I belong to a feminist movie club in ICU, where we watch films not only related to feminism but also all sorts of thought-provoking films, and we discuss what we feel and also post our reviews in our school magazine.
Last week, I had an opportunity to watch the film “The Magdalene Sisters”, directed by Peter Mullan. I watched this film having almost no background knowledge, but after watching it, it made me want to know more about the context and history, and how it connects to our society today.
The Magdalene Sisters is a film about three teenage girls who were sent to the Magdalene asylums (Magdalene laundries), homes for women who were called “fallen” by their families or society. The homes were maintained by individual religious orders, usually by the Catholic church.
The film takes place in Ireland in 1964, so called “fallen” women were considered sinners who needed to be redeemed as a punishment for having sex outside of marriage. Four young women – Margaret (raped by her cousin), Bernadette (“too beautiful” and coquettish), Rose (an unmarried mother) and Crispina (an intellectually challenged unmarried mother) – are forced by their families or caretakers into the Magdalene asylum.
In the asylum, women were forced to spend almost an entire day on lace-making, needlework, or doing laundry; the working conditions and the general environment inside the asylum were prison-like. In the film, we see two women attempting to escape from the asylum, resulting in their heads being shaved, and Rose getting beaten with the whip by the sisters for exchanging conversation with the people outside.
What struck me the most was the fact that this physical and psychological violence against the women who were in the asylum was done by women as well. Though I am not nearly knowledgeable enough about gender studies, feminism, etc., this structure of victim-blaming makes us think critically about modern society.
I do think that now, we are in a society where topics like gender and sexual assault are being spoken about more openly than before, and we have a better understanding of how serious these issues are, but that doesn’t erase a historical factor like this.
As a matter of fact, it was only in 1993 that the story of Magdalene women was uncovered, and 155 women who had died in the laundry were exhumed from unmarked graves, and the media began to ask questions. A formal state apology was issued in 2014, and the Irish Government set up a compensation scheme for survivors.
After watching this film, I wanted to learn more about whether similar cases are still occurring around the world and how they relate to the way we perceive issues such as sexual assault, premarital sex, and women’s sexuality more broadly. I also began to question the social structures that allow women to be judged, shamed, and controlled based on these perceptions.
I hope anyone who reads can take this as an opportunity to think deeply about this issue, and not to treat the story of Magdalene women as mere history.
Sources
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230324211313/https://www.history.com/news/magdalene-laundry-ireland-asylum-abuse
- https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/europe/25iht-abuse25.html