The “wise Latina” or the undefinable female?

In 2009, there was some controversy over a past statement by Sonia Sotomayor that came to light before the Senate considered and confirmed her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. “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,” Sotomayor had said eight years earlier. Notably, Justice Sotomayor 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 Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been an exchange in which Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., asked President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court to “define the word ‘woman.’” Judge Jackson, surely recognizing the challenge inherent in such a question in the age of transgender figures such as collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas and Assistant Health 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 non-answers offered in an attempt to quell controversy over their nominations, but this one appeared to be especially noteworthy—especially since, well, Jackson is herself a woman.

Though Judge Jackson may have felt she successfully sidestepped the question by pointing to a scientist as the authority, we might wonder what the biologist would say. Would he or she not have a final and commanding answer to the question? Or would we have to hypnotize the biologist to get a straight answer free of cancel culture flummery? A woman is the female of the human species and is known by unique reproductive capacities, immutable genetic realities, and other secondary sex characteristics. When we see Lia Thomas stand next to the competition, the difference between male and female is fairly stark.

When it comes to the Supreme Court and definitions, some might recall the humor inherent in Justice Potter Stewart’s fumbling attempt in 1964 to define pornography for the purposes of regulation. “I know it when I see it,” he wrote. Based on Judge Jackson’s answer to Sen. Blackburn’s question, it appears we have arrived at the day when it may 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 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 “Lah-TEENKS.” Be assured, however, that American academics are fully in command of the proper pronunciation. The professoriate may join Judge Jackson in being far more certain about how to pronounce “Latinx” (“LAT-in-EX”) than how to define a woman.

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 a little more than a decade where we are unable to imagine how such a perspective might be different from a Hispanic man or to even identify the difference between the two? 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 cultural mavens concerning sex and gender have created some knots that can’t be untied.

We cannot extol being a “wise Latina” in one instance and then remain ambiguous on what a woman is in the next instance. It all reeks of political correctness given energy by our unquestioning ruling class. 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 tell us about males and females. Someone ought to tell Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.