Tine Gammeltoft - Womens Bodies, Womens Worries

Womens Bodies, Womens Worries

NORDIC INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES

Recent studies of Vietnamese history and society

Authority Relations and Economic Decision-Making in Vietnam:

An Historical Perspective

Dang Phong and Melanie Beresford

Womens Bodies, Womens Worries:

Health and Family Planning in a Vietnamese Rural Community

Tine Gammeltoft

Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885-1954

Christopher E. Goscha

Vietnam or Indochina? Contesting Concepts of Space in Vietnamese Nationalism, 1887-1954

Christopher E. Goscha

Vietnam in a Changing World

Irene Nrlund, Carolyn Gates and Vu Cao Dam (eds)

Profit and Poverty in Rural Vietnam:

Winners and Losers of a Dismantled Revolution

Rita Liljestrm, Eva Lindskog,

Nguyen Van Ang and Vuong Xuan Tinh

The Vietnamese Family in Change:

The Case of the Red River Delta

Pham Van Bich

Womens Bodies, Womens Worries

Health and Family Planning in a Vietnamese Rural Community

Tine Gammeltoft

CURZON

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

Vietnam in Transition series

First published in 1999

by Curzon Press

15 The Quadrant, Richmond

Surrey TW9 1BP

Tine Gammeltoft 1999

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Danish Council for Development Research (Danida)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Tine Gammeltoft

Womens Bodies, Womens Worries : Health and Family Planning in a Vietnamese Rural Community

1.Birth control Vietnam 2.Women Health and hygiene Vietnam 3.Women Vietnam Social conditions

I.Title

363.9609597

ISBN 0-7007-1111-2

Contents

Figures

Table

Acknowledgements

This study owes its existence to the contributions of numerous people and institutions.

A travel grant from the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies made possible an initial trip to Vietnam to carry out preliminary studies and establish the institutional affiliations necessary for the conduct of the present study. The study as such was made possible by a grant from the Research Council of the Danish International Development Agency (Danida), which I gratefully acknowledge. The Institute of Anthropology at University of Copenhagen funded a return visit to Vietnam in 1996 which enabled me to follow up on main research findings. On several occasions, Paule Mikkelsens Mindelegat generously offered residential facilities which made the writing up of fieldwork results a rare pleasure.

I am very grateful to the Institute of Sociology in Hanoi for sponsoring my research and for kindly arranging for my research permissions. Particular thanks to Phm Bch San and V Phm Nguyn Thanh for many stimulating discussions over the years. For the practical guidance and emotional support without which research in Vietnam is virtually impossible, I am most deeply indebted to Professor L Th Nhm Tuyt. Without her unfailing assistance and that of the dedicated staff of the Center for Gender, Family and Environment in Development, this research would not have taken place. In H Ty province, the support of the Womens Union and the provincial Population and Family Planning Committee (PFPC) were invaluable. The kindness and cheerfulness of the PFPC staff was encouraging, as were the warmth and commitment I found in the Womens Union.

Also friends and research colleagues in Hanoi made important contributions to this study. The shared feelings of being privileged to be in Vietnam at this moment in time, the amazement at things going on around us, the questions pondered, the laughter, frustrations, and puzzles shared over good meals or late-aftemoon bia h is , formed a vital basis for the study. Of the many who deserve a mention, I would particularly like to thank Regina M. Abrami, Bi Th Ho, Jonathan Caseley, David Craig, Debra Efroymson, Daniel Goodkind, Pamina Gorbach, Hong T Anh, L Minh Ging, John and Debbie Humphries, Nguyn Ngc Hng, Nguyn Phng Khanh, Melissa J. Pashigian, Harriet Phinney, Gill Tipping, V Song H and V Qu Nhn.

During the process of analysis and writing up these findings, the stimulating ideas, questions, and criticisms I received from students andf colleagues at the Institute of Anthropology in Copenhagen proved invaluable. I have particularly benefited from the suggestions and support provided by Kirsten Hastrup and Ida Nicolaisen, who both followed the project from the beginning. For their careful readings of draft chapters I am grateful to David Craig, Anne Line Dalsgaard, Rolf Hern, Annika Johansson, David Marr, Helle Rydstrm, Tine Tjrnhj-Thomsen and Jayne Werner. I am indebted to Anton Baar for assistance with the processing of survey data and to Ng Th Ho for help with Vietnamese characters and language. Both academically and personally, I am most deeply indebted to my thesis adviser Susan Reynolds Whyte for her unflagging generosity, support, and encouragement over the years and for the way she has taught me by her own example what anthropology is all about.

A very profound debt of gratitude is owed to the people in Vi Son, who welcomed me among them, helped me overcome my mistakes and clumsiness, and discussed at length the joys, hopes and difficulties of their lives with me. I can never fully express my gratitude for the care, concern, and trust I have been shown and for all that I have been taught. However, it is my hope that the account I shall present here is capable of conveying the agency and resilience of the people I met in Vi Sn. Particular thanks are due to B Chnh and her family for sharing their home and meals with me for more than a year and for still regarding me as a daughter of the house. Out of respect for the privacy of the people involved, I have changed most place and personal names in this study. But I do want to acknowledge the friendships of Nguyn Th L and V Th Dung, who have greatly enriched both my life and my work.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Rolf Hern for being such an astute critic and supportive friend throughout. I am grateful to be able to share with him the love of Vietnam and all the gifts it continues to bring.

Prologue

As she sees us entering her yard, Thanh jumps up from her work by the kitchen fire, invites us into the house, and seats us on the bed. Apologizing for the poverty of her home and with a glance at her sleeping husband lying wrapped in blankets on the other bed, she pours water from the thermos into the teapot and offers us each a cup of bitter green tea while she herself takes nothing.

It is a grey and misty morning in January, one of those mornings where the cold seems to creep in through all crevices. 1 have joined Nhg, one of the communes family planning workers, on her house-to-house visits to hamlet women who have not yet understood the benefits of family planning. Thanh is one of these women. She is a timid and fragile-looking little woman with huge eyes and a worn-out expression on her face, tier five children, who are all too small for their age, her unreliable husband who drinks too much, and her large debts and unsuccessful farming make her an obvious target for Nhngs work.

Thanhs family lives in one large room with a dirt floor and hardly any furniture. Besides the two wooden beds there is only a small altar for the ancestors with some faded orange plastic flowers on it. Nhng goes straight to the matter, telling Thanh that she has come to inform her that today there is a family planning campaign going on, and this afternoon district health staff will be at the commune health centre to insert IUDs. Thanh really should go there and have an IUD inserted, Nhumg says.

Think of your family, you have to think of the happiness of your family, she continues in an insistent voice, taking Thanhs hand. You should be able to take proper care of your children how will you do that if you have more?