Magdelene Laundries - Eugenics by another name?

Stheno

Hey everyone,

I was just reading the womb transplant thread, which mentioned eugenics, and also reading not fit to breed on the bbc news website and it struck me that essentially Ireland used the Magdelene Laundries system as a means to prevent women whom society deemed "unsuitable" from having children/relationships?

What do you think? I've posted it here from the perspective that the M.L. affected women only so it was a gender specific form of "eugenic policy".

From the BBC link :

While eugenics is now recognised as a pseudoscience - and after the Nazis, one with murderous consequences - it was once a respectable branch of the social sciences.

The term 'eugenics', meaning "good birth", was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, an English scientist who pushed the University College London to found a department to study the field.

Sir Winston Churchill once called for forced sterilisation of "the feeble-minded and insane classes".

While eugenic sterilisation never became official policy in the UK - in part due to opposition from the Catholic church - Finland, Norway, and Sweden adopted the sterilisation laws in the 1930s.

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 400,000 Germans were sterilised under Nazi "racial hygiene" laws, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

metrovelvet

I was watching a documentary on BBC tonight about the history of Ireland and it talked about how this breed of underclass [illegitimate and working class children] in relation to industrial schools was a threat to the vision of the middle class Ireland that De Valera fantasized about.

The Magadelene Laundries and the Industrial schools, from what I can see are about more than eugenics, but about the unleashing of the sadistic imagination and the saturation of Irish culture with violence.

Really, why this country has not been convicted for torture on both counts, why it doesnt have a human rights record is beyond me. Because it sure as hell deserves one.

expectationlost

this guy james smith wrote the book on it http://www.amazon.com/Irelands-Magdalen-Laundries-Architecture-Containment/dp/026804127X Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment

there was very interesting discussion on pat kenny that i can't find the archive of where he explained that the concept was set out in the bishops carrigan report in late 1800's where if something or someone didn't fit a godly image that were to be shunned ignored as if they didn't exist, this influenced the authorities in Ireland for the next hundred years, where women in particular who weren't pure were sent to workhouse and the laundries in order to cleanse our godly society

Stheno

metrovelvet wrote: »

I was watching a documentary on BBC tonight about the history of Ireland and it talked about how this breed of underclass [illegitimate and working class children] in relation to industrial schools was a threat to the vision of the middle class Ireland that De Valera fantasized about.

The Magadelene Laundries and the Industrial schools, from what I can see are about more than eugenics, but about the unleashing of the sadistic imagination and the saturation of Irish culture with violence.

Really, why this country has not been convicted for torture on both counts, why it doesnt have a human rights record is beyond me. Because it sure as hell deserves one.

Metro, I posted topic specifically about Magdelene laundries, and how their adoption/acceptance by the State/Society and the religious orders impacted on the ability of women to have children, in the context of this being a form of practicing eugenics, not on industrial schools which were gender neutral, hence my posting the topic in the Ladies Lounge?

If I wanted a debate on industrial schools I'd use humanities.

Magdelene Laundries started in Ireland well back in the 17/1800's long before DeValeras time.

metrovelvet

Stheno wrote: »

Metro, I posted topic specifically about Magdelene laundries, and how their adoption/acceptance by the State/Society and the religious orders impacted on the ability of women to have children, in the context of this being a form of practicing eugenics, not on industrial schools which were gender neutral, hence my posting the topic in the Ladies Lounge?

If I wanted a debate on industrial schools I'd use humanities.

Magdelene Laundries started in Ireland well back in the 17/1800's long before DeValeras time.

It wasnt until the early 20th century that they became punitive. Before that they were rehabilitative asylums for prostitutes. It was in the early 20th century that they became incacerations for mothers who had children out of wedlock, so I beg to differ that it does not coincide with this re-invention of Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

Stheno

metrovelvet wrote: »

It wasnt until the early 20th century that they became punitive. Before that they were rehabilitative asylums for prostitutes. It was in the early 20th century that they became incacerations for mothers who had children out of wedlock, so I beg to differ that it does not coincide with this re-invention of Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

Given that the link you quoted also talks about their existence in Scotland as punitive institutions, I'd disagree.

Back on topic??? Do you believe they played any type of role in influencing what women could or could not children, and therefore influenced society eugenically?

metrovelvet

Stheno wrote: »

Given that the link you quoted also talks about their existence in Scotland as punitive institutions, I'd disagree.

