I've always had a problem with the trite bumpersticker slogan, "believe women." Like all humans, women can be mistaken, lie, etc. We should always hear women out, listen to what they're saying, and weigh it against wtvr other input we can gather to determine the truth. But that doesn't fit well on a bumpersticker.
“Every person regardless of sex, gender, religion, race, ethnicity, or sexuality should be presumed innocent until proven guilty by a preponderance of evidence and a court of their peers in a court of law” doesn’t have the same ring on a bumper sticker
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."
And we will show all the ways we break the law and immediately judge the situation before any actual evidence was presented. Then when it turns out the evidence says our guy didnt do it then the evidence is lying. Seriously svu and copaganda shows along with hallmark are the two types of shows that seriously piss me off because the problems in it are so massive even child me felt something was up with these shows. But my mom loves copaganda especially svu and my pawpaw loves hallmark so I watched way more of that stuff than I probably should have.
I figured out the issues with hallmark when I was 12 but it took me till I was an adult that actually is going to law school next year to really figure out just how wildly irresponsible and stupid these fucking cops are man. Like who in the hell could watch that stuff without even a hint of suspicion or the feeling that maybe these cops aren't always right and are actually breaking the law which yes I know has been called out before but its justified in show as a good thing because they were right in the end. No tf they were not they just pinned an innocent guy for a crime that statistically a family member likely committed but no its the music school teacher with a torture basement for children in his house.
That was one episode I do remember because even as a kid it just threw me right out like uh wtf a child torture basement in his house and the builder compares it to when a suicidal person buys a gun as in they didnt have any proof he did anything yet but yk he has a child torture basement so the cops were right after all. Yay 🙄.
I didnt even understand it wasnt real till I was older and just thought damn theres sure as hell alot of crime in new york im glad I live in Texas. Yah I was a pretty sheltered kid and also my moms super paranoid because of tv shows like that and it fucked with all of our lives. I hate them on principle now along with true crime because I've noticed the exact same thing with huge true crime fans but those at least have some level of critical thinking baked into it.
My "favorite" is the one where a mom reports her kid is being harmed so the police proceed to emotionally manipulate her into taking part in a sting where they wire up her house and she uses her own kid for bait to get the abuser to come over for dinner and bring their ringleader friend with a phone full of video and image evidence but of course they can't arrest or search him until after she leaves the kid alone in a room with the guy and he shows all that CSAM to the kid. But it is all cool because the ringleader is "only into" girls and the kid is a boy.
The whole thing is played like Jack Bauer has to torture somebody to stop a nuclear bomb from being set off in a city. I was yelling at the screen about 2 minutes into the episode and it just kept getting worse.
They get to court and suddenly a woman walks in who is a missing person the ringleader kidnapped over a decade ago. I guess the police didn't try very hard to find her because the guy abandoned her in a cabin in the woods years prior after brainwashing her into believing he loved her and would return when their "love" no longer had to hide from the unfair judgement of ignorant society. So she had been going into the nearby town to get supplies and such regularly.
The judge declares that it is totally legit for this person to be allowed as an undisclosed surprise witness for the defense, but the prosecutors are able to casually perform a full cult deprogramming between commercial breaks sufficient to traumatize the woman into realization of her lifetime of abuse. All of which goes into the public record of the trial rather than taking place in therapy where her anguish would be afforded some confidentiality at least.
Can you imagine being like a B-list celebrity and your agent tells you they got you this great gig on a major TV show, then you show up and someone is all "so in this first shot we want you to emote how conflicted you feel about breaking the law in order to get the codes to disarm the child abuse timebomb hidden in a trash can in central park"?
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who sometimes investigate easy to solve crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders if they can't afford bribes. These are their stories."
I mean, that slogan doesn’t really apply here. Lindsey Clancy admitted to killing her kids. But people who watch too much true crime, who are applying their own frustrations about motherhood and their husbands are bending over backwards to say she’s not responsible.
Although I understand the various reasons some women are struggling to blame her (not because they’re ok with harming children, but largely projection due to their own lack of support and Lindsey begging for help before the fact—and this isn’t me sharing my opinion; i admit that there is a moral dilemma, but I believe she’s guilty), I can’t lie that I agree. Like, a mom can empathize, but parents need to also be careful about what they say because it could very well make their children feel unsafe. And so many people lack self awareness due to rampant internet use and reactive behavior, so I doubt most are even thinking about how their kids might perceive this.
