Blog #22: Gender Expectatons & Stereotypes

Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic justice on the supreme court, as well as the 3rd female justice to serve on the court.  She was nominated in early 2009 by President Obama, and was sworn in to serve on the Supreme Court in August 2009.  She has faced many hardships in her little time serving on the court.  She has been accused of being racist, while people are going to be afraid that her decisions are going to be biased towards people of her race, completely discrediting her knowledge and experience of law.  She attended Princeton University and graduated at the top of her class, and went on to get her JD at Yale Law School.  A woman of her abilities has learned throughout her time in school as well as serving as many different judges, that racism is something that cannot apply to her job.  It's amazing how just because she is Hispanic she is facing all of these allegations, when a white male who fits the stereotypical norm of a Supreme Court Justice doesn't face nearly the amount of criticism.  The people are having to dig down deep into her life to find something that she can be criticized for, which are leading to false allegations.  

It's an amazing thing that she has the ability to overcome all of these negative attitudes towards her and represent both herself as a Hispanic woman but also the entire Hispanic and female populations.  She is challenging the previous ideas of what makes a great Supreme Court Justice and most people are feeling very weary about this.  It seems to me, as if this happens in most situations of change.  Anytime a minority is given the chance to make a difference and do a non-traditional job for their race or gender, they are somehow harshly critiqued for everything they are doing wrong -- most of this stemming from the uneasiness that the majority gender and race is feeling about the change.  It's important to have different races and genders representing our country on the Supreme Court because of the varieties of different experiences and thoughts.  This variety can help us round out all previous biases.