The room is inky black and the only real sound I can hear is the whirring of my wall air conditioning unit. Well, that and the dehumidifier that feels essential for life these days. I turn my phone horizontally, hoping that this makes the image large enough to feel a greater sense of connectivity. The voices are small and tinny, but I can make out what they are saying without increasing the volume much at this case.
I’m not the only one obsessed with this case. We all are- or most of us anyway. No, make that all of us, women. Mothers, childless women (by choice or circumstance or sometimes, tragedy), women without mothers.
I can’t assuredly say that we are all on the same page, as I know that there are women without compassion, without a conscience, with religion and without an understanding of a universe outside their own experience. And that’s not to say they are wrong per se, but more that they are just coming from a different point of view, one that’s mostly foreign to mine.
Where I think we’ve gone awry is in suggesting that the Clancy trial is stirring something in women that has long been dormant. I do not believe that to be the case. Women have been shifting since the dawn of time. We have been stretching and scratching and reaching and pushing. We have been trying for decades upon decades to find our footing, our place, to understand where we fit.
And I can’t help but think, as I stare at the distraught face of Lindsay Clancy, that those of us who have decided our best spaces are those left behind or set aside, by men, are simply afraid. Yes, afraid. They are afraid to take up their own space, for fear of what that might feel like.
Maybe I already know what that feels like because I’ve already crawled and then walked and then ran, into the space of unconventionality. Perhaps I’m not necessarily fearful in the same way because I made decisions and then, choices that brought me to a space that is most certainly my own.
I didn’t have a space carved out for me to fill, and if one such space existed, it was ill-fitting, and I had to chip away at its sides to find some level of comfort. Clearly, I’m not stating that I’ve found a space where I’m always at ease, but rather, I feel certain in my decision to continue moving through and moving forward, despite not having a clear-cut path in front of me.
As I sink down into my pillow, the fresh scent of my shampoo sitting like a halo around my splayed, wet hair, I wonder if perhaps that’s the thing that’s so unnerving about it all. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty that comes even when you’ve done all the “right” things, and the way in which you are destroyed for it.
You can grow up and go to school, identify a profession, find a job, secure a partner, and mother children, and still, end up on trial for murder. And no, not a quiet little backyard murder trial. National news. International news. Social media. Blogs. All of it. You can end up being the star of your own nightmare, even after you tried like hell to do everything right.
Maybe you believe Lindsay Clancy is guilty and she should receive full punishment under our laws. Or maybe, just maybe, you don’t know. Maybe you aren’t sure. Maybe you do know, and you think it’s the husband, or it was her, but her suffering is too great to just slap a label of murderer on her forehead and condemn her to her own death.
I know that we rarely discuss men in the same way. That’s the truth that we normally dance around and we are currently leaning all the way into.
I know that as I trace the imposing form of Kevin Reddington (Linday’s lawyer) on my tiny screen, leaving behind smudged fingerprints, I can recall several posts from that day where women expressed an affection for Mr. Reddington. Women are calling Mr. Reddington the hero that they’ve never really had and have always needed.
Why?
Because he seems to understand that you can do everything right and still, have everything go wrong. Because regardless of whether Patrick Clancy committed this crime, or it falls to Lindsay, he recognizes the importance of shining the brightest light on all the ways in which our system, our ideals, failed HER. And sure, you can say that he’s just defending her, because ultimately, he is, and that’s the truth. But I don’t think it’s so much that he is, and more so, the way in which he is: with respect, with compassion, with zero fucks and absolutely not an ounce of deference.
Mr. Reddington is defending Lindsay Clancy in a sphere that exists outside the societal expectations set forth for women. He is challenging all of us to own the ways in which the system, our systems, have failed us. He is inviting us to ponder how often we’ve been ignored, belittled, spoken down to, taken advantage of, not taken seriously, and also, harmed. Harmed in so many ways that we’ve all lost count.
Medical and mental health conditions ignored or made light of, opportunities stripped away, dignity removed, and assumptions made. Over and over again.
We can talk about how women are suddenly spicy over this trial, or we can finally acknowledge that it’s not really this trial. It’s all of it. It’s the way in which our rights, paltry to begin with, are being stripped away daily. It’s how we know that a loss of rights for some, does actually mean a loss of rights for all. It’s how we know, in the deepest, most powerful parts of us, that we can do everything we are told to do, and occupy the smallest space set aside for us, and still end up on the wrong side of everything.
Lindsay Clancy isn’t a heroine. She isn’t a tragic figure. She is the brightest canary in the darkest coal mine. No matter our beliefs, no matter our stance, no matter our path- when we allow them to mistreat one, to fail one, to ruin one, then, we’ve given them permission to destroy us all.
I turn the screen off and flip my phone over, knowing my sleep will be restless, but my conviction, stronger in the morning.
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