Cultural Comment on the whole "Wise Latina" thing

[AnnieBW]

Okay, I'm a middle-aged white woman, so please forgive me if this strays into racial/cultural problem areas.

However, in observing Hispanic cultures, they respect the wisdom of older women a lot more than Anglos do. In Anglo society, an older woman is seen as a burden on society, a "hag" or someone that has no opinions because she is no longer able to produce children. "Crone" is a bad word, rather than one that denotes wisdom. Look at all of the nasty comments against Hillary Clinton and not wanting to see her age for a prime example. (Note: I was not a Hillary supporter, but I didn't like the sexist/ageist comments against her.) In contrast, Hispanic culture generally has the "abuelita" that the entire family defers to. There might be masculine machismo, but what Grandma says, goes. Obviously, the over-testosteroned white males like Limpballs and Gingrinch don't understand this. After all, Newt's already traded in two wives because they got old. And we all know about Limpball's problems with women. So, when Judge Sotomayor says that a wise Latina woman might be a better judge than a white man, maybe she is coming from a cultural standpoint of valuing the wisdom of older women.

[wan]

1. Interesting notion..

If a review of her decisions actually showed the presumed bias I would be more willing to take that statement at face value and oppose her. Yet even a close look at the firemen's case doesn't actually support such a bias. People often don't understand the narrowness of the questions on which individual legal decisions are predicated, and generalize the scope of a legal decision on the presumed effect of their bias toward the case in general. Sotomayor appears, from her legal record, to be innocent of the bias she is charged with. I'm still curious about her perspective on it.

[AnnieBW]

2. Thanks

Again, I'm no sociologist, nor am I an expert on Hispanic culture. Just an observation.