Divergent voices: Reflections on Vietnamese women's wartime and postwar stories.

Using a multi-disciplinary approach of Anthropology and History, this thesis examines changes in Vietnamese gender roles from the French colonial administration period through the Indochina war, the Vietnam war, and the post-war period of economic reform of doi moi. I argue that to understand changes in Vietnamese gender roles we need to focus on the connections between gender roles and the ideology of motherhood and how gender roles and expectations shift over time. I also argue that whereas the ideology of motherhood has not changed, gender roles and gender expectations associated with motherhood have. During the war years, the Vietnamese Communist Party used the symbol of motherhood as a way to motivate women to participate in the wars, promote national unity, and create gender expectations. I show the range of gender roles played by women during the war years. The State has excluded voices of women who are not politically affiliated with them. Finally, I argue that to understand the effects of Vietnam's economic policy of doi moi on women's lives, we need to focus our attention on the connection between neoliberalism and gender. --P. ii.