Accountability and adulthood

I have observed that few criticisms irritate women more than the idea that many of them are not fully adults due to their refusal to accept responsibility for their actions and decisions.  And yet, regardless of whether we look at the law, the legal system, reactions to criminal behavior, sports, or even debate moderation during a presidential election, we observe the same lack of accountability played out over and over again.  Keep in mind this article was published BEFORE the second presidential debate, during which Candy Crowley attempted to insert herself into the proceedings as a judge as well as a moderator:

[B]y late Sunday night, the campaigns of both presidential candidates and the debate commission shot back, insisting that Crowley would be expected to remain mostly silent as the candidates fielded queries from the audience of undecided voters.

At the center of the controversy is a “memorandum of understanding” — agreed to by the commission and both campaigns — regarding Crowley’s severely limited role.

“The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the two-minute response period,” reads the memo....

For her part, Crowley appeared on CNN Monday afternoon and declared that she would flout the debate commission’s rules anyway.

What can we conclude from this, except that Crowley isn't a genuine adult individual, who can be expected to abide by the agreed-upon ground rules, who understands that she is only incidental to the presidential election process, and realizes that she will be held responsible for any failure to perform as expected?  Why did Crowley know that she could get away with flouting the rules so egregiously, why was she so confident that she could announce her intention to do so ahead of time without suffering any consequences for it before or after the debate?

Most importantly, if adulthood is indicative that an individual has reached the age of accountability, what must we logically conclude of an individual who cannot held accountable to the same degree as adults are?