Sotomayor: SCOTUS Changed After Study Found Female Justices Were Interrupted More

"Regrettably, that's a dynamic that exists not just on the court but in society in general," the Supreme Court justice said in a discussion on diversity and inclusion.

Nina Golgowski

10/14/21

The U.S. Supreme Court changed the way oral arguments are heard after studies found that women were being disproportionately interrupted by male justices and advocates while speaking, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a discussion on diversity and inclusion this week during which she also raised concerns about the justices' limited professional experience in areas like civil rights.

Sotomayor, speaking with New York University's School of Law on Wednesday, said the justices have become more mindful of interrupting one another and Chief Justice John Roberts has become more of a referee in the wake of a particular study, "Justice, Interrupted," that examined how justices compete to have influence.

"In the case of that study, I think it had an enormous impact," she told NYU School of Law professor Kenji Yoshino. "You will see us even now when we're speaking, a judge will say, 'I'm sorry, did I interrupt you?' And if you say, 'I was going to finish something' they will say 'please, go ahead.' That did not happen as much before and so that study had a great impact.”

Sotomayor went on to point out that the 2017 study didn't necessarily shed an illuminating light on the issue for her, noting that women tend to get interrupted or dismissed in society in general.

"Regrettably, that's a dynamic that exists not just on the court but in society in general. Most of the time women say things and they're not heard in the same way that men who may say the identical thing," she said.

Sotomayor used the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an example of someone who was overlooked while speaking on the nation's highest court.

"Now here's a woman who no one doubts was powerful, yet she was small in stature, diminutive, and she had a very, very soft voice. And it was not unusual for when she said something, for it to either not be heard, or not fully grasped and as a result often things that she had said were picked up by others and made their own without attribution," she said. "It is a nature of our discourse as men and women that that inclination of disregarding women is all too common. I think that study, however, had a great impact on the dynamic of my court. And I suspect on the dynamic of other courts as well. People paid attention and it made for self examination of behavior."

Four years after that study's publication, the Supreme Court last month announced that the justices will now have two minutes of uninterrupted time to speak and ask questions during oral arguments, rather than the traditional "free for all" format, as SCOTUS Blog reported.

This change noticeably appears to benefit Justice Clarence Thomas, who for years has been known to rarely speak in the courtroom. Thomas suddenly became active in oral arguments when they were held over the phone because of the pandemic and justices were instructed to ask questions one at a time, without interruption.

Thomas has said his usual silence in the court stems from an aversion to interruptions and his concern that justices waste the counsel's limited time to present their case by asking unnecessary questions.

"Maybe it's the Southerner in me. Maybe it's the introvert in me, I don't know. I think that when somebody's talking, somebody ought to listen," he said in 2012.

While justices have worked to be more respectful and inclusive in recent years, Sotomayor emphasized there's still more work to be done on diversifying the court. This is particularly needed in what she called "professional diversity" as there are no justices with experience in environmental law, immigration, criminal justice outside of white-collar crime, or even civil rights.

"When Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, we lost our only civil rights lawyer. There are no civil rights lawyers left on the court," she said. "Some of my colleagues may dispute that because some of the work they've done, on behalf of the government, may have included civil rights but we have no real lawyer who has been in the trenches on civil rights issues, whether it's on women's rights or racial rights or even disability rights."

Sotomayor said she sees herself as hopeful by nature, but that these shortcomings are concerning.

"There are so many areas of law that the court touches and whose decisions impact in such tremendous ways, that I do worry that the authorities who are selecting judges are not paying enough attention to that kind of diversity as well," she said.

California and Lego embrace gender neutral toys. Parents need to get with the program.

Parents carry internalized beliefs about gender roles that have the potential to limit the growth and development of their kids.

NBC/Katie Hurley, LCSW - Oct. 15, 2021

Kids are changing their mindsets, even if society isn't quite catching up.

