Is it a watershed moment in the relations between men and women? Is it a sign that men have absolutely had enough of women and their emotional instability? This is the first of a series of comments I will post in answer to those questions.
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Lindsay Clancy and the Perennial Innocence of Killer-Mothers
Western criminal law has been soft on violent mothers for at least the past 250 years
Janice Fiamengo, Aug 25, 2026
The headlines are standard: “Women in pink rally in support of Lindsay Clancy who is on trial for killing 3 children,’” “America’s saddest murder trial: mental health in focus in Lindsay Clancy case,” “Lindsay Clancy’s trial shows how badly the system fails mothers,” and “Everyone Failed Lindsay Clancy.”
The headlines look away from the actual victims in the case: the three helpless children who were strangled to death in early 2023. All the sympathetic emphasis is on their mother, portrayed as a tragic figure allegedly “failed” by others and not morally responsible for her horrific act.
As in many cases of mothers who murder their children (I discuss other recent cases here), Lindsay Clancy has defenders aplenty eager to cry for her and proclaim their solidarity (for one compilation, see here). Some are even willing to say that they have felt as she allegedly felt—eager to dispatch their children. Her grisly act has provoked masses of donations to a GoFundMe account (reportedly at one million dollars) as well as enthusiastic rallies of (mostly) women proclaiming her innocence.
Many pink-themed supporters insist on asserting, without logical or evidentiary foundation, that it was Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s then-husband, who deserves the lion’s share of the blame, whether for failing to support his wife adequately during her post-partum depression or even, as some allege, for killing the children himself and then convincing his mentally fragile wife to take the blame.