The Supreme Court: Why Women Matter

While the media wallowed in the mush-brained nattering over a few out-of-context statements said to reveal Judge Sonia Sotomayor as "racist," something interesting was happening over at the place where she aspires to work.

We saw a quick glimpse of why her gender is every bit as important to the Supreme Court as her heritage. Given the stubborn issues still facing women today, perhaps even more so.

In a case brought by four women against AT&T, the Court ruled that decades-old pregnancy leaves taken under old pension rules do not have to be counted in calculating pension payouts.

It was a small case, with limited immediate impact. Business won and women lost - by a vote of seven to two.

One of those dissenting was the lone woman on the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Justice Ginsburg, who says her tireless support of workplace equality was shaped by her own professional struggles, wrote: "Certain attitudes about pregnancy and childbirth throughout human history have sustained pervasive, often law-sanctioned, restrictions on a woman's place among paid workers and active citizens."

The question is: does that kind of gender identification have a place in the land's highest court? Simple answer: yes.

Even though the Court refutes it, and Judge Sotomayor was attacked for saying it, the Court does make policy. Just ask all the retirement-age women who will see each pension check for the rest of their lives reduced by the length of their long-ago pregnancy leave.

Whether they are made, affirmed or changed, national policy must reflect the fact that the community the Court directs and protects is 50.7 percent women. Those women still feel the pull of centuries of lesser-citizenship, where the first meaningful equal-pay legislation is just months old, and where one seated Justice is there largely because of a viscous smear campaign against a woman who questioned his moral fitness to serve.

We are not talking about symbolic diversity. We are not talking about role models and success stories. We are talking about bringing a kind of life perspective to the court that will not find its way there on its own.

Women like Justice Ginsberg and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who have fought their own battles against workplace inequality come out of those battles with a unique appreciation for the pain.

The same is true for gender's judicial flashpoint. If men got pregnant, reproductive choice would be in the Bill of Rights - if not a sacrament. Yet, we were are a vote or two shy of limiting or denying that choice. Women will see that threat as no man possibly can.

Perspectives impact rulings.

A recent study of federal appeals court judges by academics at Northwestern University and Washington University found that female judges are 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of women bringing sex discrimination suits. And when female and male judges hear a case together, the male judges are 15 percent more likely to rule for the plaintiff then when the judges are all men.

The Court recently heard arguments in a suit brought by a 19-year old woman who, as a 13-year old honor student, was strip-searched by school nurses who were looking for prescription-strength Ibuprofen (none was found). The male justices treated it as trivial - even amusing. Justice Stephen Breyer said: "In my experience, when I was eight or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK?"

Reports of Justice Ginsberg's obvious exasperation during the arguments were followed by a USA Today interview, where she said of her fellow Justices: "They have never been a 13 year-old girl. It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."

Understanding other lives is not the forte of homogeneous groups.

In the same 2001 speech where she praised the decision making ability of a "wise Latina," a remark that so inflamed the right, Judge Sotomayor also said something that has gone largely unreported. "I accept the thesis," she said, "of... Professor Steven Carter of Yale Law School...that in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought."

As the court grapples with issues that can change the lives of tens of millions of women, those female experiences and thoughts must have a place in the debate. And the only path to securing that place is through more women on the Court.

Comments

[Whitley2009]

Hey, Peggy. We Democrat men luuuvvv women. We respect you and believe you should have total equality with men. Unfortunately, the neocon fundamentalists on the right still think you caused the Fall from Grace, you are a clone from Adam's rib, you should walk two paces behind them in public, and you should only speak when spoken to.

[keeblerelves]

The Court should be 100% female. No doubt about it. As for the viscous smear campaign... don't get any of that on your hands... it's really sticky

[oldgeek1]

I truly do not believe in any kind of discrimination and hate it and see it as totally unacceptable behavior that should not be justified.

If someone were not hired or promoted because of their race or sex that should be a crime.

If a women is discriminated against she should have legal recourse.

The best person for the job deserves the job. I think Sototmayer to be highly qualified and wish that was enough, I thought Thomas to be a legal light weight.

Having said all the above we live in an imperfect world and race, sex and religion factors into the selection and decision process.

[AngelaM]

The ratio of men to women in this country is 94/100 - there are 94 men for every 100 women (2008 census). With this ratio, there should be 5 women and 4 men on a 9-person Supreme Court. Then we'd have proper representation. There used to be at least 2 women on the court, with Sotomayor, we'd be back to where we were under Clinton. And that's still not enough. The biggest group hampering the advancement of women is other women. We could have had a women president, but no, the women flocked to Obama like moths to a flame. You want your rights represented? Vote for women, every time. White males have known this forever and have acted accordingly. The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) has been on the table for 30+ years and cannot be passed. I don't get it, if I live to be 100. Women are sabotaging themselved and then whine endlessly about being discriminated against. Sotomayor is a start, but we're far from the finish.

