Word: nhu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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That was when Saigon began to take serious notice of Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu...
...Nhu's flaming feminism that most antagonized the traditionalist Vietnamese. In 1956 she was elected to the National Assembly, immediately began a campaign to upgrade the status of Vietnamese women, who had no legal rights and could be dis carded by husbands at will. In these circumstances, said Mme. Nhu, a Vietnamese woman was "an eternal minor, an unpaid servant, a doll without a soul." In 1958 she rammed through the Assembly her controversial Family Bill, which made adultery a prison offense and outlawed polygamy, concubinage, and?except by special presidential dispensation?divorce...
With tiny tears at the corners of her eyes, Mme. Nhu recently sighed that she had trouble at first appreciating "that I made many people unhappy with my Family Bill?people who were in illegitimate liaisons but who were strongly in love." Pulling herself together, she adds: "But society cannot sacrifice morality and legality for a few wild couples. I have chosen to defend the legitimate family...
...Darlings." In a succession of bills, Mme. Nhu banned prostitution, contraceptives, abortion, organized animal fights and taxi dancing. Referring to the war, she said, "Dancing with death is enough." In Saigon, "twist easies" began to spring up, and criticism mounted that Mme. Nhu was trying to impose rigid Catholic standards on South Viet Nam's easygoing sexual mores. She herself used to go swimming at the fashionable Cercle Sportif. but stayed away when she saw too many bikinis. Even some government officials privately said that the morality crusade resulted only in increased and unnecessary public hostility toward the Diem regime...
Sure of her infallibility and contemptuous of her critics, Mme. Nhu set up a women's paramilitary corps, a parade ground force whose members ("my darlings") get paid twice as much as army regulars. Snapped Mme. Nhu: "The women are officers, not simple soldiers." She also organized the Women's Solidarity Movement, a sort of Oriental Junior League whose 1,200,000 members supervise workers' nurseries and welfare centers?and serve as a political intelligence network throughout the country...