- Feb 5, 2002
- 180,549
- 65,086
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
I wish someone had warned me that the denouement of #TheMiracleClub movie I saw a few nights ago would be a scene set in a hotel named for St. Bernadette in Lourdes where Irish women from different generations share with one another—with great fellow feeling—about how they’ve tried to abort their children and that somehow resolves decades of rancor.
The superficially charming portrayal of 1960s Irish Catholics dressed up in the bright fashionable colors of the era (even the doors of the Dublin row houses where they live are painted with the same bright colors—in contrast with the shabbiness inside) with some stellar actors, including Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, and Laura Linney, is rotten at its core.
A lot could have been shown in this movie about the cruelty of the double standard that was in effect during those years, which are the same years when I was a young woman and witnessed the double standard for myself firsthand.
When a woman got pregnant outside of what we used to call wedlock, she usually was sent away to avoid shaming the family and ruining her reputation. She would go to a home for unwed mothers until the baby was born, where she would give the child up for adoption. She had little choice, unless her parents were willing to let her have the child and raise it in their home, when that would mean they were able to face society’s scorn for themselves and for the bastard child.
It was indeed deplorable that shame was heaped on any woman who took the great risk of having sex and possibly getting pregnant with a man who quite probably wouldn’t want to marry her or raise a child with her, and grossly unfair that men were excused for sowing their wild oats before marriage. The woman who was known to have lost her virginity was thought of as ruined. She was told that no decent man would want to marry her. Horny boys looking for a good time would from then on see her as easy game.
Continued below.
roseannetsullivan.substack.com
The superficially charming portrayal of 1960s Irish Catholics dressed up in the bright fashionable colors of the era (even the doors of the Dublin row houses where they live are painted with the same bright colors—in contrast with the shabbiness inside) with some stellar actors, including Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, and Laura Linney, is rotten at its core.
A lot could have been shown in this movie about the cruelty of the double standard that was in effect during those years, which are the same years when I was a young woman and witnessed the double standard for myself firsthand.
When a woman got pregnant outside of what we used to call wedlock, she usually was sent away to avoid shaming the family and ruining her reputation. She would go to a home for unwed mothers until the baby was born, where she would give the child up for adoption. She had little choice, unless her parents were willing to let her have the child and raise it in their home, when that would mean they were able to face society’s scorn for themselves and for the bastard child.
It was indeed deplorable that shame was heaped on any woman who took the great risk of having sex and possibly getting pregnant with a man who quite probably wouldn’t want to marry her or raise a child with her, and grossly unfair that men were excused for sowing their wild oats before marriage. The woman who was known to have lost her virginity was thought of as ruined. She was told that no decent man would want to marry her. Horny boys looking for a good time would from then on see her as easy game.
Continued below.
The Miracle Club (2023): Review
The superficially charming portrayal of 1960s Irish Catholics dressed up in the bright fashionable colors of the era is rotten at its core.
roseannetsullivan.substack.com
