And then the tears came
I have been grappling with the news of the shooting in Orlando. I saw a news headline and then avoided the news for several hours because I didn’t want to, couldn’t, think about what this means. But I couldn’t avoid it forever and when I did eventually look and engage with the news it felt like a punch to the stomach, the sort that leaves you breathless and eyes watering. It feels different than the recent terrorist attacks. I watched the coverage of those in a state of shock and grief somehow unable to tear myself away from the terrible rolling news coverage which was so full of assumptions and misleading information as well as sensationalist reporting. I cried lots. This is different. I can’t explain how this is different. I can’t put that into words. It is different because it feels personal. The Paris attacks felt like an attack on our freedom – something we (or maybe it’s just me) think about quite a bit but mostly in the abstract. Orlando wasn’t an attack on our freedoms it was an attack on us, on who we are. And because of that it’s too unfathomable.
To me this feels different because to me it feels personal. It’s an attack on my community and it feels weird writing that. I have never been a big part of the LGBTQ+ community. I have always fiercely protected my identity as ‘me’ not as part of a group. I have never strongly identified as a lesbian and I can count the number of times I have been in a gay club on one hand, the same is true for Pride events… . Today it somehow seems important to say it out loud, to be out and proud – not just be me but to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, my community.
I have been struggling to make sense of all this – to understand. I’ve been trying to get my head around the background and context that allowed this to happen and I get that US gun laws allowed this to happen, I get that cultures and legal systems where homophobia and discrimination go unchecked allowed this to happen, I get that a society where religion can and is often used an excuse for bigotry allowed this to happen.. but still none of it makes sense to me. As I watched the Channel 4 News coverage the tears finally came and with the tears a feeling of total helplessness and a realisation of just how senseless this all is. Yes it is amazing to see the solidarity and support for the victims of the Orlando shooting across the world but what happens next?
How do we change the world? Thoughts and prayers won’t do it! My tears won’t do it. I don’t know what will but I do know that somehow the ‘we’ and ‘us’ and community has become really important. I don’t have the words – I’m just rambling. I’ll keep thinking and working through this. Others have expressed some of what I’m thinking already – take a look at Professor Chris Ashford’s blog post for a rather more coherent piece.
Solidarity
Independent women (Hi Mum)
For the School of Law Blog I wrote a little post for International Women’s day which touches on my work on gender and the judiciary. I also wanted to write something more personal about the women who have inspired me to be who I am. And then it dawned on me – this is a really hard thing to do! Of course there are people who I admire hugely. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg – I mean, she’s just got a scarily sharp legal mind and amazing insight and a way with words. For example as far back as 1971 she wrote (in the brief she wrote for the plaintiff in the US landmark case of Reed v Reed):
‘Laws which disable women from full participation in the political, business and economic arenas are often characterized as “protective” and beneficial.The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, on closer inspections, been revealed as a cage. ‘
Anyway, I could list the inspirational women in law but that list wouldn’t be very imaginative and it also would not be true to say that those women inspired me to be who I am today – mostly I doubt I was aware of them as I was finding my path through school and university. So who are those women I want to celebrate? I think I have always been surrounded by really strong and independent women. Gender equality wasn’t really a thing for me growing up. I remember sitting in a tutorial at university talking about careers and my personal tutor (the wonderful Professor Fiona Cownie) making a coment about the lack of female professors. It was an ‘aha’ moment for me. It felt like being hit by a freight train: This shit is real. Women actually are disadvantaged. That didn’t happen in my world. In my world my gran lived on a hill in the middle of nowhere on her own and just dealt with shit, my Oma took charge of everything, my Mum was a working single mum who encouraged and valued my independence almost to a fault. My best friend’s mum encouraged us to be whacky, individual, always in your face and fiercely independent. I had friends from traditional family units but if I am honest I thought they were decidedly odd. I thought the mums staying at home was just weird – why on earth would they want to do that. I thought the ‘have lunch, sit down and do your homework’ structured approach and the micro management of my friends’ lives was odd. I thought I had the best mum in the world – obviously – because she wanted me to be me.
I liked my world. In my world gender didn’t matter, sexuality didn’t matter, in fact nothing stupid like that mattered. I went to a German grammar school where suddenly where you were from and who your parents are mattered. I remember thinking that this was strange. I also remember that I once got incredibly angry because a teacher made a comment about how as a kid from a single parent family and living on the other side of town my chances of being successful were singificantly reduced. That didn’t make sense in my world where just being you mattered but I didn’t quite have the language to express that. I think that has stuck with me. People shouldn’t have to change for the world they live in – people should change the world.
