ABSTRACT
Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed that she was subjected to a higher standard of scrutiny than men nominees to the US Supreme Court. For example, she was interrogated on personal matters, such as her divorce. She was even asked to name everyone she had dated. 2 Opponents attacked her as racist for musing that a wise Latina woman might dispense better justice on some issues, and they characterized her as mean and overbearing in oral argument. 3 Justice Elena Kagan, too, had her personal life scrutinized. The press openly speculated about her sexuality, not to mention her practice of sitting with her legs uncrossed. 4 Both women were trashed as “too fat.” 5 What role does gender play in explaining this (mis)treatment? In this chapter, I consider the gendered treatment of women judges by analyzing forms of hostility and retaliation against them. I argue that these forms of hostility and retaliation constitute a backlash against women judges. And I use the case of Rose Bird, the first woman judge appointed to the California Supreme Court (in 1977) and the first California appellate judge to be voted out of office (in 1986), to illustrate the nature of this backlash.
