CLASS, GENDER AND side, including the patriarchal concepts THE REPRESENTATION and the kinship system. The post-war writers use the pictures of unhappy OF PEASANT WOMEN women in the remote villages to criticise IN VIETNAMESE and ridicule the rhetoric and promises LITERATURE* of the revolution. The Emergence of Peasant Montira Rato** Women in Vietnamese Literature Abstract Traditionally, Vietnamese women have The paper seeks to explore how peas­ been controlled by the Confucian ant women are portrayed in Vietnamese concepts of three submissions and four literature and tries to highlight that, virtues. The three submissions divide a throughout the development of Modem woman's life into three stages: when she Vietnamese literature, the way in which is young, she has to obey her father; peasant women are portrayed is closely when she is married, she has to depend related to political agendas and ideologi­ on her husband; and if her husband dies, cal struggles. It also proposes that the she will have to listen to her eldest son. construction of peasant women in The four virtues include, labour-which Vietnamese literature is not only gen­ constitutes skills like cooking, sewing der-based, but also class-bound. In the and embroidery, physical appearance, period between 1930 and 1945, the appropriate speech and proper victimisation of peasant women was behaviour. However, it is argued that used as a tool to criticise the colonial these Confucian doctrines were strictly administration. In the 1945-75 period, applied only to upper-class women literature took part in mobilising the whereas women from lower classes, force of peasant women in the building especially peasant women, suffered, to ofa socialist nation. However, post-1975 a lesser degree, from these Confucian literature reflected the failure of the influences. Communist government and its Socialist ideology to eradicate the For example, Arlene Eisen Bergman residue of the old values in the country makes an observation in her study on Vietnamese women that, 'Peasant women were by no means simply sorrowful victims of feudal patriarchy. * This article is based on Chapter 3, 'Peasant Women' in Ph.D. thesis entitled Their songs expressed their anger and 1 'Peasants and the countryside is Post-1975 also gave strength to their resistance.' Vietnamese Literature'., SOAS, University of London, 2003. 1 Bergman, Arlene Eisen. Women of ** Lecturer in Vietnamese Department of Vietnam. Second edition. San Francisco: Eastern Language, Faculty of Arts, People Press, 1975.P.35. Chulalongkom University. Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 09:18:35PM via free access MANUSYA: journal ofHumanities (Special Issue. No.5 2003.) Tran Quoc Vuong also states in his book traditional Vietnamese village very Truyen Thong Phu Nu VietNam (The much depended on the status of her Tradition of Vietnamese Women) that husband, as Jamieson describes: the peasant family was based on the harmony between husband and wife. He The village status hierarchy was then supports his argument with this formally restricted to men only. proverb; thuan vo thuan chong tat bien Strictly speaking, women were Dong cung can (the harmony between not even members of the vil­ husband and wife can dry the Eastern lage. A woman's status level, in Sea).2 It is also generally assumed that the sense of the way people working in the rice fields and sometimes treated her, depended upon her earning extra money from being small age, her reputation and her traders in markets allowed a peasant background. But basically, a woman more freedom both inside her woman took her husband's household and in the public sphere. status. Women were, in fact, commonly addressed and Nevertheless, a different view is referred to by their husband's proposed by the historian David Marr, status, title, or role.4 who points out that although women in peasant families might not have to According to Marr, it was not until the endure Confucian norms as much as did 1920s that the debate on women's rights upper - and middle-class women, they apparently began in Vietnam. A num­ were not necessarily better off. Young ber of magazines and j oumals during daughters from peasant families were this period, such as Nam Phong (South­ sold as servants, concubines, or prosti­ em Ethos), were dedicated to the issue tutes becauseof family poverty. There of women's rights. However, the focus were also cases of tenants' wives or of these magazines was mainly restricted daughters being harassed or raped by to the interests of upper-class women. 5 landowners or mandarins. 