You Think; Therefore I Am: Gender Schemas and Context in Oral Arguments at the Supreme Court, 1979–2016

Abstract

Attorneys’ ability to secure justice-votes is shaped by gender schemas, subconscious expectations which hold women should use more emotion than men. This poses few problems for male attorneys since men and attorneys are both expected to avoid emotion. But, women are placed in a double-bind with competing professional and personal expectations. We argue gender schemas are not static rather they change with the context of the Court. Introducing a new dataset inclusive of all oral arguments from 1979 to 2016, we utilize quantitative textual analysis and find gender schemas predict securing justice-votes as the Bar becomes more diverse and justices become more conservative. Our results raise normative concerns about female attorneys’ ability to substantively contribute to the Court’s case law.