Back on topic??? Do you believe they played any type of role in influencing what women could or could not children, and therefore influenced society eugenically?

Yes but only in terms of class/moral eugenics, not biological eugenics. Its not sterilisation and its not pre natal genetic determination either [that is where a number of embyos are created and the parents can pick whether they want the boy or the girl, or the one with blond hair or discard of the one that has one kidney etc] , so I dont think its eugenics in the strictist sense, but they did seek to banish and punish those who contaminate De Valera's vision of a pure island.

Stheno

metrovelvet wrote: »

Yes but only in terms of class/moral eugenics, not biological eugenics. Its not sterilisation and its not pre natal genetic determination either [that is where a number of embyos are created and the parents can pick whether they want the boy or the girl, or the one with blond hair or discard of the one that has one kidney etc] , so I dont think its eugenics in the strictist sense,

I never claimed it was pure eugenics,more a type of eugenic policy based on gender, and how certain people of the gender were not socially acceptable.

they did seek to banish and punish those who contaminate De Valera's vision of a pure island.

Again back to the link upon which you are basing that premise? How does that relate to Scotland, which is specifically called out along with Ireland in terms of having a punitive/penal approach from the early twentieth century onwards?

metrovelvet

Are you asking why the men who fathered these children werent put into homes and tortured?

The article mentions Scotland one as having punitive measures, but the rest of the article is all about the crimes in the Irish laundries.

Stheno

metrovelvet wrote: »

Are you asking why the men who fathered these children werent put into homes and tortured?

No I'm not metro,and you know full well I'm not and you are being obtuse imo. I'm asking why you used a link which refers to Magdelene Laundries as becoming increasing punitive and penal in the early twentieth century, which could be anywhere from 1900 - 1930, to justify your claim that it's all to do with DeValera, given that that same link specifically calls out the issue being in both Ireland and Scotland, Scotland being another country into which DeValera would not have had much imput in terms of state policies.

The article doesn't reference DeValera having any real input into those punitive measures.

metrovelvet

Stheno wrote: »

No I'm not metro,and you know full well I'm not and you are being obtuse imo. I'm asking why you used a link which refers to Magdelene Laundries as becoming increasing punitive and penal in the early twentieth century, which could be anywhere from 1900 - 1930, to justify your claim that it's all to do with DeValera, given that that same link specifically calls out the issue being in both Ireland and Scotland, Scotland being another country into which DeValera would not have had much imput in terms of state policies.

What exactly are you asking?

Are you suggesting that this was a way of preventing them from having anymore babies because Ireland didnt have the technology to sterilise?

Yes the link MENTIONS Scotland once. Scotland has nowhere near the record tha Ireland has. And even if Scotland did it too, does not mean that my theory is incorrect.

And I dont like you accusing me of being deliberately obtuse, getting a bit personal for my liking.

Im trying to figure out what you are asking because your question doesnt make any obvious sense because incarceration and slavery is not the same thing as sterilisation.

Im done here.

Stheno

I apologise if you thought my calling you obtuse was personal, it was moreso that the post and the point it was making was obtuse.

Personally I think that state approved action, which your link references, which allows the establishment of institutions such as the laundries, which effectively prevent women whom society deem to be unacceptable for in many cases, mundane reasons, from having the right to be reproduce a form of eugenic policy.

As you brought up Scotland first in your link to support an argument relating to the state of politics in Ireland at a time when the punitive/penal behaviour was introduced (but still not definitely proved as being a factor) I raised it.

Perhaps Scotland has not had the opportunity/pressure/publicity Ireland has had in being forced to address the issue, Ireland addressing the issue being another point in your link.

Thanks for your input, be good to get see other posters views as to whether or not this was essentially a state condoned form of eugenic policy. It may not have gone as far as e.g. the US States in the BBC link I posted by enforcing sterilisation, but denying the right to reproduce based on a societal judgement of suitability imo is at least similiar.

Morag

Yes it was a way of removing from society women who were seen as lax immoral and a danger. I don't know if I agree with it in terms of genetic purity but it was certainly about
removing 'troublesome' women from tainting others.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I wouldn't call it eugenics because their babies weren't killed. ergo their genes continued to be a part of society.

Social (as opposed to ethnic)cleansing perhaps?

metrovelvet

The other thing too is that it was not just exclusively done at the hands of the state, this was voluntary by the parents of these girls, who dropped their own kids there, knowing full well what went on in there.

The eugenics mentioned in the article are state enforced sterilisation.

Morag

The socail stigma and shunning which went on was all the impetus needed, they didn't need 'The State' take direct action.

metrovelvet

If you want to look at this from a gender perspective, it was women doing it to other women. IT was nuns torturing other women, it was parents [mothers and fathers] dropping their daughters to these places and shunning their own flesh and blood into a lifetime of slavery and torture.

wild_cat

They removed babies from the women that gave birth while being held didn't they?

And I presume said children were placed in good catholic middle class homes. So I can really see your point. It was probably thought that the children would turn out "better" if raised away from their biological Mother and keeping her from "breeding" any more by incarceration.


It would be interesting to see what financial background some of the women came from and where their children ended up.

Morag

A proportion of the babies were sent/sold to the USA to be adopted by wealthy catholic couples.

Dolbert

I agree that it seems to be more an example of the state/ church sweeping these women under the carpet, as though their very existence would contaminate the rest of Holy Catholic Ireland.

I have a personal interest in this, as my Great-Grandmother spent most of her life in one of these laundries. She was a maid for one of the well to do families in the area, and became pregnant after being raped by one of her employers. Her son, my Grandfather, was raised by her parents, and grew up hating his mother as all he had heard from infancy was that she was nothing but a whore. It was only in later life that he questioned this.

Her brother eventually got her out of the laundry, despite much resistance and protestations from other family members. She got another housekeeping job, and knowing that she came from the laundry, the owner’s son assumed she was easy pickings. After being raped and impregnated for the second time with my Great-Aunt, she was sent back to the laundry, this time nobody came for her and she never came out. Naturally there was no question of wrongdoing on her rapists part, she was, after all, a scarlet woman.

We had one picture of her in our house, and from her appearance I assumed she was in her sixties. I later found out that she died at 47. Her story just breaks my heart.

wild_cat

Sharrow wrote: »

A proportion of the babies were sent/sold to the USA to be adopted by wealthy catholic couples.

I presume they couldn't be sterilised as that would go against the teachings of the catholic church and the only way to control future generations from turning out like their birth mother was to have them nurtured in a Catholic middle class environment and thus becoming the "correct" type of citizen.

metrovelvet

wild_cat wrote: »

I presume they couldn't be sterilised as that would go against the teachings of the catholic church and the only way to control future generations from turning out like their birth mother was to have them nurtured in a Catholic middle class environment and thus becoming the "correct" type of citizen.

Right. They cant sterilise you but they can beat the **** out of you.

Most likely a moral deterrant was the only means they felt they could justify this.

Corsendonk

I don't think you can really call what happened in the laundries as Eugenics because they didn't sterilise the kids to remove the genes from the Irish gene pool or control the breeding of the off spring. The science of Eugenics is about removing unsatisfactory genes from the gene pool usually by sterilisation and encouraging other groups to breed that carry desirable traits. I believe the Blonde girl from ABBA was a product of the Nazi Eugenics program.

To simplify it, its kind of like the selective breeeding programs that animal husbandry or plantsmen do but for humans Eugenics do has done some good in such countries like Cyprus to reduce diseases caused by two carriers of a particular gene from marrying and having kids.

The latest trend for "designer" babies is Eugenics but under a more marketable name.

Teddy_Picker

Like Corsendonk, I don't necessarily agree that what went on in the Laundries could be called eugenics, but what I've gathered from reading up on them and watching documentaries on them, what those women suffered was borne out of the absolute abhorrence of social transgression, especially in areas of sexual mores.

Not all of the women who were sent had actually fallen pregnant, as far as I understand, as some survivors were rape victims who were packed away rather than be the subject of scandal and controversy, while a lot of others seemed to be ex-industrial school kids who the nuns had marked out as "troublesome".
I remember seeing one particularly harrowing documentary where a contributor described how when she hit her teenage years and started developing breasts, she was forced to bind her chest with material. :eek:

It was a cruel and inhumane time in Irish history, it seemed that the institutions had no basic sense of humanity at all. I could ramble on, but I feel a rant brewing and don't want to wander way off topic, so I think I'll leave it at that.

Morag

I know a couple who fell in love and wanted to marry and her father refused to hear of it.
They kept on in secret but her mother and his parents knew and as soon as possible there were quiet arrangements being made for an elopement. But she found out she was pregnant and it got about and someone told her father before the elopement could happen.

