Woman's Rights/Madam Nhu
From: Mac McIntosh
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 3:43 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I think it is very likely that every woman in Asia owes Madam Nhu a debt of gratitude in her bringing into law so many womens rights laws that have been emulated over the years. Her initiative that outlawed concubinage and polygamy in Vietnam was a huge breakthrough in women rights in Asia . The ability of a woman in Vietnam to control her own finances after marriage was a truly outstanding breakthrough in woman's rights and I don't believe has even been properly credited to Madam Nhu .
Mac McIntosh
The Lighhouse, Bluff, NZ
Kim Loan Said :
Regarding Madam Nhu, as you can guess, I was very young in the era of the Ngo's family, although I was old enough to remember the battle of the national government and the Binh Xuyen, the various coups d'etat against the Ngo and the assassination of the Ngo brother, the assassination of Kennedy, etc... I remember that my father thought madam Nhu should have stuck to her place - in the domestic domain and behind close door, and using her beauty to complement her husband in public function; my mother, however, thought that she was brave, daring to cross the line of the conventional prescription of the role of a Vietnamese woman and spoke her mind.
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From: Dutton, George
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 3:58 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This is the same Madame Nhu who sought to ban divorce and contraception, if memory serves . . .
George Dutton
UCLA
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From: Mac McIntosh
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 4:16 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
George : Madam Nhu was greatly and rightly concerned that the arrival of large contingents of of foreign (read American) military personnel would turn Vietnam into a nation of whores. She also passed a law banning prostitution . She viewed prostitution as economic exploitation of women rather than any sort of womans right . Circa Xmas 1962 there was a huge fire in one of the slum/refugee rats nests area of Saigon that left many poor people homeless. Madam Nhu headed up the charity aimed at bringing relief to these people . My wife at the time joined the charity committee. I recall her coming home from some of these meetings with Madam Nhu quite impressed over the passion that Madam Nhu presented her views on economic exploitation of women in Vietnam .
Mac McIntosh
The Lighthouse- Bluff NZ
Rights/Madam Nhu
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 4:45 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Mme Nhu certainly suffered from misoginy, but she also brought a lot of bad publicity on her head.
Some of the laws passed with Mme Nhu's impetus were to the benefit of women; but not all were.Many South Vietnamese who would otherwise have given credit to Mme Nhu for some of these laws is that the motives behind these laws were sometimes tainted. Robert Scigliano in his South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress, gives some background about the law banning divorce (it involves her sister). Furthermore, there was very lax enforcement of the laws. Polygamy was rampant and open in the South whereas, while it was not fully eradicated in the North, it went underground (and has re-emerged since the 1990s).
While Mme Nhu was concerned about the increase in prostitution, the laws that were passed to uphold morality were widely derided. One example was the banning of longline bras, which she quite obviously made use of herself. Also, people could not quite believe that this was as urgent a matter as the war that was going on.
Mme Nhu used her Women's movement not to promote women's rights but to serve her own ends. During the Buddhist crisis, Vietnamese public schools were closed down after students held demonstrations. In my own lycee Marie Curie, there were some sit-ins; but the principal managed to hold off a police raid by claiming extra-territoriality (!) then asking parents to take their children home before closing the school down. So the police did not get to see the protesting students in action. Yet, the ring-leaders were arrested; they'd been fingered by the children of Mme Nhu's cronies. The misuse of the Women's movement actually set back the cause of feminism in the South.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Christina Firpo
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 4:46 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Mac and list,
I don't think that Madam Nhu's fear of Vietnam being turned into a "nation of whores" answers George's question. A ban on divorce and contraception would not limit only sex workers, who most likely did not marry their clients, but all Vietnamese women, regardless of their partners' nationality.
Perhaps "nation of whores" is not the best way to refer to Vietnamese women who have sexual relations with foreign soldiers. First of all, "whore" is an insulting way to refer to women in the sex industry. Second, and more important, not all women who have sex with foreigners are sex workers. Some of those encounters were for fun (without a money transaction), some were rapes, and some were based on love or romance.
