Following the trail of the fairy-bird: The search for a uniquely Vietnamese women’s movement

Is it possible to speak of a uniquely ‘Vietnamese’ feminist movement?Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese scholars, writing from both inside and outside the country, frequently ponder this question (Duong 2001; Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngog Hung 1997; Turner and Phan 1998). In so doing, they explore the peculiar and sometimes ambiguous paths taken by activists in the women’s movement as their nation moved from kingdom to colony and through wars to the current Communist Party-led republic. Their project of excavating the particularities of Vietnamese feminism is complicated by the absence of a single word that directly correlates to the English term ‘feminism’ in the Vietnamese language.1 In its place they talk of ‘a movement that seeks to improve the status of women’ within discussions infused variously with nationalist, modernist, socialist and patriotic sentiments. The persistent public narratives about the improvement of women’s status in Vietnam attest to the importance of this aspect of social change to national identity in a rapidly globalizing world. This chapter explores the current dominant perceptions of the evolution of the Vietnamese women’s movement from its mythic origins through to the present. In so doing, it emphasizes the movement’s ambivalent and sometimes contradictory nature. The chapter argues that the ongoing desire to locate a ‘uniquely Vietnamese’ movement has often simultaneously promoted and obstructed the development of a self-conscious feminism. The ‘myth of uniqueness’ has drawn upon deep cultural symbols and ideals of femininity that have circulated for generations, but it also resides in longstanding images of female resistance and active participation in social and political movements by women.