[1] Originally founded on October 20, 1930, there are currently over 13 million members belonging to 10,472 local women's unions in communes and towns throughout the country.

[10] The Party's driving propaganda during the Vietnam War (1955-1975) was the idea that women's liberation was completely inseparable from a total social revolution.

[14] Women are struggling to place themselves in the post-socialist society where being independent and embodying ideals of the war era—rejecting familial piety and choosing to fight for freedom and revolution—is now considered overtly masculine.

[13] In this time, the divergence between the national traditions emphasizing sacrifice and a Confucian sense of familial duty are both similar and incongruent, leading women to struggle to articulate themselves in the middle class.

[13] Women who did not adequately personify the motions of Confucian femininity, filial piety, and national ideology were considered a shame to their family.

Much of the VWU's work has focused on the promotion of personal growth to transform and empower women in daily life, which would in turn direct the nation to reformation as an “equal and better society” after reunification.

Unfortunately, these hard line feminine ideals of perfection were flawed in that women were constantly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of leading a family and a nation.

The efficiency and effectiveness of the VWU is contested both in application and enforcement of priorities balancing modernity and female empowerment with traditional ideologies.

While the VWU is promoted as a government agent of change and the Party's flagbearer of gender equality, they are accused of propagating the same dichotomy and insistence for social constructs in their policy that causes the dichotomous and unattainable images of nationalist and feminine ideals.

At this point, the VWU officially encouraged members to actively participate in nation building processes and support of the government through anti-French and Imperialist resistance in all aspects of their lives.

Each of these "goods" are descriptive of a communist Vietnamese woman, and were formatted around the ideology of the "feminine socialist" that the government was currently promoting through the VWU.

[15] In the 1950s and 1960s there was also the publication of Phụ Nữ Việt Nam (Vietnamese Woman), a magazine through which to promote “socialist womanhood”—the foundation ideology of the VWU during the Vietnam War and reform eras.

[16][7] Attached to the Hanoi VWU headquarters, the museum aims to expand local knowledge on the impact women have had to the advancement of Vietnamese society.

These were mainly implemented through increased access to education at village levels, with budgeting classes and various informational activities designed to help women lead their household and take care of children in and out of poverty.

This new campaign aimed to provide education and training to women in poverty focused on handling household finances and maintaining childhood safety.

[7][23][24] In 2007, the VWU received public notice from the late President Hồ Chí Minh, who announced that "The beautiful country of Vietnam has been built and woven by the women, both young and old, with their heartfelt efforts to become more wonderful".

[23] From 2008, the VWU chose to focus on “Studying and following President Hồ Chí Minh’s moral example” and ”Building affection houses” for their social and economic platforms, and specifically in the realm of women's rights chose to focus on gender equality in the workplace with the “Women and men work together as equals to share the work in building the family of 5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s” campaign.

By setting up safe houses and increasing available information for the public, the VWU has begun training the most vulnerable in their country to protect themselves from individuals and organizations that may be dangerous.