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Even the Women Must Fight: Memories of War from North Vietnam
Even the Women Must Fight
""Karen Turner and Phan Thanh Hao have brought scholarship and compassion to a long-neglected aspect of the Vietnam War--the contributions of Vietnamese women to the independence struggle of their nation and the terrible price they paid for their courage and patriotism.""--Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright Shining John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.
A searing chronicle of wartime experiences, Even the Women Must Fight probes the cultural legacy of North Vietnam's American War. Unflinching in its portrayal of hardship, valor, and personal sacrifice, this wrenching account is nothing short of a revelation, banishing in one bold stroke the familiar image of Vietnamese women as passive onlookers, war brides, prostitutes, or helpless refugees.
""Karen Turner has given us a book that will change our understanding of the Vietnam War--and of Vietnam today. I found it enthralling."" --Cynthia Enloe, author of The Morning
* Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War.
""A first-rate book that will add substantially to our understanding of the human tragedy associated with one of the most bloody conflicts in recent history.""--Robert Brigham, Professor of History, Vassar College.
""Karen Turner and Phan Thanh Hao have brought scholarship and compassion to a long-neglected aspect of the Vietnam War--the contributions of Vietnamese women to the independence struggle of their nation and the terrible price they paid for their courage and patriotism.""--Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright Shining John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.
A searing chronicle of wartime experiences, Even the Women Must Fight probes the cultural legacy of North Vietnam's American War. Unflinching in its portrayal of hardship, valor, and personal sacrifice, this wrenching account is nothing short of a revelation, banishing in one bold stroke the familiar image of Vietnamese women as passive onlookers, war brides, prostitutes, or helpless refugees.
""Karen Turner has given us a book that will change our understanding of the Vietnam War--and of Vietnam today. I found it enthralling."" --Cynthia Enloe, author of The Morning
* Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War.
""A first-rate book that will add substantially to our understanding of the human tragedy associated with one of the most bloody conflicts in recent history.""--Robert Brigham, Professor of History, Vassar College.
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 1, 2021
Though the stories retrieved from the interviews are not well presented in a way that the interviewees' emotions, thoughts, and beliefs are fully expressed, this book is still a go-to read for anyone who wants to understand women in Vietnam War. It covers different aspects: from gender relations, motivations of women to go to war to the post-war struggles.
March 1, 2024
For Class
May 3, 2012
Interesting book. The author lived in Viet Nam for a couple of years and collaborated with Vietnamese friends to investigate and write a story of the participation of women in the "American War." Hard data was difficult to come by and so most of the book is the stories that the interviewed women told of their wartime experience.
Most women interviewed participated in the building and repairing of the Ho Chi Min trail. Others fought on the ground, were couriers, spies, manned antiaircraft batteries etc. On the trail jungle with its wild animals, poisonous snakes, high mountains was absolutely foreign to these Northern women from the flat Red River plains. The work was back breaking. The food shortages lead to starvation deaths. Malaria was rampant. The workers and truck drivers were so inexperience that some did not know how to put the trucks in reverse. The trail was constantly bombed and the women needed to defuse the unexploded ordinance and repair the cratered roads.
North Viet Nam became a gender neutral country during the war. Women traveled long distances by themselves without any fear of harassment. There was no history of "comfort women" but these young men and women did fall in love, have children and get married. It seems mostly that the work and conditions were so hard that there was tremendous group unity, cooperation and respect just to survive.
Most of these women were teenagers and in the jungles for 5,6, 7 years. It was the prime of their life, gone. Traditionally the highest status for a women in Viet Nam was to be a wife and mother and to bear a son. After the war many of the women could not marry they were too old, they were sick or had been wounded. Wife beating was condoned in Vietnam and the general feeling was that the scared veteran living alone was in a much worse position than the beaten married female vet. Also many rankled at the peace time change from the importance they had and felt during the war to being a subservient traditional woman. Unlike the men only wounded women were granted pensions and then the amount was not enough to live on as a single person. Many women felt great resentment. (In the US after WWII most blacks were systematically excluded from receiving benefits from the GI Bill.)
Many of these unmarried women ended up stuck permanently in isolated state farms or Buddhist pagodas. Some 20% of families are "incomplete" headed by unmarried women including war widows or those divorced or abandon. There were many cases of women "asking for a child" willing to pay a man to help conceive a child in money or even land, more if it is a boy. A woman's' son far more than her husband is the source of her identity, her worth as a person.
It is clear and acknowledged that the "American War" could not have been won without the support and sacrifices of 100's of thousands of women.
Most women interviewed participated in the building and repairing of the Ho Chi Min trail. Others fought on the ground, were couriers, spies, manned antiaircraft batteries etc. On the trail jungle with its wild animals, poisonous snakes, high mountains was absolutely foreign to these Northern women from the flat Red River plains. The work was back breaking. The food shortages lead to starvation deaths. Malaria was rampant. The workers and truck drivers were so inexperience that some did not know how to put the trucks in reverse. The trail was constantly bombed and the women needed to defuse the unexploded ordinance and repair the cratered roads.
North Viet Nam became a gender neutral country during the war. Women traveled long distances by themselves without any fear of harassment. There was no history of "comfort women" but these young men and women did fall in love, have children and get married. It seems mostly that the work and conditions were so hard that there was tremendous group unity, cooperation and respect just to survive.
Most of these women were teenagers and in the jungles for 5,6, 7 years. It was the prime of their life, gone. Traditionally the highest status for a women in Viet Nam was to be a wife and mother and to bear a son. After the war many of the women could not marry they were too old, they were sick or had been wounded. Wife beating was condoned in Vietnam and the general feeling was that the scared veteran living alone was in a much worse position than the beaten married female vet. Also many rankled at the peace time change from the importance they had and felt during the war to being a subservient traditional woman. Unlike the men only wounded women were granted pensions and then the amount was not enough to live on as a single person. Many women felt great resentment. (In the US after WWII most blacks were systematically excluded from receiving benefits from the GI Bill.)
Many of these unmarried women ended up stuck permanently in isolated state farms or Buddhist pagodas. Some 20% of families are "incomplete" headed by unmarried women including war widows or those divorced or abandon. There were many cases of women "asking for a child" willing to pay a man to help conceive a child in money or even land, more if it is a boy. A woman's' son far more than her husband is the source of her identity, her worth as a person.
It is clear and acknowledged that the "American War" could not have been won without the support and sacrifices of 100's of thousands of women.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews