It's a social construct that has the generation gap problem intertwine with it including external resource allocation factors.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCT:
1) CAUSE: Hmong favor boys more than girls. EFFECT: Hmong girls have to work harder to prove themselves.
2) CAUSE: Hmong mother spoil their sons. EFFECT: Hmong sons does not work as hard as the daugthers.
3) CAUSE: Hmong mother have no identity (Niam Pebhmong Lis) and Individualism taught in school. EFFECT: Hmogn girls work hard to become an individual not identified by their husband's work but by their good work.
These are lesser items I identified.
INCOGNITO
Hmong social/political system today are incognito of the American system. Even though if we are recognize within the Hmong system, we are not recognize outside the Hmong system.
GENDER ROLE
If you look at the gender role of man vs woman in the Hmong community, you'll notice that woman are not to be in the governing body and thus for a woman who wishes to be exposed to leadership opportunity, that can only be obtained outside of the Hmong social construct. So you'll see more woman in American leadership and you'll see more man in Hmong leadership. It's by social construct of the gender role. Which is more valuable? Depends who you talk to.
GENETIC FACTOR
We know that genetically woman are more favorable when it comes to nurturing, organization, and communication than man...if on even scale, I as a man believe woman are the superior leaders as defined by what leadership means today.
EXTERNAL FACTOR
There is a huge external factor for minority woman to acheive more because the labor department have identified that minority woman is one area GROSSLY under-represented. So there is huge helping to being a minority woman. As a student, minority woman have the greatest advantage during the education time period to even out with their male colleagues coming out of college due to the amount of advantage they can given at the educational level. For those who take full advantage of this and have the full support of their family it is a huge difference maker...why this advantage exists is to offset where the family factor is poor.
CONCLUSION
So if you look at all these factors, one can simply say, like one person said on here...we raise our boys wrong and that is true...at best we raise them to be Hmong leaders and not futures Leaders of America. Whereas, Hmong woman are raised to be like their mother but due to external factors, genetic factors, individual factors (a rebel), gender role and etc... the Hmong woman worker harder, excel better, and is provided better support due to the gender role to excel...if the woman takes advantage of all that the system has provided, they can go farther. I'll end with a paraphrase of my high school couselor, there is no time better time to be a disadvantage minority woman than the time you are applying for support for college; and if you are a smart minority woman, and have your family's support, you can go VERY far in life. She is correct when you look at it from a resource allocation. FOLLOW THE $$ and you'll know why too.
Topic: Why Hmong Women are more educated than Hmong men? (Read 1697 times)