[GLHorton]

It is really depressing that this blog has had so few comments. "Women" in the title means it's not worth attention? Or are so many women now working double shift they haven't time to participate? The level of enthusiasm of those who have commented is welcome, though. The push-back to the 40s -- yes, I remember the 40s, when GIs came back from WWII convinced that the Spoils of Victory should include pushing women out of all the gains they'd made since WWI-- will not be totally unopposed.

Thanks also to the Catholic who expressed reservations about a 6th Catholic on the Supreme Court. I know my ancestors, who fled to America early on to escape being ruled by leaders who considered the Catholic church's teachings to be above legislation, must be spinning in their graves.

[vote12]

All you need is a knowledge of the constitution??? Does anyone really believe that if the supreme court had been populated by all women for all of our history that decisions would have been the same? Please! How would you like that, men?
The court should be composed of 4 male/5 female or 4 female/5 male.

[BumpyKnight]

Thanks, Ms. Drexler.
It seems most of the "mush-brained nattering" about "racism" we are subjected to through the media, is done by males. Graham, Limgaugh, Tancredo, Steel, Gingrich, and Buchanan make a comical barbershop sextet singing "She is a Racist"(Pat Buchanan is the tenor, maybe?).
This male chorus hasn't the guts to sing "She is a Feminist", and they know darn well why women matter. They instead choose to appeal to the usual "more for them means less for us" treatment of liberty that they expect of their xenophobic base.
Contrast that with Laura Bush: "...as a woman, I'm proud that there might be another woman on the court. I wish her well".
As a person who has enjoyed over a half century of the De-Facto, Extra-Legal, White-Male affirmative action program, and admits it, these guys are way off key.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

The Supreme Court cannot be representative of every group in the country.

There aren't enough justices for that. You'd need one of every segment of society and the Supreme Court would have to be composed of hundreds of justices.


All you need is a knowledge of the US Constitution.

I don't need to be gay to know that under its rules, same sex marriage MUST be legalised across the entire country and any ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

[HernandezUSA]

Judge Sotomayor is a Racist and belongs to a Racist group called "La Raza".

Old RACISM was wrong and New Racism is not Better!

This is not NeoCon issue nor a bleeding heart Liberal issue, but a judge that decides cases based on RACE and personal feelings instead of the letter of the Law.

Being proud of your American-Puerto Rican heritage is grand, but using your RACE as a sword to get your way in life is wrong.

[luzcannon]

Until female PEOPLE hold half, or 50.7%, of all public offices, we don't live in equality. Nothing less will suffice, anywhere, ever. I wll not be satisfied until there are four men, four women, and one intersexed person on the Court (I'm female-dominant intersexed, and really good at bridging the man/woman thing y'all halfsies do) THAT'S something like balance.
Women are the antidote to our global misery, because subjugating women, and their "wisdom," Latina and other-wise, is what has brought us to the brink of extinction. That's the basic problem, and we are the solution. Hang together, womens!

[luziannagirl]

Well, DUH. Of COURSE perspective matters!

If it didn't, then we wouldn't have had the "no taxation without representation" American Revolution.

I mean, forget the Supreme Court, the Congress, even the Presidency. All who fought and died and risked their lives to birth America could have saved themselves a lot of trouble had they been satisfied to kick back & be represented by a rich, white (and usually old) monarch living 4,000 miles away.

And don't get me started on women getting the power to vote, when our interests were SO well represented by the menfolk...

[jeanrenoir]

This blog is a waste of breath. Does anyone seriously doubt that Sottomayor is a done deal? Time to take "yes" for an answer, ladies. The vast majority of Americans have accepted ALL the basic premises of feminism and favor another female justice. The Women's Movement has won. Girls crush boys in school; girls dominate colleges in general, and the Ivy League in particular; girls dominate both med schools and law schools. As Hillary proved last year, running against the most talented politician in American history, women can now do ANYTHING in America. The "glass ceiling" is history.

[qazwerty]

If being strip-searched really is so inconsequential, the male justices should willingly allow a strip-search of their 13-year old daughters and granddaughters.

[COPerez]

How incredibly sad that we are STILL having these arguments in the 21st century.

[dmyron]

Gender predisposes neither competence, nor lack thereof........ but, only a woman can fully understand the ramifications of what a man cannot.