Difference in Judicial Discourse

Abstract

Sally Kenney's essay reminds us of the range and the limitations of our scholarship on gender and judging. At one point in her discussion, after reviewing the views of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor discounting the role of gender in their own decision making, Kenney says this: [F]eminist and nonfeminist women judges' hostility to th[e] essential difference frame of reference should give us pause, as should the repeated failure to unearth the essential dichotomous difference across jurisdiction, issue, and time. But perhaps more importantly, such questions do not exhaust the relevance of gender as a category of analysis to thinking about gender and judging (pp. 436–437 of this issue).