In a Christian Post column this weekend, the Ruth Institute’s Jennifer Roback Morse thanks God that the men on the Supreme Court are “sticking up for ‘everywoman’ against the Elite Women,” represented by the women on the Supreme Court who have allowed feminism to help them through their careers.
Morse argues that because Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are childless, they don’t “understand and respect the lives and aspirations” of women who prioritize children over their careers, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a “lifelong radical feminist ideologue.”
Let me tell you about a friend of mine named Katie. She is a brilliant attorney, who works part-time for a non-profit public interest legal organization. Katie has nine children, whom she homeschools. She lives out in the country in coastal California. By any reasonable reckoning, Katie, is “having it all:” big family, country living in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and meaningful, intellectually challenging work.
However, it is safe to say that Katie is highly unlikely to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court. She has other concerns. She does not have the single-minded focus on her legal career that would allow her to be a serious contender.
I too, have had a wonderful advantaged life: meaningful work, good family life. But I never chaired an economics department. I never sat on any prestigious commissions. I wasn’t given any political appointment as my childless or male peers have done.
Which brings me back to the subject at hand: whose interests do the women on the Supreme Court actually represent?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a lifelong radical feminist ideologue. She came of age in the short window of time when women could still get married, have kids, go to law school, and have a career after child-bearing. Her two children were born when she was 22 and 32. Thanks to radical feminism, highly educated women have a much more difficult time doing these things. They can go to law school and have a career alright. But getting married and having children sometime before menopause, not so much.
Justice Ginsburg had the lifelong support of her husband in her career aspirations. Thanks to no-fault divorce, women today cannot count on a lifetime of mutual support with their husbands. Justice Ginsburg has been safely insulated from the negative fallout of the sexual revolution which she and her radical feminist colleagues did so much to champion.
The other two women on the Supreme Court, Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, are childless. It is highly unlikely that the two of them understand and respect the lives and aspirations of women like my friend Katie and me. And for less educated women, family is everything and “career” is a job to put food on the table. Elite women know nothing of “everywoman,” the people who have endured the sexual revolution, and who do not have high status jobs as compensation.
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Women like Katie and I are willing to let ourselves see the harm that the Sexual Revolution had done to the poor. Our lives do not depend on defending the Sexual Revolution. By contrast, for many Elite Women, the sexual revolution has made possible their lives as they know them. They literally cannot imagine what their lives would be like without contraception, with abortion as a back-up plan.
As I say, Katie and I will never occupy the seats of power that are available to childless women. We have many achievements to our credit, but Elite Women will run the show. We have good lives: I do not regret for one moment, the choices I have made. But there is no getting around it: childless women have an advantage over mothers in the competition for power and influence.
All I can say is: thank God for the men on the Supreme Court. At least someone is sticking up for “everywoman” against the Elite Women.
