Magdelene Laundries - Eugenics by another name?

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.

mariaalice

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

getz

are we trying to find a excuse for the catholic church locking young girls up,and using them for slave labour,at times sexualy assulting them,working them seven days a week [forced labour],keeping them locked up ,with bars on windows,babies taken away,their names changed,kept in prison for life,on the whim of the mother superior ?

mariaalice

No understanding the past is not the same as excusing it.

metrovelvet

Corsendonk wrote: »

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.

Yeah well, a very convenient way to get rid of someone who posed as an inconveience, as well as a long historical tradition of putting women away in the looney bin

metrovelvet

getz wrote: »

are we trying to find a excuse for the catholic church locking young girls up,and using them for slave labour,at times sexualy assulting them,working them seven days a week [forced labour],keeping them locked up ,with bars on windows,babies taken away,their names changed,kept in prison for life,on the whim of the mother superior ?

Did other Catholic nations do this too?

getz

mariaalice wrote: »

No understanding the past is not the same as excusing it.

i am sorry its just that i find the whole thing so bad ,the true blame should have been laid at feet of the irish goverment,who helped/turned a blind eye to the abuses,by a church that was under the control of a foreign state,this is why the goverment is wishing it will all go away.

metrovelvet

getz wrote: »

i am sorry its just that i find the whole thing so bad ,the true blame should have been laid at feet of the irish goverment,who helped/turned a blind eye to the abuses,by a church that was under the control of a foreign state,this is why the goverment is wishing it will all go away.

The Irish people were at fault too. The Irish people sent their kids to these places.

getz

metrovelvet wrote: »

Did other Catholic nations do this too?

they were locked up all over the world ,not just catholic nations,but the abuses in ireland were in far more excess because of the lack of interest by its goverment

Nhead

getz wrote: »

are we trying to find a excuse for the catholic church locking young girls up,and using them for slave labour,at times sexualy assulting them,working them seven days a week [forced labour],keeping them locked up ,with bars on windows,babies taken away,their names changed,kept in prison for life,on the whim of the mother superior ?

Personally, no I think the RCC have to and must take responsibilty. The point I was making was that it wasn't just the free state/republic that committed these horrors it goes right back.

CDfm

I look at it a bit differently.The lone parents allowance did not exist before 1973. That was a fact.

Harsh as it was, pre 1973 if a girl became pregnant and if she could not support herself or if her family threw her out or if someone else did not support her then her options were limited.

Sexual mores were also different but the people were aware of the social policy.

While I am not excusing the social policies ,those were facts of life.

Dudess

Dolorous wrote: »

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.

Frightening. In 2003 my friend fathered a child - casual fling. He saw his son pretty often and when the little boy was four, his mother and my friend got together (for the sake of their child - not a good idea ultimately, but that's a different thread) and it was only then that my friend felt brave enough to tell his parents that they had a grandson :eek:

His mother, extremely status-seeking as well as staunch catholic (that's another dimension to the horror of the institution system - there was shocking hatred of poor/working class people) didn't want to know. One wonders how she would have handled it had it been her daughter who broke the news she was becoming a parent...