Since women's rights are so complex and contentious, we should probably stay away from making blanket statements that all women owe a debt of gratitude to Madame Nhu or any women's rights advocate or feminist. What might be advocacy to one woman could be oppression to another.
Best,
Christina
--
Christina Firpo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Southeast Asian History
CalPoly University
San Luis Obispo, California
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From: Christina Firpo
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Please disregard my last statement.
In light of some of the recent VSG discussions, I'm afraid my email may have come off as a bit feisty, which was not at all my intention. Because it is difficult to 'hear' the tone of emails, I'm afraid that my attempt at a *gentle* nudge might not appear all that gentle as I re-read my statement.
I meant no harm.
Sincerely,
Christina
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From: Mac McIntosh
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:17 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Christina , I should have used quotation marks , because those were Madam Nhu's words and she used them with great passion . Madam Nhu referred to many aspects of life in Vietnam and Vietnamese society in ways that were not politically correct but did project her deep passion about her concerns.
I note that the DRV very quickly emulated Madam Nhu's law making in the area of concubinage and polygamy . And although many of Madam Nhu's initiatives were overturned , her breakthrough on a woman's right to independence in economic matters remained and was something that many other Asian women are still striving for .
I do think it only proper to acknowledge that the women's rights initiatives vanguarded by Madam Nhu were revolutionary in their day.
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:39 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
"This may be an East Asian problem or a South Asian problem, but it has never really been a Southeast Asian problem as in SEA women were always traders. Relevant to the confucian ideology of the old Vietnamese ruling class I suppose.
Melanie
Melanie Beresford
Associate Dean Research
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109
Australia
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From: Mac McIntosh
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 6:02 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie , Until the laws introduced by Madame Nhu were passed , I think you will find that a woman's right to retain her own property in her own name upon marriage was not the case in Vietnam , North or South .
It was a revolutionary breakthrough for womens rights in all of Asia. There has been plenty bad said about Madame Nhu , I think it only fair that the positive aspects of her legacy be acknowledged.
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From: Taivanta
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 6:26 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Mr McIntosh,
Vietnamese women's right to separate property dated back to the Le dynasty law code and had to be recognized by French colonial courts in Indochina. This is discussed at length
In my several publications. Tai VanTa
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From: Mac McIntosh
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 6:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Tai Van Ta,
I would be interested in reading your several publications since at the time the law was passed in 1957 , it was widely recognized that this was a revolutionary change in that previously upon marriage all of a woman's property was transferred over to her husband's name . That is one of the reasons the family law introduced by Madam Nhu was so controversial .
Mac McIn tosh
The Lighthouse, Bluff
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 8:19 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, Mac McIntosh <alohamac@xtra.con.nz>
Dear Mr.McIntosh:
For Vietnamese women's separate property rights, please, locate my following article and book in some library--printed before the advent of electronic database and Internet: "The status of women in Traditional Vietnam",Journal of Asian History, 2/1981; The Le Code:Law In Traditional Vietnam,Ohio U.Press,1987, read :Introduction.
A simple entertaining version is "Continuity and change in Vietnamese women's role through the ages ", in my website www.taivanta.com .
There are law cases--in Vietnamese language-- in Phap Ly Tap San (Law Journal, publìshed by Ministry of Justice of South Vietnam) , available at Library of Congress.
Tai Van Ta
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From: Christina Firpo
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 7:59 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List,
This discussion of Madame Nhu and women's rights is very interesting. If anything, I think it calls for more work on Vietnamese feminisms. Would anyone care to join me in organizing an AAS (or other conference) panel about the state of gender studies in the field or studies of Vn feminisms? If so, please contact me off list.
Although I do study VN feminisms in an earlier period, I have not studied Madame Nhu so I'm hesitant to comment much more, but I do think it's worth it to ask what it means to advocate for women's rights. (Please notice that I did not use the F-word, as it tends to be a target for political criticism and *much* misunderstanding.) Without debating whether or not Madame Nhu was a feminist, we should ask whether or not she was an activist of women's rights.
