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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com. Hey, welcome to podcast. This

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Speaker 1: is Molly and I'm Kristen Christ. An important question, do

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Speaker 1: you ever plan to run for any sort of public office? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I didn't am prepping my campaign for president

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Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. I don't know if you're be

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Speaker 1: old enough by two thousand twelve. It's a little something

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Speaker 1: called photoshop. Molly, come in handy. The reason I ask

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Speaker 1: is sometimes I think about things we've said on this podcast,

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Speaker 1: and how if we ever did run for public office,

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Speaker 1: our our enemies who just have so much ammunition of

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Speaker 1: an arsenal of just clips of us saying things about

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Speaker 1: penises and breasts and menstruation, And I just don't know

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Speaker 1: how long we'd last. So and I and I can

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Speaker 1: think of an example of a woman who probably did

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Speaker 1: not realize that she would be put into a higher

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Speaker 1: position and probably had some words come back to bite

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Speaker 1: her in the behind. Yeah, we are talking about the

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Speaker 1: newest Chief Justice on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sonamor. And

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Speaker 1: there was this huge controversy about this speech that she

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Speaker 1: delivered at the Law School at the University of California

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Speaker 1: at Berkeley in two thousand one, UM, which was usually

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Speaker 1: condensed down in sound bites to the wise latina can

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Speaker 1: make a better decision than a white man, and she

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Speaker 1: was blasted in the media for making this statement. Conservatives

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Speaker 1: use it as their number one argument that she would

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Speaker 1: be an activist judge and UM wasn't going to judge fairly.

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Speaker 1: But I thought that we should put a little context

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Speaker 1: to this quote because we're answering the question does a

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Speaker 1: woman make a better judge? I thought this would be

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Speaker 1: a good bouncing off point because the actual quote is

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Speaker 1: I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the

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Speaker 1: richness of her experiences would more often than not reach

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Speaker 1: a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived

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Speaker 1: that life. And what she's saying is that as a

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Speaker 1: Latina woman, she is bringing um a unique personal perspective

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Speaker 1: to the cases that she would hear. But I I

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Speaker 1: think it's important to note that right after that in

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Speaker 1: the speech, she said, let us not forget the wise

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Speaker 1: men like Oliver Wendell Holmes, and just as Cardoso voted

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Speaker 1: on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in

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Speaker 1: our society, and until nineteen seventy two, no Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: case has ever upheld the claim of a woman in

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Speaker 1: gender discrimination case. So she was kind of saying that,

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Speaker 1: you know, she has a unique personal experience, but that

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Speaker 1: isn't to discredit um the work of other prominent male

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Speaker 1: judges as well. So then this brings up the whole

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Speaker 1: question um that a lot of bloggers and magazines and

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Speaker 1: other news sources were discussing of whether or not um

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Speaker 1: in fact, women do make better judges or can't we

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Speaker 1: come to better decisions than men? And not only do

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Speaker 1: they make better judges, but does the Supreme Court need

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Speaker 1: more of them? Yeah, because at the time that she

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Speaker 1: was put on the bench, the only other female sitting

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Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court was Ruth Bider Ginsburg, who said

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Speaker 1: she was lonely up there. Yeah, she was really excited

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Speaker 1: when when Sodamayor was was nominated. So let's talk first

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Speaker 1: about whether they're better judges, because if if a woman

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Speaker 1: is a good judge, then she should be up for

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Speaker 1: you know, consideration for a Supreme Court position and not

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Speaker 1: subject to as soda Mayor was. Some claims that this

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Speaker 1: was just affirmative action, just putting a woman on for

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Speaker 1: the sake of putting a woman on the on the

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Speaker 1: court UM. And I think one of the best places

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Speaker 1: to to look for the answer is a paper published

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Speaker 1: in two thousand eight. This was published by the Social

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Speaker 1: Science Research Network and it was from a team of

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Speaker 1: researchers from from various universities. UM. Now, the first thing

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Speaker 1: that they that they found, which does not necessarily vode

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Speaker 1: well for U women women judging UM as adequately or

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Speaker 1: better than men. They said that on average, and this

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Speaker 1: is from an op ed they wrote in Slate, and

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Speaker 1: they said, on average, female judges are less qualified based

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Speaker 1: on traditional metrics than male judges. They have attended lower

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Speaker 1: ranked colleges and lower ranked law schools, They're less likely

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Speaker 1: to have had judicial clerkships, and they have less experience

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Speaker 1: in private practice before becoming judges. So that's one metric

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Speaker 1: that these authors came up with for their sleep peace

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Speaker 1: was just sort of traditional qualifications. But then they also

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Speaker 1: looked at three other pretty interesting things, productivity, influence, and independence.

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Speaker 1: Productivity being how many opinions the judges wrote, how frequently

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Speaker 1: the other judges relied on their pans off, and they

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Speaker 1: were cited that would be influence and independence being how

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Speaker 1: often the judges dissented from opinions written by judges who

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Speaker 1: belonged to the same political party. And this was where

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Speaker 1: it really started even out the differences between the male

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Speaker 1: and the female judges. Female judges were cited just as

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Speaker 1: often as male judges. They write as many opinions and

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Speaker 1: they are just and they are just as likely to

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Speaker 1: dissent and to dissent from opinions written by judges who

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Speaker 1: belonged to their party. So the findings are that once

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Speaker 1: they get on the bench, they are not, you know,

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Speaker 1: hindered by a lack of opportunity in their earlier years.

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Speaker 1: That they are being just as effective as these male

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Speaker 1: judges on the bench. Now, then the paper went on

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Speaker 1: to talk about do they make different decisions? Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and they did this by um matching up methods to

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Speaker 1: thirteen different areas of laws. And they only found one

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Speaker 1: area of law that seemed to indicate that women might

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Speaker 1: in fact judge differently than men and influence male judges,

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Speaker 1: and that is in the case of sex discrimination. And

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Speaker 1: they said, um, for these disputes, the probability of a

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Speaker 1: judge deciding in favor of the party alleging discrimination decreases

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Speaker 1: by about ten percentage points when the judge is male. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: when a woman serves on a panel with men, that

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Speaker 1: men are significantly more likely to rule in favor of

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Speaker 1: the rights litigant. So basically what they're saying is, by

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Speaker 1: let's say, like a woman is going to court um

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Speaker 1: charging her employer of sex discrimination, they're saying, based on

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Speaker 1: their research that if a woman here's the case, she

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Speaker 1: will as a woman, be able to understand the prosecution's

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Speaker 1: argument a little better than men would and might be

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Speaker 1: able to broaden their perspective on the case and therefore

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Speaker 1: make the the woman more likely to to win her

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Speaker 1: case of sexual discrimination. So that's the conclusion that the

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Speaker 1: paper called Untangling the Causal Effects of on judging came

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Speaker 1: to you. Now, before that paper came out, I would

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Speaker 1: say the main um work that was cited in terms

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Speaker 1: of whether male and female judges was different was by

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Speaker 1: Carol Gilligan who wrote a book called In a Different Voice,

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Speaker 1: and she took that thing that Kristen was talking about,

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Speaker 1: where women will be more sympathetic to a case of

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Speaker 1: sex discrimination and applied it to all law. She said

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Speaker 1: basically that females and males have different moral reasoning, and

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Speaker 1: as a result, women are always going to try and

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Speaker 1: sympathize and uh find you know, common ground and be

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Speaker 1: kind of all mushy feely, whereas men are going to

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Speaker 1: look at the totality of circumstances, apply our law and

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Speaker 1: want to apply at the same every time. So that's

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Speaker 1: where I think, you know, a lot of people said

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Speaker 1: this is a really damaging way to look at the

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Speaker 1: difference between male and female judges. As we obviously, if

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Speaker 1: you're going before a court, you want you know what

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Speaker 1: you want. You want a fair judge. I want one standard. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would want I would not want the judge to

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Speaker 1: look at me as a man or a woman standing

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Speaker 1: in front of him. I would want them to see

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Speaker 1: me as, you know, simply a citizen who is presenting

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Speaker 1: a case. And you don't want to get into the

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Speaker 1: courtroom as the citizen presenting a case and go, man,

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Speaker 1: oh I got this man, he's gonna be all tough. Well,

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Speaker 1: And I think that the important thing that this two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight study illuminates is the fact that they

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Speaker 1: say that the results of this exercise are now reasonably

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Speaker 1: clear the presence of women in the federal pellet judiciary