So here’s to the fiercely independent women of the world. In fact here’s to the fiercely independent people of the world, who never stop asking questions, who are there to see their friends, families and complete strangers succeed and who are always striving to topple pedestals and tear down cages.
Equality, Diversity, Judges and an Angry Academic
So, Lord Sumption. That went well then. I don’t think I have been quite so angry about remarks made by a Supreme Court judge, well, ever. Angry on a personal level because when he speaks about women and our lifestyle choices he is also speaking partly about me; angry on a professional level as a teacher because his comments potentially do a huge amount of damage and can have a profound impact on those young women who might now think that a career in law is not for them; angry on a professional level as a researcher because his comments are simply wrong, misguided at best, misogynistic crap actually popped into my head first.
If you don’t know what I am talking about take a look at the Evening Standard from Monday which reported on an interview with Lord Sumption in which he suggested that a ‘Rush for gender equality with top judges ‘could have appalling consequences for justice’’
There are also sorts of levels of angry here and I have tried over the last few days to draft something measured and thought through to post here. I’ve failed. I’m too angry. So, let’s just go with that, let’s forget measured and thought through for a minute. Here’s how I feel a few days on from first reading the comments. This isn’t about my research on women judges, this isn’t about me as an academic, this is just about me as a woman who routinely stands in front of lots of young women who have dreams and ambitions to change the world. Too right I’m not bloody measured.
1. Lord Sumption is talking partly about me, about women all over the country. He talks of appalling consequences if we rush gender equality. What are they exactly? That the judiciary might take account of a more diverse set of viewpoints? That the status quo won’t be upheld? That him and his friends will no longer be first in line for life’s advantages? That there’s no-one left at home to iron his shirts? Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I have no idea if Lord Sumption irons his own shirts or not but seeing as he sees fit to speak about my life and the life of all women without knowing anything about it maybe I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that he doesn’t.
2. Lifestyle choices… What does that even mean?
3. I would have thought that the good sense to refuse to work yourself to death and try and create some kind of work life balance is something that shows that you are a fairly sensible, rounded and balanced human being. I would say that qualifies rather than disqualifies you from joining the judiciary. Yet Lord Sumption seems to think that women’s refusal to tolerate the long hours is a lifestyle choice and one that makes us unfit for the top job.
4. Equality will happen naturally? I expect more from a historian! Women got the vote naturally did they? There wasn’t anything about a suffragette movement, no incident with the King’s horse… No? And what about poor Miss Bebb? Of course it wasn’t her fight that led to women being allowed to become solicitors, no of course not. The Law Society just decided naturally one day to let us in? Oh please.
5. If this is what Lord Sumption thinks about gender – what about diversity more generally? I don’t think I want to know, I think I’d throw things
6. Lord Sumption is wrong. He doesn’t think there is an old boys network, he thinks the Bar is meritocratic and he seems to think that the best people get the top jobs (thus implying that women are not the best people). Well I guess we tend not to see the wood for the trees. For anyone not immersed in that world it is hard to see how the Bar is anything other than an old boys network. It is hard to see how it can possibly be meritocratic and it is clear that it is not the best legal minds that get the top jobs but rather the best connected, the ones able to put themselves forward, the ones best able to take advantage of privilege and opportunity, not the best legal minds, not the people who would be best at the job…
7. I could launch into a long paragraph about what merit means but I’ll save that for another day. Let’s just say that having been the most highly paid QC is not necessarily something I would look for when selecting a judge.
8. Lord Sumption makes a lot of assumption and perhaps the most problematic is that senior judges should come from the Bar. The Bar is elitist, it’s London centric, it’s almost impossible to get into if you’re a black kid from a council estate who is funnelled into a local comprehensive school and gets a place at the local university. But it’s ok, candidates at all levels are selected on merit.
9. Lord Sumption doesn’t understand power and privilege. He doesn’t understand how society works. He doesn’t understand how merit doesn’t work if merit is defined by people like him with all the privilege in the world.
10. But here’s what really breaks my heart: I stood in front of a class full of first year law students today. Most of them non-white, most of them female and all of them with dreams and ambitions to change the world. None of them have had an easy ride to get to University, none of them have ever experienced the kind of privilege that is normal for Lord Sumption. What do I say to them? How do I keep their dreams alive? How can I possibly show them that they are as good and sometimes better than the so called elite? How do I convince them that they can change the world, that their backgrounds, who they are right now, is a huge part of what qualifies them to go and change the world? How do I do that when a Supreme Court Judge, through one stupid interview, tells them that they don’t belong in that world.
So yes, I’m angry but I should probably get back to my ironing.
My Conversations 