So, what makes an activist for women's rights/feminist? I'll argue that an activist, and more specifically a feminist, advocates on behalf of a group of people--women in this case--*to give them the legal, social, or cultural power to represent themselves and make decisions for themselves.* That means, for example, advocating laws that increase that group's choices and opportunities, regardless of whether or not the activist likes any of the results of those choices.
And what do we call an 'advocate' who supports a group and makes decisions in their best interest? That's the classic definition for paternalism (or maternalism). It's the old Gloria Steinem story about asking the turtle. (For those of you who are not familiar with it, it's great for teaching http://www.yuni.com/library/docs/217.html)
It seems that Madame Nhu certainly enacted legislation that *concerned* women, such as limiting--or attempting to limit-- concubinage, polygamy, divorce, contraception, and trying to avoid turning VN into a "nation of whores," among other things. While one could argue that, in some ways, limiting concubinage, polygamy, and prostitution gave women more choices, it really depends her argument justifying limiting women's choices in those three. (Yes, one could also argue that women could assert agency and choice in concubinical or polygamous relationships, or as in her work as a prostitute). Regarding the issues of divorce, contraception, using sex workers as an insult, and critiques of women who chose partners "outside" of their ethnic groups (exogamous relationships), she was clearly infected with a case of paternalism/maternalism.
Mac, I realize you don't want her legacy to be vilified completely--and I don't think she should be--but perhaps it's best to recognize that her politics, like that of any other person concerned with women's issues or any feminist, are very nuanced and complicated. As with any other historical figure, we should never cease to analyze her actions with a critical eye and recognize that she had very complicated politics.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how she defined concubinage? Did she seek to outlaw all non-married, opposite-sex cohabitation? That would be quite a limit!
Christina
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 8:35 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It deserves attention that on December 18th, less than two months after Diem & Nhu had been creatively assisted to commit suicide, Madame Nhu's Family Code Law was rescinded. While this act certainly reflected the revengeful feelings of the male chauvinist (a.k.a. pig:) and/or non-Catholic elements in South Vietnam's political class, one may also consider it a reaction to the top-down nature of the law's enactment. Madame Nhu did not really bother "to give women the legal, social, or cultural power to represent themselves and make decisions for themselves;" she considered it sufficient to represent them single-handedly. (According to some reports, she called the majority leader of the National Assembly, who opposed her law for one reason or another, a pig -see the P-word again.:) Had the law been backed up by the activities of a substantial number of self-mobilized women, it might have had a better chance to survive Diem's downfall.
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From: Frank
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:30 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I think it is not at all self-evident that banning polygyny, concubinage and prostitution is in any way a victory for women's rights. Banning them in law has little or nothing to do with actual practice in society. There is certainly enough counter-evidence that women who find themselves as the minor wife or concubine in a system in which polygyny and/or concubinage are legally recognized have certain protections that disappear when the system 'prohibits' such practices but is effectively powerless to make the practices disappear. And there is certainly evidence worldwide - including in Vietnam under the French colonial system of 'reglementation' - that legally recognizing prostitution can afford a certain degree of protection to its practitioners that they lose completely under a system of abolitionism. No, Madame Nhu simply seems to be asserting a consistent anti-sex orientation, not a pro-woman one.
Best,
Frank Proschan
37 place Jeanne d'Arc
75013 Paris
FRANCE
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From: Chung Nguyen
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:48 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Perhaps a little context would also help to understand this “revengeful” feeling. Madame Nhu aka Tran Thi Le Xuan aka “The Dragon Lady” was very unpopular in the country at the time because of her many scandalous behaviors (e.g. the Hai Ba Trung statue at Ben Cang Saigon looked very much like herself and her daughter, how she was perceived as abusing her role as the Presidential Adviser’s wife, etc.).
The Family Code Law, as Balazs pointed out, was arrogantly jammed down the throats of the National Assembly. There was widespread story at the time that it had little to do with women’s rights but the family situation of her sister, who was to be divorced by her husband. It was seen as an authorian power play instead of a genuine concern for the situation of women.