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Speaker 1: rarely has an empirical effect on judicial outcomes. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's not in the bag if you go, if I

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Speaker 1: go before female judge, she's not necessarily going to rule

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Speaker 1: my favorite just because you know she's sympathetic to women,

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Speaker 1: not at all. So then the question becomes if women

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Speaker 1: are as good as men, But if they're not really

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Speaker 1: that different, then do you need more women? If we're

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Speaker 1: all coming to the same conclusions except in cases like

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Speaker 1: sex discrimination, family disputes, reproductive rights, then why do you

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Speaker 1: put more women on the bench. And that gets into

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Speaker 1: something called social legitimacy. And by social legitimacy, I think,

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Speaker 1: which you mean the fact that since our population is,

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Speaker 1: you know, more or less fifty fifty male female, is

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Speaker 1: it really right to have the standard bearers of the

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Speaker 1: lobby almost all male. Do we need that female voice

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Speaker 1: in there to represent our actual societal makeup? And I

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Speaker 1: think that even just looking at it beyond gender. You know,

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Speaker 1: when uh Sna Mayor linked Latiina to her Latin heritage,

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Speaker 1: to her femaleness, I think there's also the case we

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Speaker 1: made that we need more of racial diversity to reflect

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Speaker 1: how that's changing in society as well, because you know,

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Speaker 1: when Sandra did O'Connor was on the court, she was

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Speaker 1: very adam about saying, there's not any difference to this

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Speaker 1: thing about gender. You really don't bring your own differences

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Speaker 1: in rendering judgment. But then she would go on to

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Speaker 1: say that, um, the influence of justice third good, third

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Speaker 1: Good Marshal had did have an impact on the court

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Speaker 1: when he would talk about how he had experienced racial discrimination.

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Speaker 1: That offered a window into the world for people who

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Speaker 1: had not experienced facial discrimination. So basically the argument I

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Speaker 1: think that sort of r makes is that yes, we

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Speaker 1: all do have different backgrounds and they will affect the

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Speaker 1: cases that we see. Yeah, and there was this point

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Speaker 1: about um Sandrad O'Connor that said, like you said, she

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Speaker 1: was one of she's a big detractor of this so

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Speaker 1: called different voice theory of judging in the you know,

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Speaker 1: women will come to different decisions than men. And she

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Speaker 1: has been clear in that quote there's simply no empirical

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Speaker 1: instant gender differences lead to discernible differences in rendering judgment,

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Speaker 1: which is two thousand eight paper does kind of agrees

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Speaker 1: with but also um kind of points out that there

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Speaker 1: is a slight flaw in that argument. But this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this article also says some of paradoxically, O'Connor does believe

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Speaker 1: that the personal experiences of diverse juris influence the view

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Speaker 1: of their colleagues. But I don't know that that's really

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Speaker 1: that paradoxical. I think it's just more of an accurate

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Speaker 1: statement of saying that, you know, the personal experiences that

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Speaker 1: judges bring with them to the courts, whether they're male

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Speaker 1: or female, are going to influence their decision at some point.

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Speaker 1: For instance, uh Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently interviewed by

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Speaker 1: New York Times magazine, and the interviewer asked her about

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Speaker 1: her thoughts on whether or not you know she thought that, um,

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Speaker 1: it was these studies were positive finding, you know, looking

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Speaker 1: into whether or not men and women make different judgments,

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Speaker 1: And she was replied, I'm very doubtful about those kind

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Speaker 1: of results. I certainly know that there are women in

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Speaker 1: federal courts with them. I disagree just as strongly as

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Speaker 1: I disagree with any man. I guess I have some

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Speaker 1: resistance to that kind of survey because it's what I

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Speaker 1: was arguing in the seventies, like in Mozart's opera Cozy Fontucci,

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Speaker 1: that's the way women are. And she also points out that,

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Speaker 1: you know, as Um with her own background background, being

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Speaker 1: Jewish and growing up, I think in what was it

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Speaker 1: in New York, all of those little factors, you know,

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Speaker 1: she went to human says like I went to camp

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Speaker 1: in the Adirondacks and you know, nineteen fifty whatever. She said,

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Speaker 1: all those experiences I'm bringing with me to the court,

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Speaker 1: and they're going to impact the way. I decided it

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Speaker 1: shouldn't come down to gender, right, But I did think

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Speaker 1: that in the interview she made some interesting points about

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Speaker 1: the challenges that women do face once they're on the court.

