From the Margins to the Center: A Discourse Analysis of Vietnamese Feminism on Facebook Confession Pages

This study investigates how feminist ideas are taking shape in contemporary Vietnam, focusing on how young women engage with social media—particularly university confession pages—as sites for emotional expression, identity negotiation, and resistance to traditional gender norms. In a society marked by rapid modernization, increased digital connectivity, and the enduring influence of Confucian values, online platforms have emerged as significant cultural spaces where new meanings of femininity, desire, and agency are constructed and contested. Using a qualitative approach, this study combines semi-structured interviews with discourse analysis to explore how university-aged women express themselves in digital spaces that are anonymous, performative, and highly interactive. These online confession pages offer participants a sense of emotional safety and freedom, enabling them to disclose romantic feelings, challenge stereotypes, and articulate perspectives that might be suppressed in offline settings. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse and power, the research examines how language—through posts, comments, and narrative framing—reflects and reproduces broader systems of social control, gender hierarchy, and moral regulation. Key Foucauldian concepts such as biopower, subjectivity, and heterotopia are used to analyze how digital interactions function not only as personal acts but also as sites where dominant discourses are reinforced, negotiated, or disrupted. The findings suggest that while social media platforms offer new opportunities for women to assert agency and form supportive communities, these spaces are not free from surveillance, judgment, or internalized patriarchy. Cultural biases and moral expectations continue to shape what can be said, how it is received, and by whom. This study contributes to broader academic conversations on feminism, online activism, and cultural transformation in Vietnam and the wider Southeast Asian region, where tradition and digital modernity intersect in increasingly complex ways.