Women boxed in by secret pregnancy

"This girl isn't happy; this girl has to see a social worker; this girl had a one-night stand."

Voices echo through an empty Dublin church, as the choir bark out their words with judgment and conviction. They glare at each other, mumbling and sneering, taking the part of a voyeuristic society, scrutinising the lives of these young, isolated women.

The Mornington Singers choral ensemble have transported their sweet voices to a place of darkness, bringing a new meaning to their song. They sing of the pain, loneliness and fear of young women who feel rejected and humiliated by society.

They’re singing about Irish women who over the past two decades have chosen to hide their pregnancies from the world.

"Inside this box, I am a box for life. Inside your vox, I have no voice or choice."

Social scientist Dr Catherine Conlon first came across the issue of concealed pregnancies in 2004. She discovered the Crisis Pregnancy Agency was interested in commissioning research on young mothers who had hidden their pregnancies, and she began interviewing women around the country.

Conlon soon discovered that data on concealed pregnancies was very limited, both in Ireland and abroad.

Through hospital reports, she found the National Maternity Hospital had recorded seven concealed pregnancies in 1995, 18 in 1997, 24 in 1998, 15 in 2000 and 12 in 2001. The Coombe hospital made no reference to concealed pregnancies in its annual reports. The Rotunda Maternity Hospital referred to only two instances, under “neo-natal deaths”: one in 2001 and the other in 2003.

Conlon contacted a number of women through the social-work departments of maternity hospitals to speak to them about their experiences of hidden pregnancies.

She says a number of factors had led these women, most in their 20s, to keep their pregnancies secret.

For one young university student, the idea of a crisis pregnancy was “particularly anathema”, says Conlon. “Being a competent, intelligent young woman and getting caught with a pregnancy are not very compatible identities. The imagined trajectories she had for her life were not compatible with pregnancy or motherhood at that time.”

The young woman feared rejection from her friends and family. “Do I want that public judgment on me, of having been feckless enough, stupid enough to get caught when there’s effective contraception and I’m supposed to be heading for a very illustrious career?”

Conlon also interviewed a single mother who became pregnant after a one-night stand. “Her issue was that all the work she had done to build a respectable family and to engage the daughter’s father in her life would all be completely blown apart if she was now seen as having a pregnancy from someone that she didn’t even know.”

She says the woman was so aware of the “fragility” of her family set-up that she worried the truth of her one-night stand could “fatally rupture” the world around her.

Women are “heavily judged” in these scenarios, says Conlon. “It seemed to be this idea that, by no identifiable man being present, it suggested the woman was very sexually prolific.”

Pregnant and unaware

Conlon also encountered a young woman who was unaware of her pregnancy for six months. The woman, who had been using a contraceptive implant, visited her GP when she noticed changes in her body. However, the GP dismissed her symptoms, assuring her she couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

“She was describing it to a doctor, who was in quite a knowledgeable and powerful position, and she wasn’t going out and buying a home kit because she had gone to her doctor 26 times.”

It was only after the woman referred herself to a gynaecology unit that she discovered she was pregnant. Conlon argues that the fear of being a single mother is not what drives these women to hide the truth.

“One in three births in Ireland now occurs outside marriage, so it’s not necessarily about non-marital status – it’s about a very particular constellation of issues.”

Conlon's research led to a PhD, which she completed in 2010. However, she was determined to disseminate her findings to a wider audience, and, through Trinity College Dublin's Long Room Hub creative arts practices, she met Dr Evangelia Rigaki, a professor of music at the university.

After reading the report, Rigaki says she “instinctively” knew she wanted to create a musical performance based on confession. She settled on the story of the single mother who feared being judged for sleeping with a stranger.

“I thought it should be a confession in an actual confession box. The music would make it feel very intimate, almost claustrophobic.”

She organised for a wooden confession box to be constructed in the outdoor surroundings of Trinity College, where she could use musicians to recreate the woman’s story.

With the support of poet WN Herbert, Rigaki composed seven miniature operas to represent the woman’s testimonial. “The text is very brutal and blunt; it’s not being beautified like what usually happens with librettos in operas.”

She says the music represents the woman’s “cry for help”, while the confession box, or “pregnant box”, is the “objectification of the woman as a box to carry a child”.

Herbert, a professor at Newcastle University, says the most emotional part of writing the lyrics to accompany Rigaki’s music was the relationship between the woman and her mother

“That kind of parent-child thing was what hooked me into it. That relationship where it’s what you tell each other, how open you are, what you conceal.”

Herbert says parents tend to assume they know their children. “You think your kid will be sensible and you know her and she’ll tell you everything that’s going on, but you don’t know. You don’t actually know that.”

Rigaki also approached Orla Flanagan, conductor of the Mornington Singers, in search of a wandering “Greek chorus” that could provide external support to the musicians inside the confession box.

For the performance, she has created a scenario where an audience member will take on the role of the priest, stepping inside the box for three minutes to listen to a soprano’s confession, accompanied by a flautist.

Conlon hopes the musical collaboration will highlight the plight of these women.

“We assume as a society that crisis pregnancies are a thing of the past, that we as a society are very accepting of a woman no matter in what context she gets pregnant.

“Women, for their sexual behaviour, are under judgment and surveillance and scrutiny all the time. There are these enormous, continuous layers of judgment.”

[ discoverresearchdublin.com ]