The Netflix series Maid that everyone is talking about is a gripping and well-observed portrayal of domestic abuse. Sean is a loving boyfriend to Alex at first. But over time, he isolates, belittles and impoverishes her until she’s virtually his hostage. When she flees with their kid, he escalates, suing her for custody and sabotaging her housing. He uses violence sparingly but effectively to reinforce this program of control.
Alex eventually triumphs. So did Stephanie Land, who inspired Maid with her bestselling memoir. Sadly, many women don’t. For them, escaping is too difficult or dangerous, largely because we don’t have their backs.
Alex and her daughter Maddy are buoyed by two stays at a domestic violence shelter in a small city in Washington. They’re given a comfortable and private apartment. They’re fed and nurtured by the caring staff. Maddy attends a playgroup. Alex attends group therapy sessions and “shops” at the free boutique.
They’re lucky they weren’t turned away.
Domestic violence programs around the country count on federal, state, and local grants to help survivors rebuild their lives. Tragically, the grants fall far short of the need. Every day, more than 11,000 requests from victims are rejected due to insufficient funding, according to research by the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Most are requests for shelter. The rest are for other life-changing services, such as job counseling, babysitting, and health care.
Victims also face a hostile justice system. In Maid, Alex is fortunate. One of her housecleaning clients connects her with a top family lawyer, who, working for free, impels Sean to abandon his custody bid. This allows Alex to move to Montana, where she has won a college scholarship and qualified for campus housing and daycare.
But in many family court disputes, the abuser is the one with the fancy lawyer and his victim is representing herself. He presents himself as a devoted, even heroic dad and his ex as a vengeful nut. What’s worse, judges tend to buy it.
When women allege intimate partner or child abuse during custody disputes, judges believe them only two-fifths of the time, according to a recent study by Joan Meier, a law professor at George Washington University. The consequences of this can be dire. In one-fourth of the cases where judges discredit women, they transfer primary custody to the man, Meier found.
In the rest of those cases, and even in cases where women are believed, judges default to shared custody, claiming children are best served by a close relationship with their father. According to estimates by psychologist Joyanna Silberg, every year more than 58,000 children in this country are ordered into unsupervised contact with an abuser.
The police let women down, too. Alex chooses not to involve the cops, reasoning that because Sean punches walls but not her, they won’t think he broke the law. What the show doesn’t address is that even a woman who’s been beaten to a pulp can’t count on assistance from police. In a survey of victim’s advocates conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union, 88% of respondents said police “sometimes” or “often” either accused victims of lying about abuse or blamed them for the abuse that occurred.
Appallingly, many cops are abusers themselves. In one study of 728 officers in five cities and towns, an astounding 40% admitted to being violent at home in just the preceding six months.
If a victim can’t rely on the cops, the courts or the shelter system for help, she must lean on her family and friends. But as Maid perceptively illustrates, abusers don’t just manipulate their victims, they manipulate victims’ loved ones, too. Alex’s father is charmed by Sean and thinks she owes him the opportunity to change. And while the couple’s mutual friends profess neutrality, they spend all their time with Sean.
It’s no wonder, then, that many women stay. Or they try to leave and end up dead.
Last year alone, more than 1,900 American women were killed by an intimate partner, according to an analysis of FBI data by James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern. Many intimate partner femicides occur either while the victim is attempting to separate from her abuser or shortly after she has done so research shows.
In the final scene of the final episode of Maid, Alex and Maddy arrive in Missoula and ascend a mountain near campus. The sun is shining. The grass is waving. They yelp in victory at the top.
All abuse victims deserve a happy ending like this. But they won’t get it until society steps up.
(Olivia Gentile is an author, journalist and advocate for survivors of gender-based violence. You can find her work at www.oliviagentile.com. She lives in Hanover.)