The welfare worker who asks a woman why she stayed. The police officer who laughs with an abusive husband.
Systems can, in changing, change a culture of sexism.
It matters not whether the Tories mean to hurt abused women. They do . Joined with cuts to child care, housing subsidy and other social supports, cuts to basic needs left many abused women and their children trapped. Women who leave violent partners often need financial support, either because they're poor, or because they have no access to their money. Almost as soon as welfare cuts were announced, women began to tell shelters they couldn't leave because they couldn't support their children.