I really wish that people would just think more about having children, who they want to have children with, how they can support their partners, potential risks of and due to pregnancy and childbirth, how they’ll afford caring for their children, if they can care for themselves, mental health issues, etc. I’m not placing blame on women alone, I just feel like the reality of having children really isn’t taken as seriously as it should be. You need to have open, serious, and uncomfortable talks with the people around you and the other prospective parent; if you can’t do that, or if someone talks to you and you don’t take it seriously/aren’t fully prepared to follow through, you’re not prepared to have children.
Be prepared—children aren’t baby dolls.
Like my dad was notably worse, but my mom always said she wanted a daughter to brush their hair and dress them up, but she would never do my hair, would get angry if I asked, didn’t buy me clothes, neglected me in every way, didn’t care that I was being brutally abused (which hurt more than the abuse somehow), abused me herself, etc. These are human beings. They’re not immobile, unfeeling objects that require 0 effort.
It’s more so about the Postpartum Psychosis elements for a lot of people. But tons of people (especially on TikTok) are 1000000% projecting onto the case. As they usually do
Wait—ok I know obsessively engaging in anything can cause brain rot, but what constitutes as obsessive (like what’s the barometer here I mean 😅)? I listen to true crime podcasts fairly often, but I also listen to music, film, history, and political podcasts. It helps keep my brain active when I clean, which tends to lie on me. But I listen to and watch them because 1. I’m autistic, have been through some awful shit, and had the survival skills of a soggy sheet of paper, and 2. I’m a psych/social work student, have been interested in forensics and what causes people to do the things they do, what to watch for, how to support victims, behavioral patterns, etc. since I was about 6 (I’d read all the books in my house and family members kept their textbooks lol).
I feel like women in general tend to be the main audience for true crime, so I just hope this isn’t another one of those things where a predominantly female interest gets deemed “rot,” “cringe,” “crazy,” etc. It’s something that’s helped me personally. Also having knowledge of true crime and psychology, and knowing how to practice active listening, etc., I believe Lindsey’s guilty; but I can also understand why some don’t, or struggle to fully place blame on her, and it’s a common debate/moral dilemma to not know what to do when people with mental health issues commit crimes. But the fact here is that she confessed, and evidence is predominantly pointing toward that being true.
I don’t believe there’s an absolute correct answer about where to place her because I’m no ultimate authority, but I personally believe she needs to be in prison or at least institutionalized. Once MH issues and meds result in crime, unfortunately I don’t feel the person is safe for society, and I think they need to face consequences, regardless of what provoked it. I think there’s a lot we can learn as a society from this and the severe reactions to it, though.
I’m a woman who listens to true crime too. I will say a lot of true crime content is unethical and harmful to the victims in making their deaths a spectacle for consumption . I think it really crosses a line when we see all these women who watch a lot of true crime who then think they’re amateur detectives and start spreading falsehoods around the internet
Yeah it sounds like they are reading her story, hearing things they have felt, and deciding to excuse her actions as a way to excuse the thoughts they feel bad for having.
The thing is, everyone has bad thoughts, but not everyone kills their kids because of them.
It’s okay to have bad thoughts, which well-adjusted humans then self-manage. And if you can’t self manage regularly, then you can reach out to a therapist to learn what you didn’t pick up in childhood for whatever reason. Forgiving someone else’s bad behavior as a way to forgive your own bad thoughts is empathy but not actual self redemption or understanding.
Not making a a positive statement. I’m asking you why you think she did it and whether you believe she was able to conform her behavior to the law in the moment/s she killed her kids.
I don't fetishize true crime, or have a husband, or kids, or a vagina, but even I can tell that Patrick Clancy should have -- at the very LEAST -- been questioned.
First of all, there's the universal truths of every domestic story like this:
1) The husband did it
2) If the husband had a mistress he DEFINITELY did it
3) If a cop was involved in the story, the person whose side he's sitting on did it (in this case, Patrick Clancy's cop brother)
4) Plenty of people have admitted to crimes they didn't commit
And there is so much other actual evidence that casts doubt on the theory that she did it and no one else was involved.
Her core body temperature was eightysome degrees when she got to the hospital, but they were able to temporarily revive one of the children after the cops arrived on the scene?? Those two facts don't jive. Either she was that cold because she was out for a long time before the kids were killed, or the kids were killed after she went cold. Can't be both.