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Speaker 1: You know, she's talking about how the men can get

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Speaker 1: away with being very abrasive in their questioning. They interrupt

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Speaker 1: each other, they make their points very forcefully, whereas one

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Speaker 1: time she accidentally interrupted Sandra Day O'Connor and the headline was,

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Speaker 1: you know, rude Ruth interrupts Sandra. So I do think

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Speaker 1: that part of the problem in seeing women just as

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Speaker 1: equal to men on the bench is how our own

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Speaker 1: media treats them, how we perceive it. I mean you know,

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Speaker 1: this comes down to the issue we have with a

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Speaker 1: lot of podcast Christians. By calling out the differences ourselves

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Speaker 1: do we make it only harder for women to rise

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Speaker 1: above it. And also there as a kind of funny

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Speaker 1: in my opinion side note to all of this, there

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Speaker 1: was this one study done UM and I think it

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Speaker 1: was among South Carolina lawyers and judges that found This

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Speaker 1: was later picked up by other outlets and was reported

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Speaker 1: in the Guardian, and it found that women with more

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Speaker 1: typically masculine names have more legal success, like if they're

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Speaker 1: becoming lawyers, like getting legal appointments, than women with more

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Speaker 1: typically feminine names. Interesting. Yeah, but I mean women in

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Speaker 1: the law is a fairly new phenomenon. I was reading

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Speaker 1: that UM. I think was the first year all states

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Speaker 1: allowed women to practice law. So we've come a very

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Speaker 1: long way in a very short time. But as Ruth

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Speaker 1: Bader Ginsburg also pointed out in that that Q and

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Speaker 1: A with the New York Times mag a scene, we

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Speaker 1: still have a long way to go. She does find

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Speaker 1: it very disheartening that there are still so few women

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Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court bench, and she points to our

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Speaker 1: northern neighbors in Canada, where the Chief Justice is a woman,

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Speaker 1: and I think they're also I believe three other um

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Speaker 1: Canadian Supreme Court judges who are also women. And she

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Speaker 1: thinks it would be great if we had better representation

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Speaker 1: like that. Not necessarily because women judge better. It's not

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Speaker 1: like that. I mean, that's kind of hard to to

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Speaker 1: judge judging anyway. But um, simply for that social legitimacy

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Speaker 1: point that you brought up earlier. Okay, so listeners, let

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Speaker 1: us know what you think. Do you want to come

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Speaker 1: up before a maile judge or a female judge? Do

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Speaker 1: you think there's any difference. Do you think the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court looks balanced? Tell us your thoughts, tell us your thoughts,

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Speaker 1: all right, Chris, and let's do some listener mail. Okay, Um,

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Speaker 1: these emails are gonna talk about are from our female

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Speaker 1: Circumcision episode. I'm gonna read one from a nameless so

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Speaker 1: it looks like the person writes, I cannot believe how

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Speaker 1: you guys presented the issue of female genital mutilation as

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Speaker 1: if it's totally a cultural female choice. These women do

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Speaker 1: not have a choice. This is something that is imposed

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Speaker 1: on women, whether they want to or not. Even women

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Speaker 1: that say they support this or inconsequential because it would

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Speaker 1: be the law whether they agreed or not in the

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Speaker 1: retarded culture they live in. I think we need to

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Speaker 1: call out retarded beliefs and practices and not accept everything

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Speaker 1: as a culturally relative issue. If I believe the world

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Speaker 1: is flat and would be offendtive told otherwise, that does

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Speaker 1: not change the fact the world is not flat. Please

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Speaker 1: man up and stop with your We are all correct

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Speaker 1: and all cultures are good attitude about everything. Please do

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Speaker 1: not be so scared about being so politically correct that

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Speaker 1: you will allow people to butcher women. I could not

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Speaker 1: believe how you guys were so casually presenting this issue

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Speaker 1: like it is a female choice. I was sickened to

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Speaker 1: hear this podcast. UM, and this is just one email

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Speaker 1: that we got that was a little bit unhappy with

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Speaker 1: the way, not even just a little bit unhappy and

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Speaker 1: pretty unhappy with um, the way we presented the issue

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Speaker 1: of female genital cutting. UM. A lot of people seem