Although Madam Nhu was the titular head of Phu Nu Lien Doi, with hundreds of thousands of members, there was no advance work to seek their support for this law.
CN
Umass Boston
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A good point, taking into consideration how she sought to recruit women (including bar girls) for armed struggle against the Communists. A partly similar tendency was observable in Khomeini's Iran where women's rights were sharply curtailed in the name of Islamic morality, but their involvement in political organizations and even in armed militias was tolerated and even encouraged. Pictures taken in 1979-80 show Iranian women posing with automatic weapons, which would have been very uncommon before the revolution. Of course, in other respects the two cases were rather different, since the South Vietnamese Family Code Law provided a number of rights to which the Islamic Republic was vehemently opposed. Still, there was a common underlying message: a woman's place is in the family, and if she happens to appear outside that framework, she should build and defend the nation, rather than satisfy her own private desires.
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:22 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, I am familiar with the story about her sister, and given the family-centered nature of the regime, this was probably an important factor. Still, I can easily accept the interpretation that she had a somewhat broader vision. I doubt if she regarded the liberation of women as her primary task; I would rather say that her campaign was a part of a more comprehensive social engineering project that sought to mobilize, regulate, homogenize, and purify South Vietnamese society for the struggle against Communism, by methods which were in more than one respect similar to Communist ones (see the nature of Phu Nu Lien Doi). Diem and Nhu, just like the Guomindang leaders in China and Taiwan, repeatedly expressed their intention to selectively imitate Communist practices, and ended up with a regime that did stamp out democracy with a remarkable thoroughness but did not become such a stable dictatorship as its northern rival.
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From: Walter james Mc intosh
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 12:35 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
After reading the comments below regarding Madame Nhu and the Family Law measures that she introduced into the Legislature I get a real feeling of disconnect with what was then the reality of Saigon/ChoLon . There was a war going on of which the majority of the pain was being felt by the rural population , while at the same time Saigon and Cholon was a hot bed of corruption , brothels and opium dens , taxi dance halls , night clubs open all hours. A place people profiting from the war and for the many foreigners to live it up .
Madam Nhu rightly noted that in the Korean War , the authorities there tried to show solidarity with the people of the countryside by closing down the nightclubs in Seoul .
The Diem government was attempting to project an ISM to counter Communism . Personalism which extolled the dignity of man fit well with the measures that Madame Nhu was pushing . What were the people of free Vietnam supposed to be fighting for? Certainly not to maintain the sorid life style promoted by the Binh Xuyen or the Colon French . There was great appeal in some quarters to attempt to have Saigon shed it image of the Paris of the far east and have the RVN take a moralistic stand on a number of issues.
Under the Family Law , a woman in Vietnam could pursue any occupation or profession , which was not previously the case. The very idea of creating a woman's Army and a Woman's police force and a militant youth group that were promoting moral aspects to living and militant anti-communism were positive factors for a non-communist state . It really was too bad that the Americans could not buy into or respect what the Ngo family was trying to do.
Madame Nhu simply seems to be asserting a consistent anti-sex orientation, not a pro-woman one.
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 12:56 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
What did I say about the similarities between Madame Nhu's militarized ex-bar girls and the Iranian female revolutionaries posing with automatic weapons?:)) While Saigon was certainly a hotbed of corruption and illicit wealth, one may also add that Diem's family, including Madame Nhu's herself, also took a fairly biggish slice of all that. Quite different from South Korea's Park Chung Hee or Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew.
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From: Walter james Mc intosh
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:19 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
When Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were murdered by Henry Cabot Lodge and his criminal conspiritors there was a concerted effort to blacken the name of the entire Ngo family in order to justify or rationalize the murders . While Madame Nhu was raised in one of Vietnam's most wealthy familes , I have never seen convincing evidence of personal corruption by Diem , Nhu or his wife.
If someone has such evidence I would certainly like to examine it
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:56 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Pro primo: Ngo, Inc. had a fairly bad press abroad (at home they took care of such things)years before their assassination, and not without reason. Pro secundo: pray, why on earth would have JFK wanted to remove (and possibly kill) a president who was supposedly in the process of successfully eliminating the Commie threat once and for all? Mayhap because said president was in some respects disturbingly similar to Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, also known as El Benefactor, who also had his American admirers and who also ended up bullet-ridden, with some involvement by the competent US organs.