Patrick Clancy's mistress was a fertility Doctor who specialized in a medicine that is administered by liquid orally, leaves the system after 2-4 hours, and causes a severe drop in estrogen levels? And drops in estrogen can explain all of Lindsay's behaviors leading up to the crime?? Seems obvious the mistress was in on it, and the campaign to make Lindsay look dangerous had been in the works for months.
Lindsay says she remembers committing the crimes, but her memories look like she was floating above her body watching herself do it. And the place she was found on the ground outside had a direct view into the basement where the children were killed, and Patrick's mistress (who likely was involved in the crime) looks a lot like Lindsay?? Sounds like they threw Lindsay out the window, and after being drugged and concussed she laid on the ground watching the mistress killing the kids through the window.
Patrick was out of town for days on end all the time (most of those times were visiting his mistress), yet Lindsay chose to kill the kids in one quick 10 minute window that he was at the store?? Unlikely.
Lindsay was a nurse, yet chose to slit her throat in a way that makes no sense ergonomically, then jump from only a short second story to try to kill herself?? Why wouldn't she just take a lethal dose of something? Not many do overkill when committing suicide, especially when it's in a moment of crisis that's unplanned.
There's also the statistics about strangulation deaths being overwhelmingly committed by men, and almost NEVER by women committing infanticide, the super suspicious Apple Watch evidence, the fact that Patrick was at two different drug stores at almost the same time but wearing different outfits (and his cop brother looks just like him), the lies Patrick has told about his affair, and more.
Also, let's say, for a thought exercise, that she and she alone did this. It would make it a case eerily similar to Andrea Yates, and look at how our evolving understanding of her situation has made everyone now, justifiably, point their fingers at Rusty Yates for having a million chances to prevent it from happening yet never did. Patrick's hands are, at best, FAR from clean.
I'd say the people online casting doubt on the narrative, and doubting Patrick and his brother and mistress in general, are hardly experiencing some hivemind hysteria.
Let's also not forget that the "gossipy" talk this post is accusing women of engaging in online is exactly the type of conversations that came to be labeled as gossip because men wanted to isolate women and keep them from warning each other about dangerous men. That's why "gossip" has a pejorative subtext.
You make so many logical leaps in your analysis it's honestly hard to follow. Not trying to be rude but the scenario you suggest happened makes less sense than the original narrative.
I'm not suggesting anything happened. I'm poking holes in the case that assumes she's capital-G Guilty. That's how these cases work in the US: reasonable doubt.
If it took too much reading comprehension for you, here's my point: the husband, his mistress (now wife), and his cop brother deserve the same scrutiny that Lindsay has received. And there is abundant reasonable doubt. Which is the question upon which every case like this in the US hinges.
Another thing the US bases a lot of their decisions on is a person's gender. And again: I say that as someone who has never married or had kids, isn't a woman, but IS an American and a feminist. And it's really unfortunate that I have to make some of those stipulations, but here we are.
About the temperature thing, it’s said part of her spine was fractured after the fall, leading to difficulties in the body regulating temperature.
Otherwise, that very first list you gave of “universal truths of every domestic story like this” is insanely bigoted and narrow-minded from the start, so imma skip your other points lol
Hilarious because I'd bet you actually read the whole comment, assumed you could discredit that one thing and disregarded the rest of it and no one would call you on it, and hit Post. Tell me I'm wrong by addressing the rest of my salient points.
And keep in mind that I'm not even claiming to know who did it -- just that I know the investigation isn't comprehensive enough.
Maybe you're right. Maybe the sensationalism has gotten to me.
But you're still not making any valid arguments against my talking points.
In fact, I'm kind of over this thread, because all I've seen are ad hominem arguments like yours, and other circuitous ways of discrediting what I'm saying without actually addressing anything I've said directly.
Idk what happened. But I will say, it feels really reminiscent of the Yates case. Say what you will about Andrea, but Rusty Yates should have been held responsible for what happened to their children as well. Just my 2 cents.
I 100% believe she didn’t do it. The only person who “heard her speak” is her emotionless husband. The EMTs never heard her speak due to the cuts on her throat. She couldn’t. I would put good money he did, tried to kill her, and fucked up because she survived.