Recent research commissioned by the Danish toymaker Lego reveals that girls feel empowered to engage in all kinds of play and activities, with 82 percent of the believing that it's OK for girls to play football and boys to practice ballet. The percentage of boys who agree is smaller, but still an overwhelming majority at 71 percent.

The bad news is that parents continue to carry some internalized beliefs about gender roles that have the potential to limit the growth and development of kids and hold them back. And that makes new legislation and efforts from companies like Lego to overcome this ingrained behavior that much more important.

The survey of 7,000 parents and children ages 6-14 from seven countries, including the United States, indicated that parents are almost six times as likely to think of scientists and athletes as men and eight times as likely to think of engineers as men. Parents are also more likely to encourage girls to engage in activities that are more cognitive, artistic and performance-based while pushing boys into STEM-like activities, such as science, coding and building.

When engaged in unstructured play of their own design, kids explore their ideas and interests, build coping and social skills, express and work through their feelings, and develop empathy and problem-solving skills. When we limit the scope of their play by telling them what to play and how to do it, we stunt their development.

Free play is the best vehicle for child development, but society is so busy "helping" kids find their passions and building their skills from a young age that kids miss out on developing their own identities. When a young girl appears to have a talent for dance, for example, parents often feel pressure to prioritize that at the expense of exploring other interests. This boxes their child into one specific activity, thereby hindering the natural curiosity that fuels child development.

Of course, it's not just parents who convey messages that shape the gender roles and expectations their children have. The broader society also plays a large role. The marketing of toys and products is particularly powerful in grooming how kids perceive gender expectations — for good or bad.

Through media, publishing and education, girls are seeing with their own eyes that women can succeed in a wide variety of fields. There are children's television shows that revolve around female characters and middle grade books with female heroes. Girls are seeing themselves in all kinds of roles, and that empowers them.

But when was the last time you saw a show about a boy whose superpower involves sewing or cooking? Where is the book series focused on men making the world a better place by following their "nontraditional" passions? We don't see the same resources readily available for boys who don't adhere to dominant gender norms. And if toys are marketed for girls or boys, where does that leave our nonbinary youth?

This discrepancy might help to explain why the new Lego survey shows that girls tend to be less rigid about gender roles than boys. For instance, 62 percent of girls responded that some activities are meant just for girls while others are meant for boys, compared to 74 percent of boys.

Toy companies have a responsibility to meet the needs and interests of all kids. It's encouraging to see that Lego is committed to changing these ingrained narratives by promoting inclusive play and removing gender messaging from their products. But we can't stop there.

Thankfully, the state of California isn't. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Saturday that requires large department stores to display toys and child care items in gender-neutral ways. While the law doesn't remove traditional boys and girls sections from department stores, or apply to clothing, it does call for inclusive marketing for children's products.

While California is the first state to sign a law like this, other organizations around the world are also working to remove gender stereotyping from toys. The U.K.-based Let Toys Be Toys is a grassroots award-winning campaign dedicated to encouraging the toy and publishing industries to stop limiting children's interests by marketing their products according to gender.

To promote inclusive play and learning, however, we can't simply focus on physical toys and content. We need to reframe our attitudes and beliefs around them. The way we do that is by stepping back and letting children play. When toy sellers and parents move away from pink and blue, kids are left with endless possibilities.

I've seen this phenomenon up close in the students I work with. One 10-year-old girl recently showed me the town she'd made from mixed up Lego sets. Her face lit up as she led me into her imaginary world, where the people can be anything they want and no one ever fights. A male pirate runs a bakery/hair salon, for example, and that's just fine.

Seeing her mixed-up Lego town transported me back to my own childhood and getting lost in Legos with my brother. As far as I can recall, no Lego person ever retained their original outfit or hair. We delighted in mixing them up and creating basement-sized worlds where Legos and Matchbox cars lived in harmony with Superman and Strawberry Shortcake. Together, they solved the problems of the day and everyone was a hero.

