The "Wise Latina" or the Undefinable Female
By Hunter Baker, Associate Professor of Political Science and University Fellow
Mar 28, 2022 -
In 2009, there was some light controversy over a past statement by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who had said, “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.” It is notable that Sotomayor chose her words the way she did. She did not draw a contrast between herself and white people generally. Rather, she elected to highlight the distinction between white men and herself as a Hispanic woman, or, in her words, “a wise Latina.” It was not only her New York Puerto Rican heritage that mattered, but also, critically, the indissoluble fact of her female gender.
In 2022, the most notable controversy of the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson has been an exchange in which the senior senator from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn asked the nominee to “define the word ‘woman.’” Jackson, surely recognizing the challenge inherent in such a question in the age of transgender figures such as the collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas and HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, answered that she could not offer such a definition because she is not a biologist. Supreme Court nominees have become somewhat famous for their evasive answers offered in an attempt to quell controversy over their nominations, but this one appeared to be especially noteworthy.
When it comes to the Supreme Court and definitions, some might recall the humor inherent in Justice Potter Stewart’s fumbling attempt to define pornography for the purposes of regulation. He wrote that “I know it when I see it.” Based on nominee Jackson’s answer to Senator Blackburn’s question, it appears we have arrived at the day when it may actually be more difficult to define what a woman is than it is to define pornography. I’m not sure Judge Jackson would even be willing to advance as confident an answer as Justice Potter’s.
To return to Justice Sotomayor who believed that a “wise Latina” might have something worthwhile to offer to the nation’s most exalted bench, we can’t help but observe that the left has attempted to dissolve the Latino/Latina binary in favor of something called a “Latinx.” We are still in the phase when many Americans see the word and wonder if it is pronounced “Lateenks.” Be assured, however, that American academics are fully in command of the proper pronunciation. In fact, the professoriate may join Judge Jackson in being far more certain about how to pronounce “Latinx” (Latin-EX) than about how a woman may be defined.
But Justice Sotomayor did not propose to bring the perspective of a wise Latinx. She planned to add the life experience of a Hispanic female, a “wise Latina” as she put it. Have we come to a place in just little more than a decade where we are unable to imagine how such a perspective might be different from a Hispanic man? What is true? That it is impossible to define a female when all of us have been doing that our entire lives as an ordinary part of daily living? Or that there is no special perspective that Sonia Sotomayor’s life experience as a female might contribute to her work? The strange contortions of the body politic with regard to sex and gender has created some knots that can’t be untied. Is it important to have women on the court or could the men present do the job just as well by declaring a female identity? Is there anything essential about being female or is it nothing more than a social construction? I think we know what the biologist would have to tell us if we actually did have recourse to such a person in the hearing.
Originally appeared in the March 25th edition of World Opinion