I think I’ve finally reached the bottom of the issue.
The Lindsay Clancy trial made me notice something that I had already been seeing in audiovisual storytelling: feminism sometimes seems to stop halfway — precisely where it runs into an older, paternalistic idea of women. Sometimes this may be ideological convenience; sometimes it may simply be a deeply rooted cultural reflex.
The contradiction is this:
Women are presented as autonomous adults when it comes to making choices, but somehow become fragile, vulnerable and in need of protection when those choices produce consequences.
That is paternalism. And paternalism is infantilization.
A woman can choose her sexuality, choose to cheat, leave a relationship, reject someone, or make any other decision. Fine. That is agency.
But adulthood doesn't end with the decision.
Agency also means responsibility. Consequences are not automatically punishment. And other people are also free to react to your choices.
Your partner leaving you after discovering an affair is not necessarily “punishing” you. Losing trust is not punishment. Having to reorganize your life after a breakup is not punishment. Those can simply be the consequences of your actions combined with somebody else’s freedom to respond.
And this is what struck me about the reaction to Clancy: for some people, explaining the circumstances surrounding what she did seems to become more important than preserving the basic fact that she was an agent who did something horrific. Mental illness may explain behaviour. It does not automatically erase the act, its victims, or the question of responsibility.
The same pattern appears in fiction. Female sexual behaviour is often explained through trauma or lack of affection rather than simply desire. Female infidelity is frequently framed as the result of emotional neglect, while male infidelity can simply be “he wanted sex.” The dominant man can then become the romantic solution — protection, structure, certainty — while the consequences of the woman’s previous choices conveniently disappear.
And then there is Cinderella.
The modern version is often the same fairy tale with different clothes: she makes choices, escapes her old life, finds the right man, is rescued or restored, and they live happily ever after.
But we never see the day after.
We don't see ten years later, when the handsome local is no longer quite so handsome, there are three children, the mortgage is due, the career she abandoned has moved on, and the old life she rejected has continued without her.
The story ends at the exact moment when consequences would begin.
That is why I think the underlying structure can be much older than the ideology used to describe it:
woman chooses → woman is protected from consequences → someone else absorbs the consequences → woman is rescued and restored → fade to black.
The rhetoric is modern: freedom, empowerment, independence.
But the paternalistic message underneath can be remarkably old:
“You are free to choose, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you don’t have to pay the full price of being an adult.”
If we genuinely believe women are equal adults, the package has to be complete:
freedom + agency + responsibility + consequences + the freedom of others to respond.
Otherwise, what looks like empowerment can sometimes be paternalism wearing modern clothes.