By Katie Compton Boyd
Guest Columnist
It’s times like this when I question very seriously where exactly I am, what precisely has gone on, and how disappointed I am with many of my gender.
I sat with my newborn, watching the Casey Anthony verdict in abject horror. Today that same baby is a sophomore and I’m watching the Lindsey Clancey verdict. In addition to abject horror, though, there is an added layer of disgust. The sort of disgust that rises in your throat, hot gall, swallowing down as your pulse beats in your ears.
I don’t think we’ve really understood what just happened.
In just a few short generations we’ve gone from “Baby Blues” to mercilessly strangling three precious children. We’ve gone from prescribing “Mother’s Little Helpers” to SSRI’s and hearing voices.
As a woman the aftershocks of this case will be felt for ages. This will set legal case precedent. From the early suffragettes hearing they were too emotional to have the right to vote, too unstable even, to our early female congressional candidates hearing ridicule for the fear of periods interfering with their sworn duties. In the 1980’s up until recently countless jokes made about possible female presidents having the nuclear codes but being too hormonal, resulting in a nuclear holocaust.
Guess what? This case just gave complete validity to all of the quips, troupes and negative stereotypes my sex has endured for millennia.
“Miss/Ma’am, you want to be CEO? Too hormonal, next applicant!” Imagine Ms. Jane, who has enlisted to serve her community in law enforcement; the sheriff saying “Hi there, Jane, yeah I’m gonna have you hand over your weapon and badge, uhh, just for a few days. Our records show it’s your ahem, time, and you can get’em back when you’re more fit for duty. We wouldn’t want you to get all crazy.”
Even in my case, at 45 years and my own changes, speaking as a woman, I cannot adequately explain how many times since age 16 up until this very year I’ve had questions for my doctor about my own body and its various changes without them pushing SSRI’s. From endometriosis in college, to perimenopause, every step has been met with someone in a white coat offering pills instead of sage advice. Your wives, daughters and sisters will likely say the same.
Excusing three brutal deaths by blaming them on pharmaceuticals should make the majority of us very nervous. Our justice system will be no doubt flooded in the upcoming years by nefarious sorts exploiting the law and shrinking from any accountability. I’ll also add that as a Catholic –which Clancey claims to be – all life, from conception until death, is to be respected. Not heartlessly strangled by the one woman who is supposed to love you, keep you safe.
I find the most chilling aspect is not Clancey herself. It is the throngs of female supporters. It is the women producing AI images of her hugging three angel babies. The very babies she murdered. It is the slobbering sympathizers gnashing teeth and blaming every single person but the one who admitted herself to the killings. Young mothers on social media are making videos showing their support by acting out their intrusive thoughts about their own babies, from throwing babies down steps to putting them in an oven. It’s abhorrent.
It is the women who are capable of Olympic level mental gymnastics rationalizing her innocence. It is the sea of pink clad warriors assembled every day outside the courthouse. They aren’t cheering for her. They are cheering for themselves.
We’ve had several generations of women who were brought up with the mantra, “Who runs the world? Girls!” This superiority is vulgar and has produced selfish, overly sensitive and entitled women. From the pink sparkly Girl Power shirts in second grade to the sickly pink Clancey shirts of today and indeed they were right: they do in fact run the world.
I dare ask, and how goes the state of affairs ladies? Women once fought for equality yet now celebrate in superiority. Above the law. Beyond morality.
Motherhood is the single most important aspect of a healthy society and to be a mother is the very antithesis of selfishness. A mother’s heart lives outside her body in her children. If this Clancy verdict serves to uncover how even a robust fraction of how women feel, I feel we are truly damned.
— Katie Compton Boyd is the owner and operator of Old South Tour Company in Southport.
