Well the first day of the Senate confirmation hearings was dull and dreary enough to explain the fact that only 18% of the public is paying attention.
It's true that Feingold and a couple of other senators were of some interest, and Coburn was creepy in hypocrisy, but I kept wanting the illustrious senators to cut to the chase and ask the wannabe Justice some questions.
Instead each and every one of the 18 committee members had to say their long and sleep-invoking piece. That's 17 white men and 1 white woman. But who better to decide if the Supreme Court will be ruled by another white man forever and a day or until the year 2035? There is one silver lining to a Roberts' ascension; Scalia will be mad as hell for at least 3 decades.
I woke up when the Senate Judiciary Committee's token woman Dianne Feinstein began to speak. I found everything she had to say relevant and vital to an understanding of what is at stake for women in these male-dominated hearings. But it is the epitome of injustice that one lone woman is there to represent all the women in this sad nation.
Feinstein is, of course, the only committee member in the decision-making body with a smidgeon of experiential knowledge on the subject that most agree to be crucial to the hearings. She spoke of her days as a college student before Roe was the law of the land, before women had any choice other than to submit to unwanted pregnancies and the attendant shame that society heaps upon women, but not men.
Feinstein didn't say if she has had an abortion. Of course she didn't. Who would, surrounded by all the stuffy and detached abstract knowledge worshippers? But if the committee were comprised of 17 women and 1 man or even 9 women and 9 men, she probably would have. With that kind of relevance to the real lives of ordinary women, women would pay attention. The televised confirmation hearings would suddenly catapult to ratings worthy of prime time.
Women don't pay attention to politics for a reason. Until we have equal representation, politics is going to continue to be the province of stuffy old men who get away with murder when they pass laws robbing women of self-determination and thereby cast themselves as yesteryear's lords and women as their lowly subjects.
And all this garbage about diversity of opinion trumping biological diversity was no doubt manufactured by the Heritage Foundation. It's a Rovian way of saying that white men get to rule forever. Diversity of opinion trumps biological diversity because all we ever get is tokens. If we ever get equal representation, we will certainly see a diversity of opinion among women and racial minorities. I used to say, "when we get equal representation;" I used to be a fool.
If you missed it, below is a snippet of what token woman Senator Feinstein had to say. You can read the rest here. It's worth reading.
By virtue of our accomplishments and our history, women have a perspective, I think, that's been recognized as unique and valuable. With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court loses the important perspective she brought as a woman, and the deciding vote in a number of critical cases.
For me - and I've said this to you privately, and I'll say more about it in my time on questions - one of the most important issues that needs to be addressed by you is the constitutional right to privacy.
I'm concerned by a trend on the court to limit this right, and thereby to curtail the autonomy that we have fought for and achieved, in this case over just simply controlling our own reproductive system, rather than having some politicians do it for us.
It would be very difficult - and I've said this to you privately and I said it publicly - for me to vote to confirm someone whom I knew would overturn Roe v. Wade because I remember, and many of the young women here don't, what it was like when abortion was illegal in America.
As a college student at Stanford, I watched the passing of the plate to collect money so a young woman could go to Tijuana for a back-alley abortion. I knew a woman who killed herself because she was pregnant. And in the 1960's then, as a member of the California Women's Board of Terms and Parole, when California had what was called the indeterminate sentence law, I actually sentenced women who committed abortions to prison terms. I saw the morbidity, I saw the injuries they caused and I don't want to go back to those days.
John Roberts Feinstein Supreme Court Reproductive Rights Feminism Roe v Wade