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Speaker 1: to think that we were somehow endorsing the practice in

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Speaker 1: the name of cultural sensitivity and basically having a very

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Speaker 1: skewed perception of you know, what it actually is, and

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Speaker 1: basically using cultural relativism as you know, a blanket excuse

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Speaker 1: for allowing something like this to happen to three million girls,

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Speaker 1: and so um, obviously you know this is not uh,

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Speaker 1: female genital mutilation, female circumcision, female genital cutting, you know,

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Speaker 1: all all the different names for it. Is definitely not

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Speaker 1: something that Molly and I would endorse at all. However, Um,

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Speaker 1: we did think that it was important to present the

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Speaker 1: research that we found and to try to approach it

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Speaker 1: in an unbiased way. So UM, to give you kind

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Speaker 1: of an idea of the the official responses that we

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Speaker 1: gave to these listeners, I will read my response to

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Speaker 1: you that last email, so I said, I hate to

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Speaker 1: hear that you were sickened by the female Circumcision podcast.

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Speaker 1: Molly and I certainly weren't trying to approach it lightly,

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Speaker 1: but rather address both sides of the issue, because based

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Speaker 1: on our research, there's more than one angle to the debate.

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Speaker 1: Does that mean we agree with it, No, but we

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Speaker 1: felt responsibility, especially with a cultural right completely unfamiliar to us,

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Speaker 1: to take an unbiased approach in regard to the issue

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Speaker 1: of choice. That was a point raised by an anthropologist

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Speaker 1: we referenced. Instead of three million girls per year being

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Speaker 1: subjected to female genital mutilation. She advocated offering it as

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Speaker 1: a choice to women once they've matured. Today, the initiation

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Speaker 1: right is still commonly practiced, and offering it as a

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Speaker 1: choice might be a positive step along the way to

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Speaker 1: facing it out altogether and addressing the gender inequity associated

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Speaker 1: with it. While we do like to offer our opinions

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Speaker 1: and experiences on topics, Molly and I also think it's

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Speaker 1: crucial to present our listeners with research statistics and facts

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Speaker 1: from experts and allow listeners to form their own opinions.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for your criticism and taking the time to listen.

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Speaker 1: And I think we got a lot of emails that

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Speaker 1: basically said, you girls are very good about being fair

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Speaker 1: and balanced on a lot of topics, but this was

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Speaker 1: one that didn't deserve to be fair and balanced. But

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Speaker 1: I think that that we're always going to try and

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Speaker 1: be fair and balanced with our topics. But that's why

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Speaker 1: we have list our mails to hear from you guys

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Speaker 1: about your own opinions. Yeah, and I think one one

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Speaker 1: thing I pointed out to UH to one of the

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Speaker 1: listeners was um I said that kind of in retrospect,

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Speaker 1: I think maybe one of the reasons why we did

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Speaker 1: spend a decent amount of time talking about this issue

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Speaker 1: of UM female circumcision as choice, was because I frankly

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Speaker 1: was surprised to even see that research out there, and

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Speaker 1: on the Tierney Lab blog on the New York Times

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Speaker 1: where we first found a referenced about presenting female circumcision

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Speaker 1: as a choice kind of reflected the same level of outrage.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know, but I think I still think

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Speaker 1: that it was crucial for us to UM to talk

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Speaker 1: about all sides of the issue instead of just immediately

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Speaker 1: point to it and dismissing it as something barbaric and atricious.

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Speaker 1: And I think that even the research that was very

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Speaker 1: much against UM female general mutilation that was outraged by

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Speaker 1: it points out you can't just go into a culture

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Speaker 1: and say that your beliefs are to put it, as

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Speaker 1: this one email did, retarded. And you know, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of a friend to me that they would describe any

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Speaker 1: culture belief as retard in the first place, I don't

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Speaker 1: think that's a very good word to use in relation

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Speaker 1: to anyone's beliefs. But even getting away from that, UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't mind being called politically correct if I'm just

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Speaker 1: trying to present all the sides of why people think

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Speaker 1: something is and exists. Yeah, so, if you guys have

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Speaker 1: any more thoughts about it, please feel free to email us.

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Speaker 1: We appreciate um hearing from you, whether it is with

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Speaker 1: praise or with criticism. Exactly so, right as at Mom's

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, and as usual,

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