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Do Judges Hate Women?

On Behalf of | Jul 27, 2014 | Judges

There is a sinister mood in the air, almost as if a new Zeitgeist is threatening to roll in like a very bad thunderstorm, rolling in on a a black wave of judges’ robes.

Justice is supposed to be blind, right?  It’s supposed to be free of bias.  That means that each case should stand on its merits and be individually evaluated. But of late, watching the signs like tea leaves, I’m beginning to wonder if Judges’ aren’t evaluating cases fairly, equally, unbiasedly.  I’m beginning to wonder if Judges hate women.

The Hobby Lobby decision from the U.S. Supreme Court can be characterized as a freedom of religion issue.  That’s how the majority on the Supreme Court want to characterize it.  But when you look at how far the majority had to go to get where it wanted to be, decide that corporations are people who have religious beliefs and then decide that those religious beliefs are only applicable when asserted against people with wombs, you understand that the goal was to constrain the woman, not protect corporations’ religious beliefs.  When is the last time you saw a corporation genuflect or bow to Mecca anyway?

Moving closer to home, there is an equal hostility to women in some trial courts.

If the woman has stayed home to raise the children for years on end, sacrificing her professional career to pursue a presumptively mutually advantageous maternal one, some judges are all too happy to join forces with the spouse who is looking to renege on his agreement, and kick the mother to the curb.  The fact that the husband’s income has steadily risen over the many years and is now quite impressive while mother’s professional skills have deteriorated as she devoted herself to the children so that her present earning capacity is about that of a Walmart Greeter, does not sway some judges.  “Let her eat cake,” the Judge seems to think.

Changing the dynamic, some Judges perceive a professional woman who chose to stay in the workplace and is making good money, just like her husband, as a deviant, devoid of the motherhood gene, therefore undeserving of custody no matter that the facts may certainly suggest otherwise, like husband’s travel schedule or prison record or suicidal ideations or auditory psychotic halucinations.

That one may have caught you off guard.  But yes, I tell you, there are specific cases with these facts.  And the results are outrageous, even obscene.

Last year, the General Assembly considered a bill that would ban alimony in all cases.  Ban alimony in all cases! Sorry, wife of 26 years raising four kids, two of them still in the home.  Sorry that husband is making $200,000 and your earning potential is based upon how well you ask, “Would you like fries with that?” Husband drops you like a hot potato for this year’s model, you are high and dry (and hungry).  Too bad.  So sad.  

Such is the depravity of some in our General Assembly.

So we know that some in our culture hate women.  We can tell from their rulings that some in the Supreme Court and trial courts hate women.  What’s a litigant to do?  

The litigant should remember that they are also a constituent.  You vote for members of the General Assembly.  You vote for trial judges.  And while you don’t vote for Federal Judges (which includes members of the U.S. Supreme Court), you vote for people who pick them and nominate them and vote for them.

So vote like women matter.  Vote against the haters.  Vote for an unbiased, pro-women and pro-men society.  For only then will justice be blind. 

Michael Manely

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