What women used to have to deal with...

[populistmom]

I just got done watching a documentary on the Sundance Channel. Nothing surprising really, given the crap that women have had to go through in history, but sometimes at the hands of other women, it makes it all the more worse. It was a documentary about the physical and pyschological abuse girls and young women went through at the hands of nuns in these orphanages and "Magdalene" homes (for alleged wayward young women) in Ireland in the earlier part of the 20th century (primarily pre-1950). Women were sent away from their families and put to work in these "prisons" really for being raped!!! I am crying because of the story of one women who was in a home for unwed mothers and her boyfriend was trying to marry her, but they didn't give her the letters, then her baby was sent away when he was 10 months old, and she couldn't even say goodbye. Then she went home and her family turned her away to one of these prison-like Magdalene homes where she ended up with a fever and infection because of the sudden weaning (severe engorgement, anyone who's ever had a baby understands). These women were all elderly women now and still brokenhearted for what was done to them. And it got worse.

I guess I'm being a big downer, but with all the issues women have now currently that we struggle for, especially still regarding choice, equal pay, flexibility in the workplace, etc., we have to remember to keep it going and to keep fighting. On the other hand, I am so very grateful for being a woman of today where I am. My husband can't beat me, I can own property, I can vote, I can't legally be fired for becoming pregnant, and I can admit sex is fun without being stoned to death. I'm not always 100% happy with my life, but it sure beats living the lives that some women in the past live or women in other places in the world live right now.

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. hey

It also beats getting clubbed over the head and dragged back to the caves...as the cartoons used to teach us. :D

[populistmom]

8. Very true

Populistdad would get a big can of whoopass opened if he ever tried that crap.

[Droopy]

2. This is kind of unrelated but you brought something up about

how we should appreciate what we have now looking back on how hard others before us had it.

It makes me appreciate what I have even though things aren't really that great for me. If I lived just fifty years ago, I would not be a productive member of society. I'd be locked away in some mental institution. But thanks to modern medicine and psychology I am able to live and walk freely among you all.

[populistmom]

4. Mental health care

I went through some yucky depression stuff myself and fortunately I've been one of those people who has made it through (twice) without meds, maybe one of those times I should have had meds, but still made it through. It amazing how people who were bipolar or depressed were basically just locked away to rot even 50 years ago.

I guess this thread is my seriously depressing way of being optimistic. Is that an oxymoron? Probably.

[cally]

3. I've heard about that documentary

and I hope to see it. It is appalling what happened to those young women. From what I understand, much of it was a way to get indentured servants (I know that's not what they were called) to do laundry to support the Convent. I've read some of the interviews with family members who still supported sending the women there to "atone" for their sins. I guess their "sin" was being a woman.

I too am greatful to live at this time. We all need to keep fighting because too many are trying to take what women gained away.

[populistmom]

7. It seemed really bad

I used to be Catholic and I don't want to be disrespectful to those who are, but I felt personally that I couldn't keep supporting even the tiniest bit a church with so many current and historical things that I either disagreed with or found morally resprehensible.

And we will fight. I see it in my own family. Every generation of women just gets stronger. I tell my daughter that she will be a force to be reckoned with (and she is). :)

[Kenneth ken]

5. I'm always up for

a reason to mention Joni Mitchell.

So, Magdalene Laundries, by Joni Mitchell - from Turbulent Indigo

MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the streaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me--
Fallen women--
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery ...
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries

Peg O'Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring

[populistmom]

6. Oh man!

Are you trying to make me all weepy again? I never knew of that song (and I went through a big Joni Mitchell phases in my younger years). Awesome. Thanks.

[Kenneth ken]

11. nope!

I wouldn't want to be the cause of your mascara running. :evilgrin:

I just really, really like her music. She won a grammy for Turbulent Indigo, but it was a really good release anyway, so don't hold that against it.

:hi:

:bounce:

[Samurai_Writer]

13. Joni Mitchell is also a birthmother...

She surrendered her firstborn child to adoption when she was young. There are many of us that have had the misfortune of having gone to unwed mothers' homes, here in the U.S. and elsewhere. And it wasn't 50 years ago, either.

RadFemFL
birthmom to John, now age 25
mom to Randal, now age 22
foster mom to Scotty, now age 22

Former 'inmate' of Villa Maria, Catholic Charities' maternity home, Houston, Texas, 1978.

my story: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2991/marybb.html

[Kenneth ken]

14. woo hoo a twofer

edit: I probably should have read your link before posting. Reading it kind of took the exuberance out of my response.

I hope one day you will get to spend time visiting in person with your son, and actually get to know him as a person. :hug:

I get to mention Joni twice in one thread!

for the record, her daughter's name is Kelly, they were reunited a few years ago. Joni hired Pi's to track her down. And that's about all I know about that. I really don't know a lot about Joni, except the music. I've never been a know-all-the-gossip-in-someone's-life kind of fan.

(from Blue, of course)

LITTLE GREEN

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say, "Her eyes are blue."
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little green, he's a non-conformer

CH0RUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed
Little green, have a happy ending

CHORUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow


and this (from Wild Things Run Fast)

Caught in the middle
Carol, we're middle class
We're middle aged
We were wild in the old days
Birth of rock 'n roll days
Now your kids are coming up straight
And my child's a stranger
I bore her
But, I could not raise her
Nothing lasts for long--
Nothing lasts for long--
Nothing lasts for long--
Down at the Chinese Cafe
We'd be dreaming on our dimes
We'd be playing--
"Oh my love, my darling"
One more time

[populistmom]

16. RadFemFL,

Can I give you a hug or something? :hug: Not enough, but something. I just read your story. I'm glad that's a pain I never had to go through myself. Again, from another mother :hug:

[FloridaJudy]

15. Yeah, I got that one

on the Chieftan's *Hearts of Stone* CD. Seriously depressing Irish music most of it, but some great women vocalists.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. I saw the Magdalene Sisters, a drama based on these homes

it was horrifying and sad-and you're right about giving you some perspective on what we consider injustice today. I thank my lucky stars I was raised in the 70s/80s.

[Kat45]

10. There's a movie out now based on the Magdalene homes

A couple of people I know saw it and they found it really intense and upsetting. "The Magdalene Sisters" is the name of it.

[bleedingheart]

12. So many of our sisters have suffered

the countless women worn out by child birth who died before they could even raise the children they did bear...

the countless women and men who buried so many children before they even reached their second birthday.

the fact that women and children were the property of their husbands...

the women, like my mom, who had to give up their jobs when they got married.

so many horrible stories....