Women Gain Equality in Vietnam

Women in Vietnam first gained full legal equality. with men when the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was founded in 1945. In a country that was moving directly from feudalism to socialism, it was necessary for the government to take many concrete measures to ensure that the constitutional rights of women did not remain a dead letter.

Among the most important measures first taken by the DRV were elimination of the scourge of illiteracy and the institution of universal compulsory primary education for children.

In the feudal Vietnamese family, a woman was essentially the property of her husband and his parents. A wife typically went to live in her husband's household, and his parents usually treated the daughter-in-law like a servant expected to do the most menial household and agricultural tasks. She was expected to raise a large number of children because their labor meant more hands in the fields. Women rarely knew how to read or write in a society where illiteracy in general was more than 90 percent, unless they came from a wealthy family. Nor did the society give recourse to women for physical abuse by husbands and a host of other injustices.

A women's organization was founded immediately after the revolution to help women understand and take advantage of their new freedom and equality. The women's organization not only defended women's rights but mobilized women to help defend the revolution. Today, physical mistreatment of women has virtually disappeared from North Vietnam. If a case does arise, the women's organization reports the guilty man to the legal authorities for punishmer t.

EDUCATION AND CHILDCARE

One of the most prominent revolutionary women to emerge from South Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Binh, former foreign minister of the Provisional Revolu tionary Government of South Vietnam, is now minister of education of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,

Perhaps one of the most important functions of the Ministry of Education that helps ensure that the emancipation of women becomes a reality is expanding the network of kindergartens, which provide pre-elementary school education for children of ages 3 to 5. At a kindergarten in the South, Phan Thi Hoa, head of a school with about 100 youngsters and 15 staff members, explained that, in her province of Hau Giang, "We are just beginning to build kindergartens and nurseries, not only for the sake of the children, but to liberate mothers from household work.'

That same concept prevails in the North, where the network of kindergartens and nurseries for infants and the youngest children, from two months to three years of is much more extensive than in age,

the South. At the time of liberation in 1975, there were virtually no nurseries or kindergartens in the South apart from orphanages run by religious bodies. The nurseries, which provide expert care, good nutrition and special medical attention, are under the supervision of a special ministerial-level body, the Committee for the Welfare of Mothers and Children. Parents, and women in particular, have entirely free choice in the decision of entrusting their children to nurseries and kindergartens. In the North, there are now more than 60,000 nurseries caring for about 1.1 million children.

BIRTH CONTROL

Vietnamese sometimes refer to feudal practices that once enslaved women. Most of these old practices such as polygamy have been abolished by law or, like arranged marriages, have been ended by young people themselves. But there is one vestige of former times that continues to weigh heavily on women and the society -family pressure to have a large number of children, preferably boys.

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The tradition of having a large family is example of an old concept that lingers long after the social conditions have made it anachronistic.

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Prosperity in Socialist Vietnam now depends on the advance of the society as a whole. But the rapid population growth as a result of families with four, five or more children that remain common in Vietnam can now threaten the very prosperity that gave root to the tradition of having large families.

Vietnam is' facing this problem with an all-round program, from discouraging very early marriage to making the means of birth control understood and readily available without cost. An extension of this program has been the introduction of abortion as a means of birth control. Although it is considered desirable that both partners request the abortion, it will be carried out upon the request of a woman alone.

Women desiring abortions receive them under medically proper conditions, free of any charge, and are guaranteed a sufficient period of rest from work afterward, without loss of pay. About 50,000 women a year now elect to terminate an unwanted pregnancy by abortion.

FULL EQUALITY

On several occasions male officials volunteered the information that it is still necessary to work to assure full equality to women. Young men must be educated to share housework, to share the responsi bilities of raising children and to understand that women's right to fulfillment in all spheres should be equal to men's. The equal burdens undertaken by Vietnamese women during the long resistance. struggles had helped eliminate many backward ideas among Vietnamese men, and the spirit of comradeship between Vietnamese men and women that was forged in the war is still alive and today helps women assert their full rights.

Or, as one Vietnamese schoolteacher put it, "If you allow me to use a term from Geometry, husband and wife are complementary. They are destined to be companions. Anyway I don't want myself trailing after any man.

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The Guardian September 13, 1978

Women do much of the hard labor in Vietnam along with the men. Here they are helping to build a theater for their town in Ha Son Binh Province southwest of Hanoi.

Feminists Organize in Spain

New York (Iberian News Service/LNS)--Under the slogan "Women! The Constitution Ignores Us," feminist groups across Spain are organizing a national campaign against the new constitution slated to be passed by the Spanish Cortes (parliament) in September. It will then be put before a public referendum. And unlike its Republican predecessor of 1931, this constitution will preserve the monarchy, Catholic Church hegemony and special state protection for the patriarchal family. The so-called 'democratic constitution," claimed to mark a real exit from Francoism, has sparked reaction from a wide sector of Spanish society protesting its conservative nature.

Feminists, for their part, say the tone of the new constitution is sexist, referring, for example, to "ciudandanos espanoles," that is, in the male gender exclusively. And not only does the constitution preserve monarchy but, to add insult to injury, it is made explicit that ascendance to the

LNS

throne is by male primogeniture. No reference is made to a woman's right to control her own reproduction which is considered basic by all feminists. Divorce is not even mentioned by name; the article on marriage stipulates that future laws will regulate "marriage, its forms and the causes of its dissolution.'

And while special economic, social and juridical protection is extended to the patriarchal family, the article on education does not provide for co-education, which feminists feel is essential if promises of equality and jobs for women are to become realities.

Women have long been subject to sexist legislation in Spain. The Francoist penal code specifies up to six years in jail for adultery (of which it is virtually impossible to convict a man); use or distribution of birth control; abortion; and prostitution. The husband has full financial control in the family, as well as "patria postestad," or property rights over the children.