VIETNAMESE WOMAN: PAST AND PRESENT Nguyen Ky Nam http://designcomputing.

net Vietnamese women have always been in the forefront in fighting back foreign invaders. A good example of the Vietnamese heroines is the Trung sisters who led the first national uprising against the Chinese in the year 40 A.D. Despite of their bravery and patriotism, Vietnamese women in our feudal past have little education opportunities and very low status in the society and family. Vietnam, like most countries in East Asia, is very much influenced by the Confucius philosophy. In the old Vietnam, men are always at the top of the social hierarchy. Our women like Chinese woman, were taught that as young girls, they have to obey their father; as married woman, they have to obey their husbands, and as widows, they have to obey their sons. Our men, like Chinese men, are allowed to have as many wives as they could afford. Our women, in what ever circumstance, are considered virtuous if they maintain a single husband. If an unmarried woman is pregnant, she, not the adulterer is put to trial. It is considered a crime if a wife does not bear her husband a son. The status of Vietnamese women can be judged by studying the following old say1ing: Tht g, cm np, n b, C ba th y u l dng tay. meaning for chicken, sticky rice and women, hands should be used. Our eating culture has equated our women to a food item! In feudal Vietnam, there are stories about using woman as a ritual sacrifice. One story goes like this. There was a village where beautiful women were used as a ritual sacrifice to a River God on a yearly basis. These helpless women were tied to big stones and thrown into the river. One day, a high government official visited the village. Learning about the barbaric custom in the village, he hold a meeting with villagers and ordered heartless village elders to take turns visiting the River God themselves. Since none of the elders returned, the custom ceased. In our recent war time, woman's status was raised for obvious reasons. While men were in the battle fields, women take additional responsibilities at home. Some of them also took part in combat activities. Nguyen Thi Bac, a captured female revolutionist, responded to the French judge that the French in Vietnam should return to France and bring down the statue of Jeanne d'Arc. Vietnam has undergone a period of rapid modernization and urbanization over the past decade. Vietnamese women have nearly the same education and job opportunities as men. They now take on dual roles: one in the work force and one in the household. Vietnamese men, unfortunately, have not taken on new roles in the household, which are still dominated by woman. Recent UNDP statistics show both rural and urban women spend more time for work than their male counterparts. As far as domestic work is

concerned, rural women spend 6 hours and rural men spend a mere 0.5 hour while urban women spend 5.23 hours and urban men spend 1.17 hours. As a result, women have much less time to sleep their male counterpart and this affects their health. Unlike Vietnamese women in the past, our women are now more career oriented. There is a higher proportion of young women pursuing higher education and professional careers and dumping their husbands. It is not easy for an educated wife to accept a husband who spends more time with alcohol and mistresses than with her and her children. More and more marriages end in divorce and about 80% of divorce cases are initiated by woman. The HWU President Nguyen Thi Lap Quoc argues that the increasing divorce rate was in a way a positive signal, as in the past no women would dare to leave her husband as she has no means of supporting herself and her children. Possibly, the most miserable group in the modern Vietnam is rural women. Because of urbanization, many village males left for cities to look for jobs. Statistics from three communes in Soc Son district show the ratio between men and women at the age from 30-46 is 1 to 6 (email from Nguyen Thi Hoai Duc to womenhealth@phoenixedc.org). It is very difficult for a village woman to find a husband. At the same time, due to the feudal attitude, unmarried women (and single mothers) are not respected by their own family and the community. Like married women, they are also suffering from gynecological diseases such as RTI, pelvic inflammation and menstrual disorders. Unlike married women, they do not want to talk about their diseases and are reluctant to go to the medical center for check-up. Most of them are poor. Our single mothers, unlike their counterparts in Australia hardly know terms such as "single mother benefits" or "childsupport money" as these terms simply do not exist. Measured by the dramatic fall in the birth rate from 3.8 per women in 1989 to 2.3 in 2000, the campaign "small happy family" is one of the most successful in Asia. However, according to the FEER June 2000, behind the impressive figure are more troubling statistics: half of the pregnancies end in abortion which is not illegal in Vietnam, taking a heavy toll on women's health. Many women have abortions because they are afraid of IUD. They think IUD causes disease. As for pill, many women fear it causes cancer and infertility. As for condom, men don't like them. According to Action Aid UK, over the last decade, Vietnam has become one of the largest sources of human trafficking in SE Asia. Over 100,000 women were tricked into leaving the home by promise on education, marriage and affluent life. This is due to rural poverty coupled with the shortage of women in neighboring China and Taiwan due to the one-child policy in China and Chinese preference for boys. Women were also trafficked to Cambodia where they were forced into prostitutions. UNICEF statistics show that half of the 45,000 sex workers are Vietnamese. Despite the fact that the status of Vietnamese women is much higher or much talked about in recent times, there are still obstacles to its raise. Many women think that one of the main obstacles is the women themselves if they don't change their way of life, thinking and attitude.