The Female Body in Pain: Feminist Re-enactments of Sexual and Physical Violence in Dorothy Molloy's Poetry

Abstract

Women's representations of rape and domestic violence can exert a forcible social critique of women's victimization by patriarchal social structures that confine and silence them. One such case is contemporary Irish poet, Dorothy Molloy. Molloy writes boldly about abusive sexual relationships, placing masculine violence toward the female body at the center of her poetry. While it was not a new problem, it was only from 1970s onward, with the reawakening of feminist movements in many countries, including Ireland, that rape and domestic violence were brought to public attention. Born midway through the twentieth century, Molloy belongs to the generation of the Second Wave feminist movement, of those articulate women who engaged actively in the public domain by questioning the Church's and the State's authority on sexual matters. Indeed, during the 1990s she was involved in feminist movements in Ireland, particularly in Christian feminist movements such as BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ), a group working for the ordination of women and the establishment of a new Catholic Church “freed from the sin of sexism and healed from the divisions between men and women.”1