Her father beat her into the car and drove to the other side of the country to put her into a laundry and refused to tell anyone where she was. It took her husband and father in law to be 6 weeks to find her and when she was brought back to the town there ended up being brawl as her father demanded her back.

She was 20.

They married moved away and went on to have 4 kids and their 40th wedding anniversary recently.

Scarinae

Corsendonk wrote: »

I believe the Blonde girl from ABBA was a product of the Nazi Eugenics program.

It was the other one, Anni-Frid. It's quite sad really, because a lot of them were shunned after the war, even though it wasn't their fault... The girl from Abba fared better because her mother moved from Norway to Sweden.

Many thousands of their mothers - labelled 'German whores' - were sent to Norwegian 'concentration camps', where they were virtually slave labourers.

...

But in many ways the most shocking aspect of the whole story is what happened to the children in the homes. In a separate case, Spydevold is attempting to bring the Norwegian government to task over documented evidence of drugs trials carried out on both children and mothers.

Witnesses and documents say experiments with LSD, mescaline and other substances were initiated by the Norwegian military, Oslo University and the CIA.

That's a bit off-topic, but it shows that horrible things like that haven't only happened in Ireland.

As for Magdalene laundries being eugenics... I'd agree with the posters who have said it isn't eugenics as it doesn't involve removing the children from the gene pool, but it was certainly a systematic attempt to remove the 'sinners' and their bad influence from society. It is a disgusting episode in Irish history. (Didn't the last one only close in the 90s?)

Dolorous, the story about your great-grandmother breaks my heart too

Stheno

Fishie wrote: »

As for Magdalene laundries being eugenics... I'd agree with the posters who have said it isn't eugenics as it doesn't involve removing the children from the gene pool, but it was certainly a systematic attempt to remove the 'sinners' and their bad influence from society. It is a disgusting episode in Irish history. (Didn't the last one only close in the 90s?)

Dolorous, the story about your great-grandmother breaks my heart too

Ah, I never considered that the children would influence that at all.

Last one closed in 96 I think.

Nhead

metrovelvet wrote: »

It wasnt until the early 20th century that they became punitive. Before that they were rehabilitative asylums for prostitutes. It was in the early 20th century that they became incacerations for mothers who had children out of wedlock, so I beg to differ that it does not coincide with this re-invention of Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

Metro, just on the idea of the original Magdalene asylums being rehabilitive asylums for prostitutes the Victorians of the UK of GB&I saw prostitution as belonging to the lower classes and that the women that practiced it were 'feeble' minded. A massive controversy during the 1800s was the introduction of The Contagious Diseases Act (passed in parliament) which allowed police to arrest women if they suspected them of prostitution and jail them in Lock Hospitals and Laundries. It was up to the state to decide who was fallen and this was before the early twentieth century. Whilst we should never forget the horrors that occured in this state and by the RCC church we likewise should not forget those that suffered in laundries est . by the CoI. Women of all denominations/class/creed deserve justice and to be remembered (both from the nineteenth and twentieth century).And Fishie I agree with you when you say it was an attempt to contain 'sinners' rather then eugenics but also a fear of female sexuality and the female body (a common Victorian conceit).

metrovelvet

Nhead wrote: »

Metro, just on the idea of the original Magdalene asylums being rehabilitive asylums for prostitutes the Victorians of the UK of GB&I saw prostitution as belonging to the lower classes and that the women that practiced it were 'feeble' minded. A massive controversy during the 1800s was the introduction of The Contagious Diseases Act (passed in parliament) which allowed police to arrest women if they suspected them of prostitution and jail them in Lock Hospitals and Laundries. It was up to the state to decide who was fallen and this was before the early twentieth century. Whilst we should never forget the horrors that occured in this state and by the RCC church we likewise should not forget those that suffered in laundries est . by the CoI. Women of all denominations/class/creed deserve justice and to be remembered (both from the nineteenth and twentieth century).And Fishie I agree with you when you say it was an attempt to contain 'sinners' rather then eugenics but also a fear of female sexuality and the female body (a common Victorian conceit).

I 100% agree these women deserve to be rememberd and deserve justice. But what does justice mean in this case? How would it be served?

Nhead

metrovelvet wrote: »

I 100% agree these women deserve to be rememberd and deserve justice. But what does justice mean in this case? How would it be served?

