Abstract
In this lesson, I will describe, on the one hand, a new generation of militant nationalist, communist or sympathizing women from diverse social backgrounds, who became involved in the struggle for Việt Nam's independence. On the other hand, I'll look at the emergence of a minority of intellectual and modern women : women graduates, teachers, doctors, midwives ; women of letters, writers, poets, journalists, editors. Whether they were anti-colonialist fighters, intellectuals practicing their profession or the wives of intellectuals, they were all involved in questions of identity between tradition and modernity, and asserted themselves in different ways. I will also examine men's discourse on women, ranging from support for feminist ideas, or even warm promotion of these ideas, to their rejection in the name of safeguarding traditional values. Vietnamese feminism, in its different variants and tendencies, has resolutely sided with modernism and anti-colonialism, and has drawn its strength from this in mobilizing women and other influential players. It has not lost its own identity, however, and has remained focused on its specifically feminist objectives.
