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WOMEN IN VIETNAM: THE STORY OF THEIR LIBERATION
Ruth O. Cortez
It has
been correctly pointed out that during primitive times, women had occupied a
high position in society and that women’s oppression began with the emergence
of monogamous marriage and private ownership, which later gave wav to the
development of classes in society. Folk literature and archaeological diggings
in Vietnam have brought evidence supporting the dominance of women in early
Vietnamese society, not only in terms of capability but also of physical
strength. Women were also recorded as having initiated agriculture, production
and the development of primitive handicrafts.
One of
the more interesting features of the matriarchal family in primitive Vietnam
was the great respect on the role of the mothers for ensuring the perpetuation
of the clan, looking after the needs of the children. It is believed that the
care of the children, from the suckling period had some collective form. In
fact, some books pointed out that this collective responsibility was present
for a long, long time in the villages.
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The
imposition of Confucianism on Vietnamese economic, political and cultural life
began a point in the history of Vietnamese women as the most downtrodden
people in society. Their status in the
feudal society can be summed up in the teaching: “One hundred women are not
worth one testicle!"
Because
majority of the women belonged to the poor peasants, they toiled in the fields
with their menfolk.
But they were never allowed to own land, because first, they were poor
peasants under the thumb of the rich landlords, and second, because they were
women. Even the institution of marriage, particularly polygamy, was designed
to exploit women’s labour. Buying a wife or concubine was cheaper than hiring a
servant. Daughters of poor peasants were
gotten-by rich landlords to pay off taxes and debts; some were exchanged for
beasts needed in the fields.
Throughout
her life, a woman was controlled by the rules of the “Three Obediences”
and the “Four Virtues”. The first referred to her unconditional loyalty to the
three men in her life: father, husband and the eldest son and the second to
her compliance with what was socially proper in terms of behaviour, gesture,
language and facial expression.
In
feudal society, only the rich can afford an education. Therefore, hardly
anyone, but more so women, could advance from their status.
The
exploitation and oppression of women in Vietnamese society continued during
the 100 years of French colonisation.
For the feudal relations of production were encouraged by colonialism;
neither was there any improvement in the techniques and means of
production. Peasants who were too poor
to hire buffalos used their wives instead: women walked behind ploughs while
men pulled the ploughs.
An added
awesome burden was the yearly collection of taxes which left peasants
destitute. And always it was the women
and the children who suffered most in such an oppressive condition.
Colonial
capitalism employed a large female force and in the growing industrial
investments, women became doubly exploited.
A worker earned the daily minimum wage of US0.25, but a woman got only
two-thirds of the pay for the same work done. The average number of hours put
in was between 12-14. And because of their physical exhaustion, women workers
were often victims of accidents. And on
top of all
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this,
they were fair game to their male superiors’ sexual advances.
In the
towns, middle-class and lower-class women suffered other forms of oppression.
The transformation of towns by the establishment of public services, schools,
factories created a new social order of government employees and workers who
were completely dependent on the French colonial masters. With such transformation,
together with the setting up of the military, came the cabarets, dancing halls
and brothels.
A few
women coming from the rich families were educated and began to feel the need
of “emancipation”. These women demanded freedom for themselves particularly
from the precepts of the Three Obediences and the
Four Virtues. Such isolated demands, however,
were ignored, and led to a great number of suicides among those forced into
marriage or who suffered maltreatment from their husbands. But the greater number of women- those in the
rural areas and the tens of thousands in the urban places continued a life of
degradation and destitution.
THE
STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION: EARLY BEGINNINGS
The
image of the fighting woman is a familiar figure in the annals of the
country’s struggle to free itself from the invaders. A popular saying reflects
this image: “When the enemy comes, women also must fight;”
One
comes across historical women figures like the two Trung
sisters who led a people’s army of 80,000 to victory against the Chinese
invaders; Trin Thi Trink, a
peasant woman who at 21 led thirty battles which won a short-lived independence
for Vietnam; Bhin Thi Xuan,
the woman general who led a wave of peasant rebellions.
During the
struggle for liberation against French colonialists, the examples of the
beautiful and clever Nhu who led the 5,000 strong
“Association of People Devoted to the Just Cause” and that of Dinh who founded
the Vietnam Restoration Association, a liaison network for resistance groups
in different parts of the country are often mentioned. The latter is also known
for the valorous act she performed in her prison cell before committing
suicide: she wrote a poem in her own blood on the wall.
In the land of golden streams, I’ll meet
heroine Trung
I cry from regret, like a moaning moor
hen. Vuong
Let Omnipotent Buddha bring me back to life
And give me one thousand hands to handle
one thousand rifles.
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There
were others- innkeepers, boatwomen, songstresses whose participation in the
early years of the wars for freedom and independence cannot be minimised. A very important contribution of common women
was the strengthening of the spirit of national resistance through folk
literature. Songs, tales and satires
which made reference to the realities of family and social life and the
denunciation of the oppression of the people particularly the women were made
alive by the women who sang them while they worked in the fields, while taking
care of their babies, and during cultural fairs. An example of such songs is one which
ridicules male superiority:
We honourable
sisters are like a mass of boulders in heaven,
How could you
youngsters as small as mice think of disturbing us?
Cursed be you bunch
of mice,
When this rock
falls down, your bones shall be crushed.
or one which protests against arranged marriage:
A young girl is like a piece of silk in a
market
Which doesn’t know into what hands it is
going to fall
or the
following- which is an open defiance of the rules:
Respecting the rule
of fidelity, I have married nine husbands,
Rolling them into
balls, I put them in a jar
Which I then
carried on a shoulder pole when I went out.
Accidentally, the
supporting basket suspended from the pole broke, and the jar fell to the
ground,
The nine husbands
crawled out scattering in different directions.
In the
19th century, a woman poet, Ho Xuan Hing, became famous for her attack on the corruption and
hypocrisy of the feudal patriarchy. Even
in her choice of language and form, she went against the conventions of her
day. She wrote in chu
nom - a language considered vulgar by Confucian scholars. But she touched
base with the masses, particularly the women, for her poems survived more than a
hundred years before they were published in 1914. Again women were instrumental
in passing down from one generation to another through oral traditions a
counter-literature and-culture which contributed to the growing resistance of
the people.
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MOBILISING
WOMEN FOR THE REVOLUTION
One of
the first tasks of the national revolution was to arouse political
consciousness of women so that they could be an active and potent force in the
struggle for liberation. This was no mean task mainly for two reasons. The
first was the extensive and intensive ideological base of feudalism among the
people and the second was the social reality obtaining. Most of the peasant
women were illiterate and the first generation workers were still handicapped
by their peasant origin. There was a small number of intellectuals, civil
servants and students who had the facility to understand and cope with
political theories, but they were isolated from the masses. Even in the
Indochinese Communist party (ICP), the political work among women was
neglected.
In
October 1930, this negligence was corrected by the ICP as expressed in the
Party resolution which stated in part:
The Party must enable women to participate in the
revolutionary struggles of the workers and the peasants… So, it is necessary to
give women workers and peasants intensive political education, arouse their
class consciousness and enable them to join the organisations of the working
class… To rally the women of all social strata, women’s organisation should be
founded to unite them in their own struggle for their own rights and for their
complete emancipation…
The
Association of Women for Emancipation, later called the Association of
Anti-Colonialist Women, was set up at the same time as the founding of the ICP.
For 15 years of underground activities, the women participated in the struggle.
Spearheaded by the national association, organisations sprang up among the
women workers in towns and among schools and university students. Even among
the petty bourgeoisie and in some bourgeois families, a ferment was noted.
WOMEN
AND THE REVOLUTION
The
People’s Wars of 1945 and 1973, which ended the French colonial rule and the
U.S. imperial aggression, were waged with women playing a decisive role in at
least three areas. These three areas are clearly articulated in the Three
Responsibilities Movement launched by the Vietnam Women’s Union.
The
first was the campaign for production. This was very vital work for it meant
the life-line of the army and the people in terms of foodstuffs and supplies in
a protracted war of resistance. The work
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was
extremely difficult particularly at the start as the women had to face a
century of feudal relationships in production, the devastation caused by the
famine and flood of 1945(which killed millions of people), and the decimation
of the agricultural land, the work animals, and even the people themselves by
the mopping-up operations of the enemy forces. Against such seemingly
insurmountable handicaps, the women persevered and worked without ceasing to
produce so “the army and the people could have enough food to eat to defeat the
enemy”.
But the
women did not only produce, they too had to safeguard the crops. A familiar
sight during those times was women who had sickles in their hands and rifles on
their backs.
The
second was in the sphere of political struggle. This refers to the work of
persuading people to join the struggle, organising protest demonstrations,
planning rallies to raise the people’s spirits and persuading soldiers on the
other side to desert. Women took over much of such activity, thus, the name
“Long-Haired Army” given to them particularly during the sixties.
The
Women’s Union also developed a step-by-step process that organised women’s
energy and increased their unity. These are the five steps which in practice
were taken simultaneously:
1. Study
the situation and problems to learn as much as possible about the women
Involved.
2. Make
propaganda that explains to women the cause of their problems, gives them
confidence in their power when they are united, and a vision of their potential
good life.