I know what you mean on justice as in: how can those that are gone gain justice? It is a difficult one to answer. I think remembering is important and acknowledgement too. The place of women in history really needs to become more mainstream imho. That is why a thread like this is important esp. the post by Dolorous. I agree with you to an extent about Dev's Ireland but also that ideas on sexual morality came from the Victorian Era. A man that shaped Ireland's spiritual outlook was Archbishop Cullen he was ultramontane and really changed what it meant to a RC in Ireland.

CDfm

Nhead wrote: »

A massive controversy during the 1800s was the introduction of The Contagious Diseases Act (passed in parliament) which allowed police to arrest women if they suspected them of prostitution and jail them in Lock Hospitals and Laundries. .

And it wasn't strictly a moral issue but a military one.

European armies were terribly unhealthy places where circa 30 to 40% of soldiers being unfit for service due to illness or disease at any one time.

Join the army and get sick and die and routine illnesses today were often untreatable or fatal then.And contagious diseases included typhoid etc.

So for a nation like Britain with an Empire "on which the sun never set" containment or reducing infection rates was a policy which affected its military strenght .

I suspect Victorian morality was a secondary or tertiary consideration over military considerations.

Thats my impression.

Nhead

CDfm wrote: »

And it wasn't strictly a moral issue but a military one.

European armies were terribly unhealthy places where circa 30 to 40% of soldiers being unfit for service due to illness or disease at any one time.

Join the army and get sick and die and routine illnesses today were often untreatable or fatal then.And contagious diseases included typhoid etc.

So for a nation like Britain with an Empire "on which the sun never set" containment or reducing infection rates was a policy which affected its military strenght .

I suspect Victorian morality was a secondary or tertiary consideration over military considerations.

Thats my impression.

My argument here would be: Why didn't the military deal with the issue of men using prostitutes rather then blaming the women?? Men spread sexual diseases too but none of the soldiers were locked up. The controversy over the Contagious Diseases Act was that it targets and blamed women and allowed women to be arrested on the suspicion of being prostitutes. The government and society at large were morally viewing these women as fallen but not the men. So even though there was an economic reason behind it there was a moral judgement underpinning it that wasn't applied equally to both sexes. It was that whole idea of the public/private sphere that dictated Victorian mores. The male lived in the public sphere whilst the the female was in the private. These ideas, imo, fed into what the laundries became, locking up women that had children out of wedlock etc how many men were locked up for the same??

CDfm

Yup fairly stupid from a public health perspective not to do both.

The real reason was they were an occupying army and the army will look after what they think are the interests of their men.

This was an Empire run by an elite and welfare was not their priority and how would it look in front of the natives if the conquering army were banned from having sex. Virile superior race etc -that sort of thing.

A routine examination of
servicemen for evidence of infection would
have been useful because, even without laboratory
tests, many STDs are easier to identify in
men than in women. However, this was ruled
out on the grounds that it would destroy the
men’s self respect.14 The legislation concerning
prostitutes was violently opposed by emergent
women’s groups. They particularly objected to
compulsory internal examination, which was
often far from being private or confidential,
and they regarded speculum examination as
tantamount to assault—as indeed it often
was—because many doctors then did not know
how to pass the instrument. Proposals to
extend the legislation to industrial towns in the
north of England came to nothing and the acts
were repealed after 15 years, having had little
effect on limiting STD in servicemen.

Read the full article here

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1758083/pdf/v074p00020.pdf

Untreated syphilis led to disfigurement and death in young men.

In history you have to be careful of looking at things based on todays moral values irrespective of your personal feelings.

I imagine the army resisted implimenting the rules and sabotaged it and it would surprise me if historical evidence does not support that.

EDIT

Another quote here

An “infamous memorandum”
of the 1880s5 recommended the provision
of pretty women for the troops, who were
disinclined to visit “hags”; these could be left
for the Indians in bazaar brothels. In effect, the
British authorities were conniving at a system
of licensed brothels which had been specifically
rejected at home, resembling the French
maisons tolerees. Their justification was that they
were solely concerned with the welfare of their
soldiers. A few senior officers, Kitchener was
one, adopted a different, sternly moral approach.
Soldiers under his command were
punished and held to public ridicule if they
became infected, although enlightened people
knew that this encouraged concealment and
delayed treatment. It has been pointed out5 that
the colour of the Indian prostitute, subservient
to the British male, was a paradigm of racial
superiority. In this regard, the presence of
European prostitutes was unnerving, with the
dismaying possibility that some of these women
might have sex with Indian men. The British
authorities resolved the problem, at least in
their own minds, by letting it be known that
most European prostitutes working in India
were Roman Catholic or Jewish emigres from
eastern Europe, and that none was British.

