Will Sotomayor Hearings Catalyze the Next Wave of Feminism?

by Jen Nedeau

category: Feminism

Published July 18, 2009 @ 06:29PM PT

After reading this piece in the New York Times today titled, Women on the Verge of the Law: From Anita Hill to Sonia Sotomayor, I started to think about how the Anita Hill hearings catalyzed much of the Third Wave of feminism and how the Judge Sotomayor confirmations hearings will serve as another trip wire for women to participate in the feminist movement. The author of the article, Jill Abramson, a managing editor of The New York Times, brings up several ideas that make me think it's time for the feminist movement to take a hard look in the mirror and decide what the Sotomayor hearings mean to them, as well as the future of the feminist movement:

The two are linked in another way. Together, their experiences before the committee summarize a change in recent American politics. Professor Hill’s treatment by an all-male Judiciary panel presaged an outcry of “They just don’t get it!” and the election of many more women to the Congress. And the atmosphere of those earlier proceedings also insured a far tamer set of hearings this time, as neither Republicans nor Democrats have wanted to face the kind of damage inflicted by the partisan circus of 1991...

...Personal background checks of nominees are now so rigorous that there is little chance of a skeleton dancing out of the closet. Although there were references to Judge Sotomayor’s running a “hot bench,” and anonymous comments accusing her of bullying lawyers, her preternaturally measured statements blunted them. The wild times of the Bork and Thomas hearings are over, and confirmations have become so sedate that several prominent lawyers loudly complained that absolutely nothing about either the law or Judge Sotomayor was learned in four days of hearings.

Still, history is being made. The first Latina, and third woman, will be appointed to the court. And though Republicans pushed her into disowning her “wise Latina” remarks, the full texts of those speeches reveal an interesting generational shift between Judge Sotomayor and the women who preceded her, Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg were among a tiny minority of women in their law school classes, and both faced barriers as they broke into the legal profession.

Abramson points out that Judge Sotomayor is cut from a different cloth than those who came before her. She was by no means in the majority of women in the legal field when she graduated from law school, but at the time "women made up 28 percent of all law graduates" and "law firms were aggressively recruiting more women, as were judicial chambers and, in Judge Sotomayor’s case, prosecutors’ offices." If this was considered a positive trend of women achieving equal representation not only in law, but also it's related fields - teaching, politics and the judiciary - then present day statistics are even more hopeful:

Statistics show that women are going to law school, graduating law school and becoming associates in law firms at a percentage that is consistent with male counterparts, according to the National Association of Law Placement. However, women are not staying in the legal profession at that same rate. According to a recent report from NALP, 47% of law school enrollment comprises women, 45% of law firm associates are women, but only 18 % of partners are women and 18% of the General Counsels of Fortune 500 companies are women. Even more disturbing, only 1.65% of law firm partners are women of color

Clearly, there is still room from improvement, but assuming we all get through Judge Sotomayor hearings without too many bumps, bruises or scratches to the feminist movement - could it be time to really determine what is next? Our major battles of electing a female president, stopping misogyny in the media, and balancing the gender representation of elected officials are still ever present - but it looks like there is hope at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps, with continued efforts, by the time women who are graduating from law school today are up for position on the Supreme Court, they will be seeing a very different crowd - one that is more diverse and more educated about how to properly challenge a woman's legal skill set rather than measuring her by her tempermant, her outfit or her race.