3. Organise
concrete struggles that focus on gaining a crucial demand. This in itself is a
step-by-step process that begins with people’s consciousness of their own
interests but raises a consciousness that demands a larger political solution.
4. Choose
new cadres from among those who are most active and militant in the struggle
and give them further political education.
5. Involve
more women in the organisation and in the struggle.
The third
was in the armed struggle. Women, mostly young girls, were active in village
defence for the protection of the crops and production. Armed with rudimentary
weapons like spears in the South and bamboo sticks in the North, they fought
off enemy raids, held the enemy down, harassed the enemy from
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the rear
areas, and lured them into booby traps, mine fields and ambushes. In villages
situated in the enemy rear, women guerrillas maintained liaison with the
underground resistance bases, dug shelters for the cadres, and communication
trenches. They gave refuge to wounded soldiers and took care of them at the
risk of their own lives.
These
struggles were spontaneous, local at first then growing into a mass movement
from which hundreds of heroines emerged like Madame Dinh who became a
full-fledged general of the People’s Liberated Armed Forces. Women were
full-time members of the armed forces and a large number were leaders. Forty
percent of the regimental commanders were women.
EMANCIPATED
WOMEN IN AN EMANCIPATED SOCIETY
When we
say the interests of women are bound to the class and national interests,
obviously this does not mean that when the revolution is successful, and the
working class seizes power and destroys the private property rights of
production, then the problem of women’s liberation will be immediately
resolved.
In
reality, after the revolution has been successful, women, especially women
strongly influenced by feudalism, still have to struggle for true equality with
men by raising their political level and knowledge, and taking-part in
production, the management of society and the activities of every social
sphere.
-Nguyen Thi Thap, highest ranking
woman, DRV
Economic
Independence. In 1945 the Vietnamese began to take first steps towards
building a new social order by distributing land, reducing rents, abolishing
high taxes and erasing peasants’ debts. These destroyed the institutional
framework of women’s oppression.
By 1975
everyone in the DRV shared the land and the harvests. Nearly all peasants belonged to cooperatives
where they owned the land and tools in common. People worked according to their
ability and got paid according to the amount of work points they had
earned. Work points were calculated
equally and separately for men and women-whether married or single.
A
drastic change has been made in the occupational structure. The 30,000 women who served as prostitutes
during the colonial periods received training for productive work and those who
wanted to were relocated. In 1960, 20%
of workers and state employees in cities and towns were women, in 1972, it was
42%, and in 1975, women made up more than half of the workers in light
industry, one-fourth in heavy industry.
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In the
professional fields, the increase is enormous: 1) medical doctors and
engineers- from less than 10 in 1945 to 5,000 in 1975; 2) chemists- from 3-4 in
1945 to 3,000 in 1975; 3) university teachers- from 0 to 2,000. These are in DRV. In Saigon by late 1960 only ten women
graduated from the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry.
The
training of women in the legal profession has broadened women’s political power
and insured the protection of their gains.
Now there are enough women lawyers in enforcing the laws against
polygamy and other feudal marriage customs.
In 1975, there were two women judges in the Supreme Court.
The
government in 1967 issued a directive which ensures the promotion of women ±n
management and industrial units and agricultural cooperatives. The new law stipulates that when women make
up more than 40% of the labour force, a woman must serve on the management
committee; if 50%, the assistant manager must be a woman; and when 70%, the
manager must be a woman. Between 1965 and 1972, the number of women directors
Or deputy directors of factories had increased from 58 to 130, the number of
directors of public institutes from 21 to 65, and the number of women directors
of central level bureaus from 125 to 1837.
To raise
the educational level of women and to ensure their preparation for their
promotions, women go to theoretical school of the Lao Dong Party, school of
trade unions and supplementary education classes. Priority in this training is
given: to labour combat Heroes, those who had particularly miserable lives
before the revolution, those have family members who
died for the nation, those originally from South Vietnam and those from
national minorities.
Political
Power. Gradually but steadily the political strength of women in
the DRV grew. In 1946, the first year
women ever voted in Vietnam, women held only 10 out of the 403 seats in the
National Assembly, the highest legislative body. In the succeeding Assemblies, the number of
seats rose: Second- 53; Third-66; Fourth- 125 out of 420 seats. Some of the women members are peasants, some
militia members, some heads of production teams, builders of processing (food)
plants, some specialists in animal breeding.
The oldest is 60 and the youngest 21, a textile worker and an anti-aircraft
gunner, respectively.
