Minnie’s Musings

Last night I failed to go to bed early as planned and instead caught ‘Lollipop’, a heartbreaking film about a single mother who comes out of prison to discover that she cannot simply get her children back and move on with her life.

This had been trailed in Women’s Hour earlier in the week. And yes, it was quite brilliant. Not just because it highlighted the barriers prison leavers experience to rebuilding their lives but also the detailed nuance of relationships between the women (the only male character is the younger child). Love, resentment, affection, selfishness, compassion, callousness vied for supremacy. It was beautifully crafted and showed the complexity of life and family.

The point where I looked up and frowned however, was where the presiding judge at the custody hearing praised the mum for apologising to her children for she staying in an abusive relationship.

This goes to the heart of widely held attitudes towards women who stay, epitomised by the oft heard question, “Why didn’t she just leave?”

Good Lord, if it was that easy the country would be full of abandoned men beating each other up because the women in their lives have put themselves out of reach.

The reason this is not the case is because the physical strength of men and the deeply ingrained expectations of both men and women that women don’t leave, women try to please, women forgive, endlessly.

And the fact that the presiding judge was a woman stuck in my craw. Because when we don’t understand the issues faced by our own gender, we know the mountain is chucking boulders down on our heads.