only 50% of young respondents stated women should pursue careers as government leaders, economic experts, or entrepreneurs.

- One in three women in Viet Nam has suffered from physical violence by her husband.

- Due to son preference, in some communities, there are as many as 120 boys born for every 100 girls. Viet Nam has one of the most skewed sex ratio at birth globally and all indications is that the situation is worsening.

- 87% of women and girls in Viet Nam stated they had encountered sexual harassment in the forms of whistling, teasing, passing remarks on appearance, staring and touching intentionally. The majority of men and bystanders – 65% – do not take any serious action when they witness acts of sexual harassment. In public places, neither women nor men take action against acts such as whistling and teasing and inappropriate lustful looks because these acts are normalized by many men and women.

These aspects are only some of many examples of the manifestations of gender inequality in various circumstances of day to day life. In many cases, it is social norms that are the biggest challenge to the free, equal, and full development of women and girls, men and boys.