In the
People’s Provincial Councils, just below the National Assembly, 42% of the
members are women. At the district level, the membership of women rose from 26
to 43% between 1965 and 1969. In the
village lev
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el, women are the chairpersons in 4300 out of
5000 People’s Councils.
The
governing political party is the Lao Dong Party - the Workers’ Party- although
there are other political parties existing as long as they are not actively
hostile to socialism. In 1975 the
membership of the Party rose to one million members. Since the leadership mostly came from the
generation of Ho Chi Minh when few women took part in political affairs, the
struggle for women to be in the leadership was keener. In 1965, the percentage of women was only
5.4. In 1967, the Party passed a
resolution urging women cadres to be trained and promoted to leadership. Within five years, 30% of the Party members
were women. The Party is committed to
continue incorporating more women until there is full political equality
between men and women.
Social
Emancipation. Women have also gained the right to free choice in
marriage and the abolition of polygamy.
The 1946 Constitution and later decrees laid the foundation for
outlawing polygamy and forced marriage.
It took some time to pass the Law on Marriage and Family because the
policy is that a law is passed only when it reflects the attitudes of the
people. So for fifteen years, the Party
women cadres worked to educate the population to overcome centuries of
tradition.
The Law bans
polygamy, forced marriages, child marriages, bride prices, dowries, wife
beating. The Law further requires
democracy within the family, allowing neither husband nor wife to have more
power than the other. It also guarantees
the right of each partner to freely choose an occupation and the right of
daughters and sons to equal treatment within the family. Children whose parents are not married have
the same rights as children whose parents are married. Both spouses have equal rights to divorce
except a man is not allowed to divorce a pregnant wife until after she has
given birth (unless she demands it).
The New
Family. To the Vietnamese people, the relationships in the family
have always been sacred and very close.
In his talk on the family during the debate on the draft of the Law on
Marriage and Family, Ho Chi Minh expressed how the political leadership of the
DRV tries to combine Vietnamese family traditions with new concepts of equality
within the family and a revolutionary concept of family life.
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In
practice, while the importance of the family remains the same, the nature of
the family life has changed. The
foundations are; strong: economic equality or the probability that women will
earn more, political equality and social, recognition of women’s importance in
society.
The
forming of a new family is also subsumed to the greater good. The campaign for the “Three Postponements” is
still being waged. This suggests that if
a couple falls in love, they should postpone engagement; if they are engaged,
they should postpone marriage; and if they are married, they should postpone
having children. The ideal for both is
fidelity and celibacy; there is no longer a double standard between the sexes.
The
process of socialising housework is well-developed in the DRV. Every cooperative has a communal dining hall,
though the family has; a choice of eating there or at home. Most industrial units have communal dining
facilities. In the cities, the Women’s
Union sponsors community service teams that deliver food- both prepared and
unprepared to workers’ homes. Distribution of household tasks is done on a
rational basis: teams of workers who cannot perform heavy duty work do sewing
and laundry. !, They free women who work on other
areas from the doub|le burden of work at home and in
the factory.
More
important, child care, which is considered productive, becomes a collective
responsibility. Child care arrangements
and schools vary according to the ages of the children and whether they live in
the cities or the countryside. The State
takes responsibility for training and paying teachers and the cooperatives
share in the support of the teaching staff and school according to their
ability to pay.
The
Right to Education. The story in this area is a long cry from
what it used to be in the old colonial times when 95% of the Vietnamese people
were illiterate. By 1958 illiteracy was eliminated in the DRV. During French
colonial days, less than half a million children were in school of whom only
17% were women, but in 1975 there were 4.8 million school children in the DRV
and half of them were female. Another
million adults participated in education courses.
The
Ministry of Education has made great efforts to Vietnamese education,
eliminating French texts and colonial and feudal approaches to education. All schools try to practice the motto:
“Combine instructions with work- theory with practice.”
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Socialised
Health Care. In the DRV, health care is free and special priority is
given to women’s health. Infant mortality rate was reduced from 40% in 1945 to
1.2% in 1972. Almost every village has its own maternity and gyneacology clinic.
The maternal mortality rate has dropped to less than one per cent. All
women get two months paid maternity leave before and after childbirth and
special meat and milk allowance while pregnant and nursing.
There is
a great deal of emphasis on preventive health care through educating the people
about health care. The population is
totally immunised against communicable diseases. Women, by law, are regularly checked by gyneacologists in work centres, factories and cooperatives.
THE
STRUGGLE CONTINUES
We have
equality but we are not equal.
Although
women have made tremendous gains, they recognise that there are still so many problems
to overcome. This awareness has been
heightened since re-unification was accomplished. In its 1974 Congress, the Union noted that
there still is uneveness in the progress of women
throughout the country and the goals for complete emancipation and equality are
still there to be fulfilled and achieved.
But the spirit and determination to keep on struggling is very much
alive, both among the women and men in Vietnam today.
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