I have been listening to the news and reading about the Senate hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. On the blog the “Boomer Chronicles” Rhea make some very good observations about the tone of the hearings and the questions that they are asking her. I think that they reek of “White Male Privilege.” Can you imaging them asking a man if he thought he could decide a case based on its merits and not because he is a man? Then why is it OK to ask her?
The opposition has jumped all over the comment that Judge Sonia Sotomayor made, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Well folks we all bring our culture, social economic class and our environment to the table. That is what makes us, us. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said this about the topic in a New York Times interview, “I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.”
The thing is that the senators do not even see how this line of questions is so biased. They are so ingrained with male thinking and up bring that they don’t see that it is oppressive, the oppressor never believes that they are oppressing. I have seen the results of “male privilege” from both sides. I have a friend who has her bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering; her master’s in Business Administration and is a project manager. Before her transition when she went to a client for a meeting they treated her like an equal, now they talk over her and dismiss her ideas. This is from clients who do not know of her past and that she is a trans-woman. I have trans-men friends who have seen the opposite, all of a sudden they automatically know what they are talking about and are listened to what they have to say. In addition, they received higher salary offers.
In the end Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be appointed, because she will bow to their questions.
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