An interesting link

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3812562

wild_cat

I watched sex in a cold climate last on off the back of this thread. I think one of the earlier posters mentioned it in the post about the "bound" breasts.

It was a topic up for discussion on drive time on radio one yesterday to. The contributor mentioned that all the laundries should have been inspected under the factories act that was introduced mid century or there abouts but the government still never visited them. As the nuns also changed the names of their inmates it was difficult for the government back then and still to this day to know who was being held in the laundries. The contributor also suggested that the last government was waiting for the survivors to die off as not to have to pay compensation. So the state did know and did nothing about it leaving them at fault!!

But I think the UN ruling recently will has made dam sure that something has to be done.

So all and all I think it was just pure patriarchy in action all done to protect men and aid them in living a life away from women who could stray them from the catholic teachings.

I do believe that a rape victim/assault victim was probably seen as bringing on her own faith back then to, this being from the school of thought that she must have done something to encourage her attacker. (This is still around today in some parts, we wouldn't have "slut walks" recently if not)

The same with beautiful women, they would have caused lustful but completely natural thoughts in men. But these thoughts were not allowed in the mind of a follower of the RC faith.

Perhaps the laundries were used as a means of making money to. I don't know if I'm rambling now or not or even getting my point across. But I have come to the conclusion that they solely existed to keep men good catholics and irdicate any woman who didn't toe the line like some sort of religious ethnic cleanse.

Nhead

CDfm, I agree with you on us placing our moral values on a different era and that is why it is important to look at the moral values of the time and see how they led to institutions like the laundries. The Contagious Diseases Act is only one example, and while the army believed that they were looking after their own. what societal mores at the time allowed the government (for it was they that passed the law) to think it could do what they wanted with women, and especially working class women? Josephine Butler, who worked on the repeal of the act, seen it as a moral and legal wrong for it denied women rights under law as she said the act was wrong 'Because it is unjust to punish the sex who are the victims of a vice, and leave unpunished the sex who are the main cause, both of the vice and its dreaded consequences; and we consider that liability to arrest, forced medical treatment, and (where this is resisted) imprisonment with hard labour, to which these acts subject women, are the punishment of the most degrading kind”.

CDfm

I agree with you Nhead, but they were pre-democracy laws in the 19th century and they were scandalously abused. Prostitution was part of the economy that grew around garrisons.

The right to vote in Britain of that era was based on property qualifications.So I dont think it is totally true to say they reflected societies mores.

The Magdalene Laundries were truly appaling and a close friend of mine was an inmate in one.

Morag

The Magdalene laundries did laundry for the religious hospitals and had contracts for hotels.

dan_d

Nhead wrote: »

My argument here would be: Why didn't the military deal with the issue of men using prostitutes rather then blaming the women?? Men spread sexual diseases too but none of the soldiers were locked up. The controversy over the Contagious Diseases Act was that it targets and blamed women and allowed women to be arrested on the suspicion of being prostitutes. The government and society at large were morally viewing these women as fallen but not the men. So even though there was an economic reason behind it there was a moral judgement underpinning it that wasn't applied equally to both sexes. It was that whole idea of the public/private sphere that dictated Victorian mores. The male lived in the public sphere whilst the the female was in the private. These ideas, imo, fed into what the laundries became, locking up women that had children out of wedlock etc how many men were locked up for the same??

At the risk of sounding like a raging feminist, I would imagine the very simple answer to this is because it's a man's world.

I've been trying to figure out of late why exactly the Catholic church managed to get such a huge stranglehold on Ireland in the last century. How did a religion become so powerful that it affected Government and society in every way? And how had it not happened before that? How did it get to the stage that straight thinking people thought it was ok to turn a blind eye to paedophilia, Magdalene Laundries, the behaviour of teachers in physically abusing children, etc,etc,etc??I can't really come up with one answer, but the best one that's been recommended to me is that it's because of a lack of education.In any given village, the priest, the teacher, the doctor and (maybe) the lawyer, were treated like gods. And the priests were responsible for a lot of the teaching - in other words they were educated and the general lay people weren't. The Catholic Church is a male dominated bastion of religion, which further enforced this.