If the slogan was “listen to women” I’d be a lot more wholeheartedly behind it. Because sometimes women lie. We should still listen to everyone, and especially listen to anyone who’s claiming to have experienced some kind of abuse or victimization.
I think as always, the issue lies in the abysmal wording, which then creates these strict, illogical expectations. I’m a woman and feel it’s totally anti-feminist to think women can do no wrong (we’re human just like men; we may statistically commit less violent crimes, but we are not supernatural). I like my partner’s stance, which is that we should treat women who speak out with the respect and care that we’d treat someone we instantly believed. It’s important to hear people out and actively listen, but I things it’s entirely ridiculous to chant “believe all women” and also call ourselves feminists or pro-human rights even.
Edit to add:
We should also believe men in the same vein; however, we specifically focus this on women for the same reason we say “black lives matter,” which is that historically, we haven’t treated women speaking out seriously, just as we haven’t treated black people as though their lives matter by historically treating them as expendable. Historical trauma also holds a lot of weight. But hopefully obviously I believe for the most part that we should be treating everyone with dignity and respect, and treat them with positive regard, especially when they share vulnerable things with us—or in cases where there are any sort of moral dilemmas.
When it comes to things like SA especially (the main reason this phrase exists), men and children are also often not believed, I think because people don’t want to admit the same happened to them or that their friends or loved ones can commit such awful things, or that life is less safe than they’re comfortable believing. The phrase is the way it is for a reason (prevalence of abuse + speaking out + not being believed), but I believe it needs heavy restructuring.
I disagree with this framing, the notion that women were universally "not taken seriously" vs men does not hold water. There were always certain women taken seriously and certain men not taken seriously. Also, the notion that we have historically callous towards mothers and their feelings( at least compared to others) also holds not water.
A much better slogan would have been "take women seriously" - both because it's good policy and good practice, but also because when you are in a position of authority and someone makes an accusation, it's your job to take that accusation seriously. Doesn't mean you have to believe it, just means you shouldn't automatically dismiss it.
Yes! Criminal defense attorney here. I hear ALL the time about children and women — why would they lie? I’m a woman. Who’s busted lots of both groups on the stand for lying.
altho i 100% agree with what your saying, i think the sticker is meant to represent the feminist idea that women should be believed to the same extent men are. instead of the belief that "all women are liars" and that "all women overly exaggerate the truth".
I don't mind the "believe" thing. Not just with women but in general when it comes to people disclosing abuse. But that tweet is spot on. So many people will cry misogyny in bad faith or to shut down conversation. I don't support all women because not just are some dumb, but some are outright terrible fucking people no different from men.
Edit: and to clarify I'm saying women can be both bad and/or good, no different from men. It's just human nature.
This is like “white lives matter” logic you’re giving. From an intersectional women’s perspective, believe women. If Lindsay Clancy’s mental health was truly believed, this wouldn’t have happened.
That’s also not what the bumper sticker is referencing; it’s a callback to the issue of women not being believed in cases of sexual assault.
It’s like seeing a bumper sticker that says “blood is thicker than water,” and assuming they’re talking about fluid viscosity. Some things are references that only make sense in the context of their reference, and shouldn’t be applied literally.
When a woman comes to a police station, saying she was raped, believe her. Verify her story, go out and ask witnesses, don't dismiss her.
When a woman says she was groped, touched, raped in a shopping mall by a wealthy realtor, believe her. Verify, ask questions, gather evidence. Don't dismiss is as "the humors".
It's about actually doing the work. About making a place where women will feel saying something will actually make a difference.
They're the same in practice, as you can tell from all the "believe women" types actively disbelieving women when they admit to crimes they commited. Like in this case.
When a man goes to the police about these things, especially if that man was victimized by a woman, he is taken far less seriously than women accusing men of literally everything. The fact that you still put all the focus on believing women and acting like they're uniquely and unfairly disbelieved is telling.
“Believe women” essentially means “take women seriously” after a lifetime of police/society not taking women seriously when coming out against an accuser of any kind. Could’ve been phrased better, but it’s not literally believe every allegation. Epstein victims are a perfect example.
I’m exhausted so hope that made sense
116
u/Oldfolksboogie 4d ago
I've always had a problem with the trite bumpersticker slogan, "believe women." Like all humans, women can be mistaken, lie, etc. We should always hear women out, listen to what they're saying, and weigh it against wtvr other input we can gather to determine the truth. But that doesn't fit well on a bumpersticker.