ABSTRACT
The efforts of feminist organisations in the USA to secure the appointment of women to new judgeships and to vacancies indicate their expectation that women judges will act to improve the legal status of women. The organised campaign to place more women on the bench rests on the hope that women judges will seize decision-making opportunities to liberate other women. The conventional but different approaches to the explanation of the behaviour of political women do not predict profeminist decisions. An inventive explanation for the behaviour of a female elite is not rooted in an organisational or biological but in a socialisation framework. The women’s organisations expect the women they help into authoritative positions to be more sensitive than men in creating legal remedies against discrimination. The two largest associations open to laypersons, the National Organisation of Women (NOW) and the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), both developed projects to place more women on the bench.
