Women in The United States Judiciary - Tokenism and Early Female Judges

Tokenism and Early Female Judges

Even as women began to break their way into the practice of law, the fight to attain judgeships was still gearing up. The first women to ascend to these positions were often appointed to part-time positions as 'token' representatives of their sex, rewarded for their enterprising fortitude. For example, in 1884, the District of Columbia trial court appointed Marilla Ricker to the position of United States Commissioner. In 1886, the first woman to graduate from Pennsylvania Law School was appointed master in chancery for the city of Philadelphia. By 1907, Evanston, Illinois elected a woman, Catherine Waugh McCulloch to serve as a justice of the peace.

Another pioneering woman to take the role of a judge was Georgia Bullock in 1914. The court over which she presided, however, did not resemble those of her "fellow" judges. Judge Bullock was the "woman judge" of Los Angeles, in charge of a court segregated by sex where "she would serve as a model of Victorian ideals of womanhood for female misdemeanants." The purpose of the L.A. women's court ran parallel to the culture attitudes of the time; "the purity of women and in their vulnerability to the sexual demands of the "stronger" sex provided acceptable reasons for setting aside public spaces where acculturated women could provide protection and guidance to weak and resourceless women." Judge Bullock considered her appointment important, not because of concerns of equality, but rather because she felt women would be better served by a woman judge who could tell the "good girls" from the bad and help them reform their ways.

In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote and ushering a new era of women's rights. During this time, women began assuming judgeships, through both appointment and election. However, many of these women were the same handful who had broken ground in the end of the 19th Century. For example, in 1925, the first female lawyer in California, Clara Shortridge Foltz, was considered for a federal judgeship at the age of 76. Florence Allen became both the first woman to be elected to the positions of general jurisdiction court in 1920 and the first female state appellate judge through her election to the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922. She would later become the first female federal appellate judge, appointed to the 6th Circuit in 1933. The Los Angeles Women's Judge Georgia Bullock was finally appointed to an 'official' judgeship in 1931. The first female judge to serve on a federal district court, Burnita Shelton Matthews, was not appointed until 1949 (to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia).

Beyond the courts of general jurisdiction, the specialized state courts also saw a rise in female judgeships. Many considered specialized courts more appropriate to the tasks of female judges; in these positions their positive womanly characteristics could be used to resolve issues such as juvenile crimes and domestic relations. Also, the "token" aspect of female judges was seen in the temporary appointment of women to positions of prominence, such as the three female judges temporarily elevated to the Texas Supreme Court in 1925 after three male judges recused themselves in a matter involving a fraternal society to which they belonged. While these enterprising women achieved judgeships in the 1920s and 1930s, the tokenistic and decidedly sexist nature of their appointments would not change for another fifty years.