"Maybe Some Day Women [And Other Minorities] As Justices Will Seem Normal".

Maybe some day women as justices will seem normal
By Pam Platt

Almost every little girl of my age grew up hearing or reading true (or almost-true) stories about Joan of Arc, Pocahontas and Amelia Earhart, and I hope today's little girls hear those stories, too. Yes, we were fortunate that our imaginations and beings weren't influenced solely by the princesses, wicked stepmothers or outright witches that populated so many of the fairy tales and Disney films that formed much of our childhood landscapes.

I was a girl who loved the real stories, especially about Amelia Earhart, but it wasn't until recently that I realized the Joan/Pocahontas/Amelia triumvirate belonged to martyrdom: One followed her voices and was burned at the stake; another followed her heart across the ocean and was felled by disease; the other followed her calling into the wild blue yonder and vanished. Death too soon by fire, smallpox and disappearance? These were our real-life choices? Were there no happily-ever-afters outside Disney?

One of the triumphs of feminism, and America, is that our little girls and boys are being enriched and spurred onward by more and more success stories involving real women who don't have to shake hands with the Grim Reaper in order to find a place in our hearts and history books. Look around. If they are not literally everywhere, they are plentiful enough to inform and inspire: Astronauts, athletes, scientists, secretaries of State, senators, media figures and magnates, ministers and, most of all, moms who manage to handle such careers or callings along with the precious cargo of children and family.

We are better people, and a better nation, because they — we — are able to explore and express potential, and make change, in meaningful, significant ways. What they — we — bring to the table makes for a better, more balanced, feast for us all.

I started thinking about this on the eve of this week's confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, and the ridiculous thumping she took for her "wise Latina" remark. Was so much ever made of so little?

If she is confirmed, and there is no good reason why she shouldn't be, Judge Sotomayor will be only the third woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the first, retired a few years ago and has become a well-regarded author. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sen. Bunning's tasteless medical prognosis notwithstanding, is the cheese standing alone among the other (male) justices; she was and is only the second woman on the high court.

I remember the thrill of hearing O'Connor's nomination, made by President Ronald Reagan. It was as if a door that had been stuck in its jamb forever had been shouldered open enough for one person to slip through. Several years later, when President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg, it was the same thrill, only now there was a little more daylight shining between that less-stubborn door and the jamb. I hope girls and boys, and young women and men, are experiencing the same excitement today over how the life arc of Sonia Sotomayor is playing out in their time, and how that door is opening ever wider.

In recent weeks, both O'Connor and Ginsburg have talked about some issues raised with Sotomayor's nomination: the importance of diversity on the bench — not only in gender and ethnicity, but in varied life and professional experiences — and the place of the much-maligned "empathy" in being a judge.

When journalist and author Walter Isaacson asked O'Connor whether she was happy Sotomayor had been nominated, O'Connor said on the dailybeast.com blog, "I should say so. I was disappointed when I stepped down that I wasn't replaced by a woman. It's important for people to look around and see that women, who make up slightly more than 50 percent of the population, are represented on the Court."

While O'Connor also said it wasn't a good idea for justices to have emotional attachments to their decisions, she added, "You do have to have an understanding of how some rule you make will apply to people in the real world. I think that there should be an awareness of the real-world consequences of the principles of the law you apply."

And that awareness grows, of course, if there is an understanding of the "real world" and "consequences" of and from a wider array of people.

In an interview, Ginsburg told The New York Times, "It matters for women to be there at the conference table to be doing everything that the Court does Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I'm a woman, that's part of it, that I'm Jewish, that's part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me."

She continued, "What was particularly good was that Sandra and I were different — not cast in the same mold. Sandra gets out two words to my every one. I think that Sonia and I will also be quite different in our style. I think she may be the first justice who didn't have English as her native language. And she has done just about everything that you can do in law as a prosecutor, in a private firm and on the District Court of Appeals."

There is one more personal and professional feather for Sotomayor to put in her cap, and at the end of this confirmation process, I hope we will be able to add her name to a new and real and inclusive triumvirate that rewards individual achievement, even as its make-up demonstrates to girls and boys that nothing is beyond one's reach.

Sandra/Ruth/Sonia, meet Joan/Pocahontas/Amelia.

Pam Platt is an editorial writer and columnist for The Courier-Journal. Her columns appear on Tuesdays. Call her at (502) 582-4578; e-mail her at pplatt@courier-journal.com.