Yeah, four women and five men. That's more women on the current Canadian Supreme Court than have been on the U.S. Supreme Court in the entire history of this male-dominated country. The Chief Justice of the Canadian court is a woman. That's her in the center of the front row: The Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada. Maybe in another five hundred years or so, the U.S. will have a woman as Chief Justice.
Meanwhile, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sits as the token woman on the U.S. High Court. Reportedly, Obama will announce his choice for the next Supreme Court Justice next week, probably on Tuesday. Surely no one can seriously doubt that sheer embarrassment about the deeply cowboy nature of this country, or the pathetic photo below, is so great that Obama is forced to choose a woman. We hope she will be sufficiently liberal, but mostly we hope she will be the deadly serious feminist that this country sorely needs.
"As often as Justice O'Connor and I have disagreed, because she is truly a Republican from Arizona, we were together in all the gender discrimination cases."
--Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
"I don't know how many meetings I attended in the '60s and the '70s, where I would say something, and I thought it was a pretty good idea. ... Then somebody else would say exactly what I said. Then people would become alert to it, respond to it. It can happen even in the conferences in the [Supreme]Court. When I will say something—and I don't think I'm a confused speaker—and it isn't until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point."
Feminist Politics Gender News Misogyny Ruth Bader Ginsburg Equal Representation
