Why do we need women on the court?

After moving to Canada, I was thrilled to learn that there are four women on the Supreme Court of Canada, including the Chief Justice (who used to be a professor at my law school!) Coming directly from the U.S., I was disturbed that Chief Justice Roberts assended to the Court after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired. This means there is only one women left on the Supreme Court of the United States. And she has cancer.

One of the classes I took last term was 'Women and the Law.' It was fascinating to go back over legal decisions in Canada over the past fifty years and see how very hard the white, male judges tried to keep women 'in their place.' They were denied the ability to go to college because it was found 'unseemly' and out of the natural scheme of things for women to gain an education. When women finally did obtain educational equality, the debate shifted to how much remuneration women should get from working on their husband's farms after divorce. After numerous decisions from men were they determined working on a farm and keeping house was just 'what any woman would do' it took a woman judge to make a determination which gave women fair division of property after marriage.

It took a woman judge to declare a seventeen year old mother attending a job interview was not consenting to sex just because she was not a virgin. (The lower court had decided that because the woman was dressed in shorts for this summer job at the mall interview, she was looking for sex even though she said 'no' and pushed the forty-something male rapist away multiple times.)

The following verdict that just came this week serves as an example as to why we need women on the court: to remind the men that women are people, too. People who, when we are thirteen years old feel very embarrassed and protective over our budding little bodies and don't want to be stripped searched in front of three nurses, shaking out our bras and our underwear, exposing ourselves because of the fear of aspirin.

If more women were on the court, we could perhaps persuade the rest of the justices that forcing a child to a strip search (an event which lead to her eventually dropping out of school altogether) is a bigger deal than, say, changing clothes for gym class. For one thing, speaking as someone who did change their clothes in such a way, the process is done quickly so as not to attract any attention. Secondly, if an adult were to watch me as I changed--and then went so far as to force me to shake out my bra and underwear--I would be mortified. Mortified!

Women need more representation because we need to remind men that we are real humans too, not sex objects, not romantic interests for our fathers. Women are people. If that message permeates the social and political landscape before I die, I will be one happy human being.