3 Moreover, in Also, it can be observed that the empha­ a peasant family, the main labour in the sis on women's issues in this period rice fields was normally undertaken by reflected the decline of Confucianism women. In spite of the fact that women and the increasing influence of West­ played a vital role in the family's liveli­ ern ideas of egalitarianism and individu­ hood, their status both in the family and alism. In literature, the individual in society was still lower than that of pursuit of happiness is contrasted with men. The position of a woman in the Confucian doctrine, which emphasises 2 Tran Quoc Vuong.Truyen Thong Phu Nu 4 Jamieson, NeilL., 'The Traditional Village Viet Nam (The Tradition of Vietnamese in Vietnam' in The Vietnam Forum, no.7. Women). Hanoi: NXB (Nha Xuat Ban = New Haven: Yale Southeast Asian Studies, Publishing House) Phu Nu, 1972. P. 12. 1986. P.100. 3 Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on 5 Marr, David. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945. Los Angeles: University Trial, 1920-1945. P. 202. of California Press, 1984. P. 197. 48 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 09:18:35PM via free access Class, Gender and the Representation the duty of a person towards his or her never emancipate themselves. family and society. Arranged marriage So, it is necessary to fight the is strongly opposed, whereas freedom feudalists or religious customs in love and marriage is promoted. The and superstitions in their way, novel To Tam [1925] by Hoang Ngoc give women workers and peas­ Phach and the works by Tu Luc Van ants inventive political educa­ Doan (The Self-Reliant Literary Group) tion, arouse their class con­ published between 1933-1936, such as sciousness and enable them to the novel Doan Tuyet (Breaking the Tie) join the organisations of the [1935] by Nhat Linh, portray middle­ working class. Political work and upper-class women who were tom must be carried out not only in apart by love and filial piety. 6 However, towns but also in the country­ the bourgeois movement to modernise side, among the poor peasants Vietnam and the demand for the and all working women.. .To individual pursuit of happiness against rally the women of all social Confucian ethics did not give much strata, women's organisation attention to peasant women. Women should unite them in the from the lower classes, such as peasants struggle for their own rights and and workers, are almost absent from the for their complete emancipa­ works by urban-based writers. tion. These organisations shall enrol working women, workers' It was the Indochinese Communist Party wives, women small traders, that eagerly put problems of!ower-class and all those who cannot join women to the fore during the 1930s. It the workers' and peasants' was clearly stated in the report from the organisations.7 (sic.) plenary session of the Party held in October, 1930 that: The influence of Marxist ideology on the emancipation of women is shown in The party must free women the articles by Phan Khoi and Nguyen from bourgeois ideas and elimi­ Thi Chinh published in the women's nate the illusion of equality magazine Phu Nu Tan Van numbering between the sexes expanded in 160 (21-07-1932) and number 162 bourgeois theories. At the same (04-08-1932), respectively. Phan Khoi time, it must enable women to comments that the only way to emanci­ participate in the revolutionary pate women is to change people's nhan struggles of the workers and sanh quan (way of thinking). Nguyen peasants. This is an important Thi Chinh argues that women's task. For if women do not take liberation is related to luat tien hoa cua part in these struggles, they can Iich su (historical development) and nen 6 For further discussion on these works, see 7 Mai Thi Tu and Le Thi Nham Tuyet. chapter 3 in Jamieson, NeilL. Understand­ Women in Vietnam. Hanoi: Foreign Lan­ ing Vietnam. Berkeley: University of Cali­ guages Publishing House, 1978. Pp. 116- fornia Press, 1995. 117. 49 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 09:18:35PM via free access MANUSYA:journal of Humanities (Special Issue. No.5 2003.) mong kinh te (economic foundation). Property and the State [ 1884]. This book Therefore, to liberate women it is played an important role in making necessary not only to change their way policies and forming ideologies on of thinking, but also to reduce their gender and family in Communist states, working hours and increase their wages. Vietnam included.9 In his well-known By doing so, there would be a conscious­ work, Engels explains that the subordi­ ness of women's rights among working­ nation of women is related to material class women who, unlike women from inequality and the ownership of private the middle-class, were still not aware of property. He argues further that the abo­ the ongoing debate.8 However, it was not lition of the family-based economy, and until the mid-1930s that working-class the provision of social services cover­ and peasant women had a chance to ing domestic chores and childcare participate in the women's movement.