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CJColucci says:
What I really take away from this is that a lot of people can do the job of judging reasonably well, and that, within very broad limits, we don’t have much in the way of pre-judicial attributes that work well as predictors.
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October 2, 2009, 8:06 amCato The Elder says:
Why is the “independence” quality elevated to such great heights in your op-ed? Especially over the more objectively agreeable qualification metrics? Isn’t this sort of “rogue” independence part of the criticism lay conservatives have of the federal judiciary — namely, that they find all sort of bizarre ways to interpret longstanding American tradition according to the newest legal fashions? It is a long way from finding what you apparently found, to cheering “Bring on the women!”, without addressing such qualms, isn’t it?
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October 2, 2009, 8:10 amSteve says:
This is a mind-boggling paragraph:
So if one arbitrarily-defined pool is larger than another arbitrarily-defined pool, filling a single vacancy by choosing someone from the latter pool provides ammunition for the argument that the choice involved affirmative action? Whoa. If the pool of well-qualified men is twice as large as the pool of well-qualified women, isn’t there roughly a 1/3 chance that the best-qualified individual is a woman?
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October 2, 2009, 8:16 amerp says:
Sotomayor considers both her ethnicity and sex an integral part of her superior qualifications as a judge/justice. How does a paper that only speaks to her female part “respond to the debate over her nomination”?
PS: Thanks for the edit option.
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October 2, 2009, 8:24 amPlastic says:
State high court judges from 1998–2000 seems to be a fairly small dataset to make such broad generalizations as this:
And then to go on to relate state court findings to Sotomayor seems like another stretch.
The idea that restricting the selection to a smaller pool will very likely lead to worse judges is hardly mind-boggling. If you artificially restrict your choices to either just male or just female candidates you are very likely to choose a worse judge at some point.
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October 2, 2009, 8:36 amRich B. says:
This article seems to be an example of the old joke: “No, I lost my keys across the street, but I’m looking here because the light is better.”
After admitting that there’s no good way to determine whether a judge is “better” or “worse” than another judge, you then select several characteristics that do not appear to correlate in any way to judicial quality — and then use those characteristics to attempt to determine judicial quality.
Judicial quality is across the street, but the light is better over here with the opinion counts and dissents.
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October 2, 2009, 8:44 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
If only or mostly males are appointed to the federal judiciary, that would help justify top law schools in discriminating against women if they want to. Why waste resources educating students for whom the judiciary is not in the cards? If this happens, we now have a self-perpetuating mechanism for discrimination, what is sometimes referred to as systemic or systematic sexism.
I’m curious about the list of qualifications including this: “they are less likely to have had judicial clerkships (a prestigious job often taken by top law school graduates)”. I’m curious because of the inclusion of the word “prestigious”. Are the judicial clerkships truly a qualification? Or is it that having that on one’s resume means that one is a member of the cool kids’ club?
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October 2, 2009, 8:48 amGabriel McCall says:
On the contrary. Males are consistently and approvedly discriminated against in multiple settings. Males in advertisements are reliably portrayed as childish, bumbling, and inept, while women are hypercompetent. There is a pervasive anti-male bias against males in public schools, both as teachers and as students. Male criminal defendants get harsher sentences than females convincted of identical crimes, and family courts are even worse. The list goes on for those who care to investigate.
None of this has anything to do with your conclusion, which is that women and men make equally good judges. But the fact that institutionalized misandry had become so commonplace that it can be blindly asserted that there is no such thing, and indeed that privileged males “live in a happy bubble of illusion”, is itself discriminatory and objectionable. Please reconsider.
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October 2, 2009, 8:51 amWhadonna More says:
The above could apply to Jews, blacks, Catholics or other smallish groups, depending on the timeframe. It’s almost like some bigger group collectively didn’t want those folks in the profession. Or it could just be that assimilation improves intelligence, I guess.
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October 2, 2009, 8:57 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Do you really want to point to images of women in advertising to say that sexist advertising is an example of discrimination against men?
