Mainstreaming Women’s Studies in Higher Education — The Case of Vietnam

Abstract

My name is Thai Thi Ngoc Du and I am a Vietnamese citizen. I was born in 1946 in a village close to Hue, a small town in the center of Vietnam. Hue used to be the imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty from the beginning of the nineteenth century up to 1945. My family moved to Hue when I was two years old and I grew up among poor people who had newly settled in town. Up to the age of seven, I did not know my father because he joined the Viet Minh during their resistance against the French occupation. Following the Geneva Accords of 1954 that marked the end of the French war, he returned to Hue and lived with our family. He practiced oriental medicine for the rest of his life and never joined the South Vietnam government. During my early childhood I lived with my mother and my sister, and as a result I tended to be more attached to my mother than my father; I reserved love and respect for my mother who was the breadwinner of the family during his absence and even after his return.