May It Please the Senate: Gender Norms and the Double Bind of US Supreme Court Confirmations

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241247554
• Author: Michael K. Romano,Nickelette M. Justice
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 821–834

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241247554

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May It Please the Senate: Gender Norms

and the Double Bind of US Supreme Court

Conf‌irmations

Michael K. Romano

1

and Nickelette M. Justice

1

Abstract

Increased focus on the judicial qualif‌ications of female U.S. Supreme Court nominees prompts an examination of barrier s

obstructing women’s rise to this apex position. Contrary to scholars who emphasize “pipeline”theories of how in-

creased women in the law will de facto increase the number of women in the judiciary, or that ideology as the primary

predictor of conf‌irmation votes regardless of gender, we argue that women nominees appearing before the Senate

Judiciary Committee must also clear an additional gendered hurdle. Incorporating the literature on the double bind and

gender norm theories of women in leadership, we scrutinize all formal opening statements from Supreme Court

nominees between 1981 and 2022 to decipher challenges female nominees’encounter. Using a structural topic model

approach to compare opening statements from men and women nominees, we demonstrate how societal constructs

compel women nominees to navigate a precarious path toward conf‌irmation. We f‌ind that women nominees must

fashion themselves as both strong legal advocate and soft, feminine wife and mother, exemplifying gendered social roles

and the double bind for women in leadership. These f‌indings bear signif‌icance for comprehending women’s under-

representation in the judiciary and how gender biases permeate the hearing process beyond Senatorial bias.

Keywords

US Supreme Court, double bind, gender, federal conf‌irmations, senate

Between 2016 and 2020, the deaths of Justices Antonin

Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg triggered signif‌icant

changes on the US Supreme Court. Turnover on the Court

typically garners political and media attention, but the

potential ideological shifts caused by their passings

heightened the partisan intensity of the eventual conf‌ir-

mations, and became focal points in highly contested

presidential campaigns held both years. Given the highly

polarized atmosphere, expectations for nominees Neil

Gorsuch

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and Amy Coney Barrett centered on their ability

to de-emphasize the Court’s politics and focus on their

professional abilities to judge independent of partisanship

or ideology. Both nominees focused considerable time

and attention to illuminating those watching how they

would fairly interpret the Constitution, noting that judges

must consider what is right, not just what the judge wants

to be right during their opening statements. The one

notable difference in their discussion was in how they

would f‌ind this fairness in judging. For Gorsuch, fairness

came through his expertise and previous work as a

litigator and judge, pointing to examples where his cases

were met with support across ideological divides. Bar-

rett’s discussion, on the other hand, focused on how ju-

dicial decision making was like working with a family,

explaining how she would decide by saying she would

read opinions and strive to imagine, “what if my children

were the losing party.”

The primary objective of the United States Supreme

Court is to serve as the f‌inal interpreter of the Constitution,

ensuring equal justice under the law for all citizens. The

Court’s legitimacy hinges on the perception that justices

make impartial decisions, even when the public may

disagree (Gibson and Caldeira 2009). Gender balance is a

1

Shenandoah University, Winchester, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael K. Romano, Department of Political Science, Shenandoah

University, 1460 University Drive, Davis Hall 205, Winchester, VA

22601, USA.

Email: mromano@su.edu