Research shows a steady decline in free play since the 1980s. Parental fear for the safety of their children is one reason unsupervised outdoor play began to decline, but kids today also face more homework, specialized interests and a culture of busyness that keeps them running from one adult-directed activity to the next.

We are long overdue for the return of free play with no expectations and no labels. Our kids will be better for it — and hopefully be more inclusive adults when it's their turn.

First and foremost, I would always be supportive of a new poster to the forum, someone new to the bc diagnosis. Compassion, support and understanding come first. At such a time, the use of the word girl or lady is not the important issue.

But in this feminist thread, it's a good discussion. I think using the term girl for a grown woman tends to infantilize her. Girls are young; I would say the term is appropriate up to about age 12. Then you might say “teenage girl" for several years. By the time a female is 18, I would call her a woman or young woman. By that age, they are taking on adult responsibilities: a job, college, owning a car, etc. No longer girls. Not needing supervision. Not a child.

I sometimes use the term fellow/fella in place of young boys or men. For example, at a pumpkin farm with my grandkids, two male tweens tried to cut line for an attraction and I said, “Hey, fellas, I think the line starts back there."

I might call a male hospital technician a fellow, but I would not be referring to him as a boy.

The use of lady/ladies may be on its way out. As society becomes more casual, lady comes across as too formal. I hear it used lightly, as in someone meeting up with friends saying, “How ya doing, ladies?" and of course, there's usually one in the bunch hollering, “ain't never been a lady, ain't startin' now!" (maybe you, wrenn) to where all laugh and no one is offended.

I think I once heard an expression like “The art of being a woman is knowing when not to be too much of a lady." I think it referred to sex. You know, the Madonna/whore complex.

My personal pet peeve is referring to a group of two or more people, regardless of gender, as "guys". Hate it, hate it, hate it. Yet it's a common part of everyday language.

illimae, I think you are about twenty years younger than me, so I agree, that might have something to do with the different perspectives, too.

This is a FB post I came across today. I am posting a screenshot of the start of the post and then including the entire post below. The subject, that of women being sent to jail for the miscarrage of a pregnancy is insanity.

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THE PREGNANCY POLICE

It is not uncommon for anti-choice bullies to come to our Facebook pages and try to shame us for not believing that a soul enters the body at conception and so women's wombs should be the property of the state.

Brittney Poolaw is a 21 year old Oklahoman woman who has been sentenced to four years in prison for first-degree manslaughter after miscarrying. The state charged that she caused the miscarriage because of her drug usage even though the medical examiner does not identify drug usage as the source of the miscarriage.

>>> Most of us would agree drug usage while pregnant is wrong, but what will these prosecutions mean as anti-abortion laws spread across our nation? Here in Texas, abortion is prohibited before many women even know they are pregnant. Will these women face prison as well?

Kim Blalock, a woman from Alabama was prosecuted this year for taking PRESCRIPTION drugs while pregnant. Arwa Mahdawi reports, " A 2016 investigation found more than 500 Alabama women had been prosecuted for filling their prescriptions while pregnant under the state's chemical endangerment law."

Mahdawi points out how differently corporations are treated than poor women:

"Just look at the billionaire Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Last year Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in federal court to three criminal charges related to pushing sales of the narcotic, which has fuelled an opioid crisis that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. And how much jail time did they get? Zero, of course. Not one member of the Sackler family will spend a minute in jail for their role in an opioid epidemic that has killed half a million Americans."

My friends, we are ALL in this together. You don't have to be a woman, or even like abortion, to realize the patriarchal terrorism being unleashed by the self appointed pregnancy police. Those of us who believe women are moral agents, not the property of a patriarchal state, must come together in solidarity.

While I respect those who are against abortion and use persuasion to make their case, I have zero respect for those who use the state to unleash threats and coercion against pregnant women but refuse to allow the state to provide free healthcare and education for everyone already born.

The right to life should begin, not end, at birth.