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October 2, 2009, 8:57 amGabriel McCall says:
An assertion that there is a substantial body of advertising which is demeaning to men does not in any way address the question of whether there is also advertising which is demeaning to women. I’m not arguing that women do not face gender issues; I’m arguing that those who think that only women do are wrong.
Edit to add: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1714603
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October 2, 2009, 9:05 amShelbyC says:
Because women in advertising are portrayed so positively that it sets unrealistic expectation for real women? That arguably has implications for both genders.
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October 2, 2009, 9:35 amRock On says:
Laura beat me to it. Is “reverse sexism” a thing now? Yikes...
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October 2, 2009, 9:36 amShelbyC says:
You mean like women getting priority access to the lifeboats on the Titanic? Nope. It’s not event necessary to bring up, except when folks make comments like the above.
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October 2, 2009, 10:01 amdisconnect says:
Are you arguing that it’s acceptable, then? If it’s not discrimination, then it’s okay?
It is NOT okay. It’s not “reverse sexism”, it’s sexism. And it’s only an example. Read the next few sentences and argue them.
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October 2, 2009, 10:11 amKent Scheidegger says:
If there is a significant correlation between sex and qualifications “based on traditional metrics” yet there is no correlation between sex and performance, the first thing we should suspect is that the “traditional metrics” do not predict performance and perhaps ought to be scrapped. The article notes near the end, “such factors only poorly predict a person’s success as a judge,” but it would be nice to have some numbers attached to that statement.
It should be simple to determine, from the same data, if there is any correlation between the “traditional metrics” and “performance” as operationally defined for this study.
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October 2, 2009, 10:29 amloki13 says:
On the contrary. Males are consistently and approvedly discriminated against in multiple settings
When I look at our government, the Executive, the Congress, and SCOTUS, the first thought that leaps into my mind is– damn, there are just too many women. Think of what it would be like if not for all that pernicious disrimination!
When I look at the leaders of business, such a the heads of the Fortune 500 Companies, I think to myself– goshdarnit, if only there wasn’t a glass ceiling for men, we could actually be CEOs and titans of industry!
When I look at the partners of Random BigLaw firm, I can only sigh, because clearly those women are keeping the lil’ boys out.
Truly, it’s hard to be a
pimpman.Quote
October 2, 2009, 10:56 amGabriel McCall says:
You seem to be arguing that if there are any settings where a group is favored, then there are no settings where that group is disfavored. By that rule, the fact that women account for over 90% of elementary school teachers must prove that there is no discrimination against women. Right?
Discrimination is not a binary global variable that is either turned on or off for all members of a group in all situations. There are places where women have it unfairly hard, and there are places where women have it unfairly easy. Likewise, there are places where men have it unfairly easy, and places where men have it unfairly hard. I’m not arguing that women don’t have their problems; I’m not even trying to make a comparison between the scale of men’s problems and women’s. I’m just saying that a blanket assertion that men simply do not suffer from any discrimination at all is observably false, and that that cultural blindness to discrimination which is indeed taking place is part of the problem.
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October 2, 2009, 11:57 amloki13 says:
You seem to be arguing that if there are any settings where a group is favored, then there are no settings where that group is disfavored. By that rule, the fact that women account for over 90% of elementary school teachers must prove that there is no discrimination against women. Right?
Glad you mentioned that! Please cf. that to the number of professors. Then get back to me.
What you have just done is this:
Look, I know purple people are have all the management slots, but most of the janitors are green people! Damn those green people for discriminating against purples!
(IOW, people need jobs... that women have traditionally been funneled into what were considered less desireable or “women’s” jobs is not great evidence for you. Are you next going to argue that women are excluding men from nursing, and so it makes sense that men make up the majority of doctors?)
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October 2, 2009, 12:02 pmPerseus says:
Affirmative action for (white middle class) women is alive and well in university hiring, so just give it a bit more time.
