| Women In The Revolutionary
Struggle War And Revolution In China And Vietnam Author: Schwartz, Stuart B. Date: 1992 Document: Women In The Revolutionary Struggle Even more than in the nationalist movements in colonized areas such as India and Egypt, women were drawn in large numbers into violent, revolutionary struggles in areas such as China and Vietnam. The breakdown of the political system and social order not only weakened the legal and family restrictions that had subordinated women and limited their career choices, but it ushered in decades of severe crisis and brutal conflict in which the very survival of women depended on them assuming radically new roles and actively involving themselves in revolutionary activities. The following quotations are taken from Vietnamese and Chinese revolutionary writings and interviews with women involved in the revolutionary movements in each country. They express the women's goals, their struggle to be taken seriously in the uncharacteristic political roles they had assumed, and some of the many ways women found self-respect and redress for their grievances as a result of the changes wrought by the spread of the new social order. 1. Women must first of all be masters of themselves. They must strive to become skilled workers ... and, at the same time, they must strictly observe family planning. Another major question is the responsibility of husbands to help their wives look after children and other housework. ... 2. We intellectuals had had little contact with the peasants and when we first walked through the village in our Chinese gowns or skirts the people would just stare at us and talk behind our backs. When the village head beat gongs to call out the women to the meetings we were holding for them, only men and old women came, but no young ones. Later we found out that the landlords and rich peasants had spread slanders among the masses saying "They are a pack of wild women. Their words are not for young brides to hear." 3. ... brave wives and daughters-in-law, untrammelled by the presence of their menfolk, could voice their own bitterness ... encourage their poor sisters to do likewise, and thus eventually bring to the village-wide gatherings the strength of "half of China" as the more enlightened women, very much in earnest, like to call themselves. By "speaking pains to recall pains," the women found that they had as many if not more grievances than the men, and that given a chance to speak in public, they were as good at it as their fathers and husbands. 4. In Chingtsun the work team found a woman whose husband thought her ugly and wanted to divorce her. She was very depressed until she learned that under the Draft Law [of the Communist party] she could have her own share of land. Then she cheered up immediately. "If he divorces me, never mind," she said. "I'll get my share and the children will get theirs. We can live a good life without him." A project by History World International |