Gender and Judging

Does gender make a difference to the way the judiciary works and should work? Or is gender-blindness a built-in prerequisite of judicial objectivity? If gender does make a difference how might this be defined? These are the key questions posed in this collection of essays by some 30 authors from the following countries; Argentina Cambodia Canada England France Germany India Israel Italy Ivory Coast Japan Kenya the Netherlands the Philippines South Africa Switzerland Syria and the United States. The contributions draw on various theoretical approaches including gender feminist and sociological theories.<br/><br/>The book's pressing topicality is underlined by the fact that well into the modern era male opposition to women's admission to and progress within the judicial profession has been largely based on the argument that their very gender programmes women to show empathy partiality and gendered prejudice - in short essential qualities running directly counter to the need for judicial objectivity. It took until the last century for women to begin to break down such seemingly insurmountable barriers. And even now there are a number of countries where even this first step is still waiting to happen. In all of them there remains a more or less pronounced glass ceiling to women's judicial careers.