Description
Stories of Vietnamese women militants and activists challenge dominant gendered tropes during the wars against France and the United States. These tropes include, for example, those of helpless victims, Orientalized figures, and those bound to domestic roles only. Against such dominant scripts, there are well-known exemplars of Vietnamese women leaders who fought against imperial domination. Yet the prominent circulation of some stories risks obscuring myriad others, as well as eclipsing important albeit untold aspects of the very political lives they purport to capture. This paper explores the gendered politics of work, care, and loss with regard to everyday women revolutionaries rather than well-recognized figures and narratives within established historiography. I examine the complex layers of this gendered politics by reading closely the memoirs and accounts of Vietnamese women who participated in the long years of resistance against imperial war and torture.
