Women on the Bench

Proponents and opponents of the nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court may debate her qualifications, but no one can dispute the symbolic significance of her appointment. Just like the “black seat'” and the “Jewish seat,” today, when O’Connor is sworn in to join the eight male justices. there will be a “woman’s seat” on the highest court in the land. As the first of her sex to hold such a position, she will be under tremendous pressure probably for as long as she sits on the court. While it would be nice to think otherwise, no one really expects there to be more than one woman on the Supreme Court for a long time. Although the concept of a woman as judge in this country has taken 200 years to become a reality at the top of the judiciary system, women have been dispensing justice in the nations courts for more than 100 years. Esther Morris, remembered by posterity as a “plain-spoken shopkeeper’s wife.” was the nation’s first female magistrate. She was appointed a justice of the peace in 1870 in Wyoming, where the year before history was also made when the territorial legislature voted in the nation’s first women’s suffrage. Things went somewhat more slowly in San Francisco. where a woman was not appointed ‘to sit on the bench until 1930. Mary Wetmore. secretary to a State Supreme Court justice. was sworn into office as a Municipal Court judge in July of that year. However, she died of appendicitis little more than a month later. Her replacement, Theresa Meikle