Women on the supreme court.

[kaffiria]

My view is that there must be more women on the supreme court. I know that it might be more beneficial to women as a class to have male justices that interpret the constitution in a way that preserves women's rights over a female justice that does not, but I do not think things are likely to happen that way.

Right now, people that are justices still come from a generation raised with stringent gender norms and I do feel this subconsciously affects how they see things. Morever, I feel that since we do not have an equal rights amendment, women are systematically treated as a different category of people by the law in a number of instances. The roles women are allowed to do in the military are different. Women are seen differently than men in criminal cases.

As long as women are a separate legal category under the law, we must have physical representation. If we are so different that the law often treats us differently, then our category of people cannot be represented by males.

In practice, I know that women do see women's issues differently. The reason I think Bush has picked 2 male justices is because it would be close to impossible for him to find a philosophically qualified (not Miers) woman age 50+ that would vote to overturn roe vs. wade etc. There are plenty such men though. A woman of that age group would have broken all sorts of norms and expectations to dedicate herself to a judicial career at that level. They do not turn around and vote conservatively. Regan and the repubs expected Sandra Day to vote conservatively on such issues, but when the time came, she would not do that because such people do not vote against their own rights.

I think it is practically impossible for a panel of only one woman (or less if something happens to Ginsburg) to vote the same way that a panel with more women.