Lindsay Clancy Et Al.: Are Women “Children of a Larger Growth”?

After all, let’s face it: In America today children are a most favored class

Selwyn Duke , Bio and Archives--September 15, 2026

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“How do you write women so well?” novelist Melvin Udall was asked in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets. “I think of a man,” he replied, “and I take away reason and accountability.” This comes to mind while pondering the Lindsay Clancy situation.

Oh, I’m not currently editorializing on whether she had a psychotic break when brutally killing her three little ones. What I find more interesting, as I often do, is a bigger picture. It relates to a line from a letter Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, wrote to his son in 1748. To wit:

The Clancy drama is illustrative

I know, he was a “dead white male” opining when America was still a colony. But here’s the thing:

This is precisely how many men and women treat females today: as “children of a larger growth.”

The Clancy drama is illustrative. The default assumption when a man kills his kids is that he’s just evil. No “My hormones made me do it” defense need apply (even though we always hear about the testosterone-aggression link). Fry ’im. But a woman?

Well, she’d ne-e-e-ver do such a thing if in her right mind. Something just must have been wrong with her. In fact, she might’ve even crumbled under the stress a man, or this Patriarchal Society™, put on her! She needs help and compassion--not punishment.

This is why, as research has shown, women get more lenient punishment than men do for the same crimes.

In other words, we explicitly and understandably state, and codify in law, that children won’t criminally be held to an adult standard. What isn’t explicitly stated or codified in law, but is just as real, is that we don’t hold women to an adult male standard.

Perhaps there’s a congruence, though, since so many women today behave utterly childishly. Most recently there were multitudinous........

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