Monday, December 12, 2011

NOT a holiday movie, but an important one

I gave up Netflix to save money, so had to watch our last 2 DVD's before they charge me for them.  I hate Netflix.

Anyway, one was The Magdalene Sisters.  I'm so overwrought now I have to post or go mad.  This is based on the very real treatment of "fallen" women in Catholic Ireland.   While women in America were waking up to their own freedoms and liberation, teenage girls in Ireland who dared to wink at a boy, or were the victims of rape, or any other "crime" involving sex were locked away by the church in these Magdalene Asylums.  There under violent, cruel, and humiliating circumstances they were expected to spend the rest of their lives seeking penance for their sins.

THIS is what happens to women when religion runs the show.  THIS is what happens when men think they somehow get a free ticket to oppress women.  THIS is what happens when weak women buy into the whole man-of-the-cloth bullshit.  THIS is what happens when an entire society represses all forms of sexuality and looks to some absent god as a replacement. 

As the last chords of the movie died away, I wanted to pull my sleeping girls from the beds.  I wanted to hold them close and tell them to let no man or god deem them trash.  I wanted to line up all women, hike up our skirts, and wag them lady parts at society Braveheart style screaming "THIS is part of our bodies!  And what happens there is OUR story.  This is OUR property!  THIS is our RIGHT!"

 

5 comments:

Dr. Monkey Hussein Monkerstein said...

Indeed, that was one powerful movie. And I must say, I love Netflix instant streaming.

Anonymous said...

Good idea.

michaelg said...

Definitely not a cheery holiday film, even though I loved it.

BeckEye said...

I'll have to check that one out.

Churlita said...

I saw that a couple of years ago and it felt like a punch in the gut.

That right there is the reason I don't believe in organized religion - it never seems to work out very well for women.