Maid is a 10 part series about Alex a broken woman, beaten down emotionally by her partner who uses violence and intimidation to control her. When she first escapes, she has no access to her finances and doesn't even recognise his behaviour as domestic violence – because he has never hit her, she refuses to even document her reason for leaving as domestic abuse.
Alex often has to rely on her mother, out of desperation for childcare; whose own undiagnosed mental illness makes that chaotically impossible and often unsafe for her daughter. She has to co-parent with her abuser, whose own trauma makes him pathologically unpredictable and scarily vindictive.
Her father tries to offer help without any acknowledgement for his own past behaviour. Seeing the battle she feels to know whether her sick child is better off with him or in substandard childcare, knowing he once abused her mother was so relatable for any working mother trying to make ends meet.
Watching her Dad defend her abuser was arguably the most painful part for me. To have a parent who has never put you first along with a mother who was mentally incapable just illustrated how Alex ended up in this cycle of abuse.
Alex like so many Mothers has to keep a job to access benefits just to meet her daughter's basic needs for food and shelter, but her options are so awful and potentially damaging to her emotional needs. Her friends are her abuser's friends – another common issue for domestic violence survivors and another roadblock in her escape.
It would be easy to argue that Alex doesn't always make the "right" choices, but that's the point. When you're in this cycle of abuse you don't always make the best choices. Poverty, abuse and poor mental health have a way of robbing your judgment, your spirit, and your will. The Netflix series illuminates all the vulnerabilities that having children brings. The slightest mishap, without the money or resources to correct it, can only snowball into a disaster, even if you're not in a cycle of abuse. How many women are the main breadwinner, I know I couldn't afford my mortgage if I left my husband.
The statistics really are terrifying, domestic abuse is still largely hidden crime, occurring primarily at home. Women often don't report or disclose domestic abuse to the police and may underreport domestic abuse in surveys, particularly during face-to-face interviews.
· A Survey of England and Wales offers the best data available. According to these data, for the year ending March 2020, an estimated 1.6 million women aged 16 to 74 years experienced domestic abuse in the last year.
· On average the police in England and Wales receive over 100 calls relating to domestic abuse every hour. According to CSEW data for the year ending March 2018, only 18% of women who had experienced partner abuse in the last 12 months reported the abuse to the police.
· 130,000 children live in homes where there is high-risk domestic abuse.
· 62% of children living with domestic abuse are directly harmed by the perpetrator of the abuse, in addition to the harm caused by witnessing the abuse of others.
· On average victims at high risk of serious harm or murder live with domestic abuse for 2-3 years before getting help.
· 85% of victims sought help five times on average from professionals in the year before they got effective help to stop the abuse.
This is an epidemic, and the importance of strong, easily accessible support systems for women escaping abuse has never been more apparent. Shelters are crucial – a women's shelter saves Alex twice over, helping her get back on her feet with accommodation, clothing, technology and help with childcare. We have a long way to go when it comes to both recognizing domestic abuse in all its forms and helping women escape domestic violence. Hopefully, human insight into the experience via shows like Maid can lead to real change. Being abused is so much more than having bruises, the emotional scars that change who we are as people last so much longer.
If you're a survivor and are looking for support, please contact me.