I should insert here that I would consider myself a Catholic, in that I do attend Mass every few weeks. However I don't buy into every single aspect of religion (which some would argue means I'm not a Catholic really, but that's for another thread). However my point is I'm not trying to turn this into a rant against the Catholic Church but simply to look at the whole picture.

I don't think it was eugenics, by any means. Girls from all backgrounds who got pregnant out of marriage were hidden and kept secret. Maybe not in the Laundries, but if they were from a family of means, they were often sent away and hidden in secret until the birth, so as not be a "disgrace" to the family. And there is an element of religion in the idea of "being a disgrace". Where else would we get that notion from? The idea covered all background, not just those who were lower class or whatever.

We still have not quite shook off the idea that both a man and woman are responsible for the birth of a child. Men do still get off lightly in such pregnancies (I appreciate all cases are different, but particularly in the cases of teenagers getting pregnant). Why is it that a man can have a child with several different women, and nobody really thinks the worse of him, yet if a woman has children by 3 or 4 different men, she is spoken of differently?? That idea is still ingrained in us, though I hope we slowly losing it.

To end, I was born in the early 80s, and my parents, while quite religious (though not extreme) were children of extremely religious parents themselves. I remember growing up, my mother absolutely enforcing the idea in my head that it was a terrible, terrible thing to have a child before you were married, or while you were still in school. Kind of "end of the world" stuff. In recent years, I've realised that it was because she knew of these Laundries and she knew what her parents would say if it happened and she didn't want that to happen to her children. As time went on though, and it became clear that the hold this idea had on society was weakening, she began saying it more because she wanted me to get an education and have a life, before being stuck with having to care for a baby too. Which is a fair enough point.

So - speech over!!!...

Nhead

CDfm wrote: »

I agree with you Nhead, but they were pre-democracy laws in the 19th century and they were scandalously abused. Prostitution was part of the economy that grew around garrisons.

The right to vote in Britain of that era was based on property qualifications.So I dont think it is totally true to say they reflected societies mores.

The Magdalene Laundries were truly appaling and a close friend of mine was an inmate in one.

Oh I am not suggesting societal mores are the only reason but they are a vital one (amongst others) for why places like the laundries existed. Sorry to hear about your friend.

getz

Nhead wrote: »

Oh I am not suggesting societal mores are the only reason but they are a vital one (amongst others) for why places like the laundries existed. Sorry to hear about your friend.

the young girls were not only put into the laundries because they were sexual active,a lot were imprisoned because they were,to pretty,to ugly,or not wanted.lets not try and say that they were all in breach of the churches sick strict moral code.

Nhead

getz wrote: »

the young girls were not only put into the laundries because they were sexual active,a lot were imprisoned because they were,to pretty,to ugly,or not wanted.lets not try and say that they were all in breach of the churches sick strict moral code.

Sorry I don't know what you mean-if you mean I think they were put into the laundries because they were sexually active I don't. Nor am I saying they were in breach of the churches moral code I am not for one second defending the church and if that is what you are implying you have took up my posts wrongly.

CDfm

Sorry to hear about your friend.

She is is so dynamic and fun -its scary. She is doing alright.

Nhead

CDfm wrote: »

She is is so dynamic and fun -its scary. She is doing alright.

Good to hear she is doing alright.

getz

Nhead wrote: »

Good to hear she is doing alright.

there is a book that is out by one of the girls who was in one of these prisons,in it she says,that she was seen talking to a boy and was presumed to be having sex even though a doctor checked her out,and said; they do not know what they are talking about ;she was still locked up.she is now leading the campaign thats put the laundries into the international court.

Dudess

Dolorous wrote: »

my Great-Grandmother spent most of her life in one of these laundries. She was a maid for one of the well to do families in the area, and became pregnant after being raped by one of her employers. Her son, my Grandfather, was raised by her parents, and grew up hating his mother as all he had heard from infancy was that she was nothing but a whore. It was only in later life that he questioned this.

Her brother eventually got her out of the laundry, despite much resistance and protestations from other family members. She got another housekeeping job, and knowing that she came from the laundry, the owner’s son assumed she was easy pickings. After being raped and impregnated for the second time with my Great-Aunt, she was sent back to the laundry, this time nobody came for her and she never came out. Naturally there was no question of wrongdoing on her rapists part, she was, after all, a scarlet woman.

