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When Judging Is Power

A Gender Perspective on the French and American Judiciaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Adélaïde Remiche
Adélaïde Remiche*
Affiliation:
Université Libre de Bruxelles
*
Contact the corresponding author, Adélaïde Remiche, at [email protected].
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Abstract

This article examines the feminization of the judiciary in France and in the United States through the prism of the “imagined judge,” that is, the judge as he or she is represented in a specific legal culture. The French imagined judge is a knowledgeable automaton mechanically applying the law entirely created by the parliament, while his or her American counterpart is a decision maker well equipped to solve social problems. Interpreting the gender composition of the judiciary through the intellectual device of the imagined judge leads to a crucial observation: there is a correlation between the conceptualization of the imagined judge as a being exercising power, as in the United States, and the continued underrepresentation of women on the bench. From this observation comes an important hypothesis: the conceptualization of judging as an act of power works to keep women off the bench.prism

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 95 - 114
Copyright
© 2015 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank David Klein, the three anonymous reviewers, Julie Allard, Laura Hilly, Noémie Goldman, Yseult Marique, Simona Lastrego, Benoit Remiche, Nicole Dewandres, Robert Salvesen, Laura Van den Eynde, as well as the participants in a panel at the 2013 annual meeting of the Law and Society Association and at the International Symposium, “The Judge Is a Woman,” held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles on November 7 and 8, 2013, for their insightful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.

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