It’s 1935 and all is not well in the penitentiary system. But here comes Ol’ Agnes MacPhail to bust some heads. She’s the first woman to check out the conditions in the prison and she doesn’t like what she sees. Her train of thought seems to be: “Hey, beating these guys up isn’t making them better citizens and actually might cause some problems in the long run so, maybe let’s not do that?”. The guys in Parliament assure her that she’d just too delicate, because she’s a boobhaver, to know what prison is all about. She shows them what actually goes on in the prison (I guess they’d never actually bothered to check) and seems to pretty quickly get people on her side.
It’s a good thing to remember both our first “woman MP” and that improving prisons is a good thing, so that’s nice. The “Is This Normal!?” is definitely memorable, but it is not especially useful as a quoteable line. The parliament scene reminds me of the bit in the Moment about the women in the medical system. An established patriarchy trying to shout down the women who are trying to making progress. At least that other group had some glorious sideburns. I think I settle somewhere about Four out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake here.