We had one picture of her in our house, and from her appearance I assumed she was in her sixties. I later found out that she died at 47. Her story just breaks my heart.

Just... wow... :-/

You know, that story reminds me of the way things are in Pakistan: women being held responsible - imprisoned - if they are raped. And it was happening here - a society that is appalled by what's happening in Pakistan - up to a mere 40 years ago. And while the system might have been discontinued in the early '70s, many of the women remained in those institutions until 1996 - maybe they felt they had nowhere else to go, maybe they had been beaten down to the point that they were shells of women who could not face engaging with the outside world...

getz

Dudess wrote: »

Just... wow... :-/

You know, that story reminds me of the way things are in Pakistan: women being held responsible - imprisoned - if they are raped. And it was happening here - a society that is appalled by what's happening in Pakistan - up to a mere 40 years ago. And while the system might have been discontinued in the early '70s, many of the women remained in those institutions until 1996 - maybe they felt they had nowhere else to go, maybe they had been beaten down to the point that they were shells of women who could not face engaging with the outside world...

a lot of these women committed suicide and the nuns buried them within the grounds in unmarked graves,without telling the authorities,that in its self would be a prison sentence,in any other country.

bronte

That is horrific Dolorous.

Dolbert

Her story is horrific, yet I feel lucky that I was able to hear it. Unlike many women, her story has at least been passed down. Once my Grandfather realised the true horror of what actually happened to his mother, she had already passed away. For the life of him he could never understand how her own parents could speak of her that way and allow her to rot in a laundry for the rest of her days.

It’s hard to believe that this happened mere generations ago. Yet I still remember a childhood friend of mine (I’m 27 for context), whose sister became pregnant by her live-in fiancé. Not only did her family disown her, they didn’t even see or acknowledge their own granddaughter until she was three years old. It was only after the wedding that they reconciled. I never could get my head around that mentality - it seems as though they would have thrown her in a laundry without a second thought had the option been available to them.

A lot of the woman were not there because of a sexual transgression a lot were there because society had no place for them they were what were described as slow learners or maybe they were odd in some way or just vulnerable a lot of people were in some sort of institution at the time.... at one stage Ireland had the heights rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals in the world! then there were all the people in religions orders, industrial school and orphanages ect it seems totally bizarre to us now...a lot of it was to do poverty remember at the time Ireland was largely rural and a lot of people lived barley above subsistence level even in the fifties lot of homes would not have had indoor pluming or running water... people in the past were no more cruel that us today they were just poor and thought they were doing there best.

Corsendonk

mariaalice wrote: »

A lot of the woman were not there because of a sexual transgression a lot were there because society had no place for them they were what were described as slow learners or maybe they were odd in some way or just vulnerable a lot of people were in some sort of institution at the time.... at one stage Ireland had the heights rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals in the world! then there were all the people in religions orders, industrial school and orphanages ect it seems totally bizarre to us now...a lot of it was to do poverty remember at the time Ireland was largely rural and a lot of people lived barley above subsistence level even in the fifties lot of homes would not have had indoor pluming or running water... people in the past were no more cruel that us today they were just poor and thought they were doing there best.

My parents and grandparents could list off quite a few people both male and female that were considered "slow" or "odd" that were packed off to the local mental hospital by relatives because they stood in the way of land inheritance. The Irish obsession with land again.

CDfm

mariaalice wrote: »

at one stage Ireland had the heights rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals in the world! then there were all the people in religions orders, industrial school and orphanages ect it seems totally bizarre to us now...

There were several reasons for this , as an alternative to prison, lack of sheltered housing but mostly because of the high levels of emigration they were left behind.

There is a thread on history on it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056235296#post71632655

There also was no welfare system as the country was very poor.

a lot of it was to do poverty remember at the time Ireland was largely rural and a lot of people lived barley above subsistence level even in the fifties lot of homes would not have had indoor pluming or running water... people in the past were no more cruel that us today they were just poor and thought they were doing there best.

+1 it was a rural society - I love using the phrase peasant but that is what it was in recent history.

We did not have free secondary education until the late 60's and primary school education for most was as high as they got.

I also imagine a reason for it was there was no option for many girls but marriage or emigration and a child would be disasterous for both options.

For the welfare system read this

http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Policy/CorporatePublications/Finance/Pages/opfpreview.aspx