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October 2, 2009, 12:14 pmGabriel McCall says:
The primary cause of the lack of male teachers in primary education has been found to be hiring discrimination, plain and simple. The next most significant cause was self-selection based on fear of being accused of pedophilia. This isn’t a situation where women are being forced into whatever jobs men don’t want; if that were the case, we’d find a lot more female garbage collectors.
With college enrollment at 60% female and rising, we can reasonably expect the faculty imbalance to be shifting over the next couple of decades.
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October 2, 2009, 12:39 pmNickM says:
Or the measures of “performance” are worthless.
Nick
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October 2, 2009, 12:42 pmloki13 says:
The primary cause of the lack of male teachers in primary education has been found to be hiring discrimination, plain and simple. The next most significant cause was self-selection based on fear of being accused of pedophilia. This isn’t a situation where women are being forced into whatever jobs men don’t want;
I disagree with at least the second part of your premise (I don’t have the time to examine your primary source). Traditionally, women who went into higher education had few opportunities after graduation *other than* becoming teachers, which is why they did. Even here, there was a hierarchy, with greater numbers of female teachers in K-8, and a higher ratio of male teachers in high school (which used to have a higher pay scale). As for hiring discrimination– the proof is in the pudding (results). Look at the management of the Fortune 500, or BigLaw, or other positions of power. Look at the difference in orchaestras after they started performing auditions behind a curtain. And writing that the imbalance in professors is likely to be corrected in the decades in the future is hardly persuasive to your argument. As for garbagemen– they make some good money in many parts of the country, and there’s a waiting list for jobs.... not the evidence you’re looking for. :)
I’m going to write a little more substantive, less snarky port because I find that this topic dovetails with the same issues I had with another commenter on a post dealing with religion. I think that the problem is that many commenters conflate the issue of things that are bad in the individual sense with problems of a more systemic nature. I would hope that all people would agree that on an *individual* level, discrimination of all types is bad. If a man doesn’t get a promotion because his boss, a woman, hates men, then that should be condemned (I call that jerky behavior, but whatever). But this is different than the systemic problems we see. There is something profoundly wrong with, for example, men complaining about their horrible lot in society (as MEN) when they hold the levers of power. I understand that part of this is fear– the position of men has gone from super-duper dominant to just merely dominant, yet it still exists, but the horrible whining of victimhood is a little strange. I think I can understand it, in some ways– whereas in the past, every single position of prominence was held by a man, there are now women in the ranks. That means, of course, that there is increased competition. Life is more uncertain. Change sucks.
But, in my mind at least, I would hope that the following could be sussed out:
1. Any case of individual discrimination based on race, color, creed, or sexual orientation (either way!) is wrong.
2. For men to complain about overall systemic societal discrimination against them is kind of ridiculous, as a quick look around might tell you.
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October 2, 2009, 12:50 pmfwb says:
Those who believe themselves wise are not.
Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam!
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October 2, 2009, 12:57 pmShelbyC says:
loki13:
Perhaps. Who was engaging in such complaining? I only saw someone rebut this statement:
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October 2, 2009, 1:39 pmloki13 says:
Gabriel McCall wrote:
Males are consistently and approvedly discriminated against in multiple settings.
Fair enough?
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October 2, 2009, 1:49 pmPlastic says:
That’s actually absurd, and if you think about it a little I think you’d agree. Religious discrimination in, say, a church leadership position seems quite good. Likewise, sexual preference discrimination when selecting the president of a gay rights club also seems good and reasonable.
The idea that certain types of discrimination should be eliminated from businesses and politics most people agree with, it’s the implementation that most of us disagree on.
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October 2, 2009, 1:50 pmShelbyC says:
Well, you tell me. I read his comment as rebutting the proposition that most men don’t know what it is like to be discriminated against. You’re saying that you read it as him complaining about overall systemic societal discrimination against men. Could you elaborate?
FWIW, I think that both men and women are discriminiated against, in different settings, and different ways.
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October 2, 2009, 1:56 pmloki13 says:
Plastic,
I agree with you. I was careless in my words. I was using the word discrimination in the “bad (invidious) discrimination” sense. IOW, to not allow someone a job, or access to services, or the like that they would normally receive simply because of an extraneous disfavored characteristic.
