Women in the Law
Sotomayor Hearings Remind Women of Issues Female Attorneys Face
Posted Jul 20, 2009 3:54 PM CST
By Martha Neil
It's not every day that columnist Kathleen Parker and a legal writer in the New York Times find themselves on the same page, so to speak, politically.
But in their respective articles over the past few days both Parker and Times editor Jill Abramson offered a similar take on the questioning of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by a nearly all-male panel of Senate Judiciary members last week. The broadcast confirmation hearings, Parker states in a Washington Post Writers Group syndicated column, offered a window on "a now-familiar phenomenon. Women are treated differently than men in such settings."
It remains to be seen, according to the New York Times article, whether politicians can expect any fallout even remotely akin to the outrage engendered by the committee's 1991 questioning of Anita Hill, after she accused then-nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
“Professor Hill produced the year of women in the Senate,” says Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who came under fire for his harsh approach to Hill as a Republican member of the committee in 1991. “That proceeding was a real lesson to me. I heard from so many women who saw themselves in her place, who felt their veracity was being questioned along with hers.”
However, the hearings last week were a reminder that women lawyers still don't operate on a level playing field, and face challenges in their personal and professional lives that men don't, both writers say.
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Comments
Justin
Jul 21, 2009 6:05 AM CST
This smacks of the same kind of attitude conservatives face when questioning Obama’s policies. If you question Obama, you must be a racist. In this instance, if you question Sotomayor’s nomination for the Supreme Court, you must be a woman-hating misogynist. It’s not because of her record, her history of potentially racist comments, or her predisposition towards judicial activism, it’s because she’s a woman that conservatives can’t get behind her nomination.
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DR
Jul 21, 2009 9:20 AM CST
Justin:
Kathleen Parker is a conservative columnist. That being said, if you had taken the time to read and comprehend the above article as well as Kathleen Parker’s piece, you might have realized that none of this was about conservatives not getting behind Sotomayor’s nomination because “she is a woman.” It was about the types of questions being asked of Sotomayor and whether or not such questions and attitudes would have been conveyed to a male candidate. No excuses, just observations on the part of the writers.
I question some of Obama’s policies too. So, not all of us fit into your neat picture.
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tng
Jul 21, 2009 9:23 AM CST
Um, dude, please provide a cite to a legitimate source of where a conservative actually questioned Obama’s policies and was labeled a racist for simply doing so. You are just regurgitating the same crap from conservative pundits without any evidence to back up such a situation.
And as far as Sotomayor goes, obviously you didn’t read the article or the linked articles.. Nobody is saying that questioning Sotomayor’s nomination itself makes one a woman-hating misogynist. No, what they are saying is that the way she was questioned and treated…and the type of questions were done because of her gender and that no man would be treated the same way under similar circumstances. the conservatives who questioned her didn’t actually question her on the sum of her judicial record. They nitpicked barely 2 or 3 cases as redmeat for their constituencies.
Please, provide so called evidence of “judicial activism” and actual racist comments beyond the very non-racist “wise Latina” remark that has been taken out of context and beaten like a dead horse.
The very fact that of the way you reacted to this article demonstrates that you “don’t get it” when it comes to how women are treated differently than men…of how Sotomayor was treated differently than either Roberts or Alito was.
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Paul the Magyar
Jul 21, 2009 10:50 AM CST
Frankly, I thought that Senator Graham had overstepped when he asked Judge Sotomayor if it was true that she was “moody and irritable” once a month and if she could be an effective appellate judge under those circumstances. He should have just asked if she had experienced menopause and, if not, if she should withdraw her nomination until she had done so. That would have been a more tactful and delicate way to address that issue.
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Paul the Magyar
Jul 21, 2009 11:01 AM CST
The responses to Justin smack of the same kind of attitude conservatives face when questioning Obama’s policies. If you question a conservative who does not respond to logic but instead repeats exaggerated propaganda, you get called a hypocrite and Clinton-lover. In this instance, if you ask Justin to read the story and respond with considered thoughts, you must be an America-hating socialist traitor. It’s not because of his comment, his obvious ignorance of the point of the artice, it’s because he is a patriotic, God-fearing patriot that you challenge his comment.
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Woman
Jul 22, 2009 9:40 AM CST
I could not believe the way that male senators felt the right to lecture Sotomayor about her judicial demeanor as if she were their child or some type of inferior being. They, of course, did not bother to acknowledge that the anonymous ratings that women face, especially women of color, demonstrate, at times, a negative reaction to women and minorities in positions of perceived power over those who are not comfortable taking orders from women and/or minorities. The same type of questioning that was used to label Sotomayor a “bully judge” would have served to define a “strong judge” if she were a man. It is exhausting to be a woman and continuously have to explain the unequal treatment that we face, especially in a time when men like to think that women enjoy equal treatment and equal opportunities, which is very far from the truth of our reality.
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B. McLeod
Jul 23, 2009 1:27 AM CST
To the mainstream (if one may even call it that) of what is left of the Republican party, this whole fiasco was a complete debacle. It only serves to illustrate how certain Republican senators have obligated themselves to waive the banner of extremism, because they are beholden to certain, limited issue groups on the far, far right. (Even when they know very well that the nomination is, in fact, going to be confirmed).
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Jim | 2009-07-31-Fr 0742 -0400
Jul 31, 2009 5:47 AM CST
I need to check out the Hugo Black [KKK] hearings.
There was controversy about his long past KKK membership, a sine qua non for election in AL during early 20th Century.
And then ... he authored Chambers, et al. v. Florida [1940-02-12]
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