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 2:06 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
http://www.lib.washington.edu/Southeastasia/vsg/elist_2006/Madame%20Nhu.html
This thread brings back memory, as several of my first posts on VSG had to do with Madame Nhu. But this post isn't about any specific points, only a general take.
It seems to me that debating about Madame Nhu can easily turn into something along the line (once popular) of "Puritans: Builders or Bigots?" Or, perhaps more attuned to the subject at hand, "Puritans: Builders or Joykillers?" Although this dichotomy was not without benefit, the scholarship on the Puritans has mercifully moved beyond it.
Mercifully too, some of the posts here suggest that the history of Madame Nhu might have been more complicated than the pro-or-con, black-and-white speculations based largely on theory and/or contemporary impressions and reactions. Helpful that these venues may be, they can carry us only so far in the end.
Ultimately, what is needed is evidence: archival and otherwise, but especially archival. Which means we could use one or more researchers willing to roll off their sleeves and dig into the historical records at Archives II in HCMC and elsewhere. While waiting for the records, they may want to check out the publication Công Báo of the First Republic, which may include transcripts of involving Madame Nhu. I remember seeing one such transcript while looking for something else in a volume of the CB's National Assembly edition. There could be more in other volumes.
Finally, there was a paper on Madame Nhu by Monique Demery presented at AAS a couple of years ago. I wasn't there, and don't have a copy of the paper. But based on the abstract, it seems that this is a move in the right direction in scholarly orientation.
http://www.asian-studies.org/absts/2009abst/SouthEast/SE-30.htm
~Tuan Hoang
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From: Walter james Mc intosh
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 2:28 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It is true that the Diem Government did have fairly bad press but many of the reasons were due to mutual distrust and personal back biting and even vendetta's . The American press felt that as Vietnam was essentially a client state that they should have unfettered access to any and all . The fact that the DRV had in place a journalist agent of influence that became one of the chief sources of news regarding palace intrigues for the NYT's was bound to create major tensions and a lot of false reporting .
On your second point : IMO the single worst mistake JFK made in his short presidency was replacing Fredrick Nolting with his number 1 political enemy , a man who hated JFK and everything he stood for
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From: Balazs Szalontai
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 2:49 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
As for Cabot Lodge's role: it might be kept in mind that he could not have staged a coup if a fairly substantial part of the officer corps had not had quite serious reasons of its own to depose Diem. Once again, some comparisons with South Korea and Singapore are revealing. When the head of the KCIA assassinated Park Chung Hee, the military promptly arrested and later executed him. In authoritarian (or semi-authoritarian) Singapore, the mere idea of a military coup is a bad joke.
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Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 3:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group vsg@u.washington.edu
Tuan Hoang , I really agree that a reevaluation of existing evidence is particularly needed . The very fact that much of the reporting was influenced by a Communist Agent of Influence is one important factor. The deceit and official misreporting by Ambassador Lodge is another factor . The fact that Lodge's chief aide , Mike Dunn , could evade reporting key conversations and untoward actions by Lodge until after Lodge's deathis another. The fact that my dear old friend Lou Conien was an alcholic and his memorandums regarding what happened were compiled well after events are very suspect. Also it is often not recognized that although Lou spoke French , he understood no Vietnamese therefore , his reporting on the various meetings were in no way complete to begin with . Yes the official record is quite flawed.
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From: Walter james Mc intosh
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 3:12 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It is also important to keep in mind that Lodge directly disobeyed the President of the United States orders in regard to the coup , and that no coup would have occured at all but for Lodge coming up with money to pay the assassins. Even then , when Diem and Nhu managed to escape from the Presidential Palace the bumbling coup group had to be told by Lodge where to find Diem and Nhu by Lodge .
IMO , It was on that day in 1963 in the year of the Cat/Hare that any hope for a free Vietnam was lost.