Discrimination as a matter of separation happens all the time. I have a disciminating palate, for example.
I think that the trouble usually sets in when you get to the private cases you mention. There is a continuum between clear cut cases:
Ex: Roman Catholic church refuses to have Kali-worshipping priest.
Acceptable.
Ex. Woman passed over for promotion because she’s a woman.
Not acceptable.
Ex. Boy scouts don’t allow gay troop leaders.
That’s in the nether region. I happen to think it’s unacceptable morally, but I also think that private groups (like the Roman Catholic church) whose identity is bound in a certain way, have the right to make rules for membership. And as a matter of legal precedent, it’s allowed.
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October 2, 2009, 1:57 pmloki13 says:
Um.... if you think that he wrote that “most men” know what it’s like to be discriminated against, and I think that he wrote that there is systemic (invidious!) discrimination against men... how are we differing in our interpration?
For “most men” to know what discrimination feels like, there would have to be systemic discrimination. I just don’t think that this is true (well, on the basis of their maleness... gay men often know what gay discrimination is like, black men have often sometimes encountered racism). It doesn’t mean that there aren’t occasions when they have been treated differently– just that there isn’t a widespread pattern of anti-male (invidious) discrimination in our society.
If you think otherwise, do the following experiment:
Would you trade the position, as grand poobah of men in our society, for that of women? Why or why not?
I’m not some giant critic of the “patriarchal elite” (or whatever) and I think things are amazingly better in the United States than they have been, and better here than most of the world.... but the whole “men as the real victims” doesn’t wash with me.
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October 2, 2009, 2:06 pmBrian Garst says:
That was a surprisingly shallow article. It started with some ridiculous generalizations about the experiences of men and women from which a shoddy conclusion was drawn (women must be able to see both sides of issues better), and ended with a hilarious bit of goalpost moving (suddenly the question was whether women were worse judges, instead of the original assertion under discussion that they are necessarily better).
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October 2, 2009, 2:10 pmShelbyC says:
Well, I don’t think there is systemic (invidious!) discrimination against any gender in our society. There are gender roles (or arguably vestigious gender roles) which cause discrimination against both men and women in different contexts, but that is not the same as systematic invidious discrimination. I had some exposure to a male dominated society as a child. We took a trip once where there were two Land Rovers. The men got to ride in one, and the women and goats in the other. My mom was pissed because the goats were crapping all over the place. In the US, of course, the women would rightly get the clean Land Rover and the men would ride with the goats.
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October 2, 2009, 2:21 pmloki13 says:
ShelbyC,
Not to get all theoretical on you, but even your example could be considered as (paternalistic) discrimination against woman. i.e. the women can’t handle it like the men could. I think most of it is fairly benign, and I personally do my best to be civil (to men) and chivalrous (to women) but what a lot of us rail about as DISCRIMINATION against men (why do we have to serve in combat??) is actually paternalistic discrimination against women (they just can’t handle it... let the menfolk do it).
Again, though, you just have to look around you. Saying that America is better than it was (most certainly!) or better than Saudi Arabia (mos def!) when it comes to gender discrimination does not mean there isn’t still a fair amount out there. And it doesn’t touch on the issue that, yes Virginia, there are biological differences between men and women. But I don’t think those biological difference prevent women from, inter alia, running a Fortune 500 Company.
And all of this is beside my main point– that it wrankles my cankles (or something like that, if I had cankles) when I hear someone complain about how goshdarnit hard it is to be a man because of (how did McCall put it) the rampant systemic “misandry” in our matriarchy.
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October 2, 2009, 2:43 pmSuzy says:
With respect to the original article: A much more likely assumption, in general, is that women and men can be equally competent judges. There’s no good reason to suppose otherwise. The evidence provided primarily supports that assertion. To the extent that it doesn’t, more powerful explanations would account for the difference. For example, maybe there’s not as much difference as is often assumed, between the top graduates of different law schools. Perhaps on paper, man at top of his class at Stanford seems better qualified than woman at top of her class at Iowa, but maybe it’s just that both people at that very high level will make excellent judges.
