Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor didn’t single-handedly smash the glass ceiling for women jurists and bring gender balance to the legal profession, but her elevation to the nation’s highest court didn’t hurt. Between 1981 and 2005, female law school enrollment rose from 36 percent to 48 percent, and the number of women on the federal bench rose from 48 to 201. That’s impressive. I’ve been interested, too, in how her gender has entered into the reviews of her tenure. Cokie Roberts pushed Newt Gingrich onto this train of thought on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday by talking about the life experience and practicality that O’Connor brought to the bench, but what he said was striking nonetheless: that in the legislative arena, most women “tend to be looking at ‘how do we get this together?’ whereas most men are kind of looking at ‘how do I beat you?’” Such generalizations can be asking for trouble, but can’t they also be true — and instructive?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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3 Comments
Yawwwwwwwn
Anti-yawn: a personal thanks for posting this item. I didn’t catch Newt’s comments on tv, and I’d have likely missed this otherwise.
And I agree: an extremely intresting comment. Also roughly parallels many of my work experiences and – most striking – as a youth baseball coach.
And it would seem to apply to our situation here in Kansas. That is, our current government is formed by the KS legislature (dominated by men who win first, the fittest survivors then struggling to govern effectively) and the governor, a woman who largely has used her resume (effective KS Ins. Commish, effective governor) to win.
Interesting.
Go Rhonda ! We need more women actively involved. There would definitely be less war, more concern for the less fortunate and less deal making on an all male golf course !