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October 2, 2009, 2:48 pmShelbyC says:
loki13:
Many folks would consider it as such, and I think incorrectly. There are two reasons we try and make people more comfortable, 1. because we they can’t handle the discomfort (i.e. elderly or incapacitated) and 2. As a sign of respect.
Door opening is a good example. We might hold the door open for a two year old for paternalistic reasons. (He can’t handle it). We might hold the door open for the President of the US as a sign of respect. We might hold the door open for someone elderly as a combination of the two. Many folks see door-opening as paternalistic discrimination, implying that women can’t open the door themselves. But I don’t think there has been a chivalrous door opener in the history of doors who believed the a healthy woman was unable to open a door. It is done exclusively as a sign of respect.
As for your cankles, it is understandable that they get wrankled by folks complaining about how goshdarn hard it is to be a man, but I don’t think that’s what was happening. Instead, other cankles (mine included) were getting wrankled by folks talking about how goshdarn easy it is to be a man.
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October 2, 2009, 3:05 pmloki13 says:
1. It’s not easy to be a man. However, it’s the default. It’s *harder*, as a general rule, to be a woman and claw your way into the upper echelons of power.
2. I disagree with you about the door. I myself am a door opener in general. I think that clearly, most people think women (assuming they have arms) are able to open doors. However, *in my observations*, it has been the case that this varies by region and age. The other people I have seen that are more likely to be door openers are not the most ardent supporters of full equality for women. As I wrote– I think it’s benign, and it’s the way I was raised. But if we are viewed equally, why aren’t we opening doors for men and women? Respect? What is the root of that respect? That women are different *and need to be protected*. Hence– paternalism.
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October 2, 2009, 3:14 pmShelbyC says:
Well, part of a man’s job has traditionally to protect women, presumablly because he’s usually stronger. But I’m not sure I see the connection between protection and door opening.
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October 2, 2009, 3:47 pmChrisTS says:
Oh, Suzy, must you insist on being rational?
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October 2, 2009, 3:50 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Oh, don’t count on that, buddy. Not in the rural South.
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October 2, 2009, 4:08 pmanonymous says:
Having followed the Washington State Supreme Court VERY CLOSELY for 10 years now, I can say with a great deal of confidence that female judges are much more likely to rule against male defendants in criminal cases, even when the evidence and clear letter of the law should require them to vacate unjust sentences.
When it comes to alleged child sexual, or spousal abuse; it is obvious that the evidence matters little, even when there is absolutely no physical evidence that the accused man committed a crime.
Prosecutors lie and hide exculpatory evidence in child sex crime cases and can too easily manipulate juries into unjust convictions. The prosecutors who are the worst are all females.
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October 2, 2009, 9:03 pmanonymous says:
With Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is no longer the least qualified justice.
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October 2, 2009, 9:06 pmSoronel Haetir says:
Then the rural south would be far different from the rural west. Of course, in the rural west if you had a vehicle as expensive as a land rover the goats would be relegated to a trailer to begin with.
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October 2, 2009, 9:30 pmloki13 says:
Wow.... just, wow. Where do you even begin? Graduated UG at Cornell. Started law school at Harvard (one of nine women in a class of 500) before transferring to Columbia (making both Harvard AND Columbia Law Review). Finished first in class at Columbia. Clerked for the SDNY (why not SCOTUS? No chicks in 1960). Professor.... chief litigator for the ACLU... extensive scholarly work.... judge on the DC Court of Appeals for 13 years....
Praytell, anonymous, what justices on SCOTUS were *more* qualified than RBG when she was nominated?
Some stupidity is amazing in its obtuseness.
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October 2, 2009, 10:46 pmbob says:
Does it matter at all that Justice Sotomayor’s comments, in proper context, never suggest what the article proposes to test?
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October 14, 2009, 1:10 pm