Sandra Shushani reports on the use of gendered stereotypes in judicial decisions that explain and evaluate female SRL behaviour.
The SRL Case Law Database Project is financially supported by the University of Windsor Law School, the Law Foundation of Ontario, and the Foundation for Legal Research. Thanks to all our funders.
yes judges see gender-that is why rape laws protect men-lawyers never fight to change those laws so hate women generally,they also have a duty to improve rape laws to help victims/women but dont.
the justice system is backward because it hates victims and that makes lawyers richer.
It sounds as if the report is biased too.
When describing female SRL, the report takes exception to descriptions of the females in court.
These descriptions, usually emotional and manipulative, could be very accurate and should not be classified as
stereotypes.
In my SRL against my female opponent, the descriptions would very accurately describe her.
Sandra and Julie, I think the report makes some valid observations, but curiously, it would APPEAR to come, itself, from a somewhat “gendered” lense – and appeared to “look for” observations stereotyping women, but not men. A cynic might suggest that that, itself, is a further “gendered” view – particularly when the article commences with:
“When we break down outcomes among the cases currently in the CLD (n= 208), we find that a higher percentage of women are successful in their cases compared with male SRLs (44% female, 30% male). As well, more male SRLs (38%) were either designated “vexatious” or accused1 of vexatious behaviour than females (31%).”
I may be wrong – however, I my own 32 years of practice, I have seen good judges make stereotypical obvservations about men and women, and so I would suspect if you reviewed the jurisprudence, you would also come up with commentary suggesting men want more time with their children “to reduce support obligations”, that men who use violence against inanimate objects are dangerous to wife and children, but women who do the same are just “expressing their frustration” – not to suggest, in cases, both observations may well be correct – but that’s the danger of stereotypes. We USE data collected from one situation to apply to another situation without fully accessing the “new” data.
I think Judges have a tremendously difficult job, and more and more are asked to not “be human” in applying their “sense” of what is going on in front of them – which is, of course, impossible. The better view, in my opinion, is to ask Judges to acknowledge their bias – which may well, in family law, hurt men more than women according to the foregoing stats.. and to do their best to combat their own preconceptions.
I heard a speaker, DJ J Smooth, comment on “racism” by comparing it to plaque on our teeth. You don’t get cleaned once, and say, “there, no more plaque for me.. I’m good now.” He suggests racism (or sexism) is the same way. You can’t accept the wrongness of racism (or sexism) once, and then say, “I’m good” – the fact is that our life experience, every day, allows preconceptions to creep in based upon our experiences, and we have to constantly, “get our teeth cleaned” to consider, on an ongoing basis, whether we are seeing things from a prejudicial perspective.
https://youtu.be/MbdxeFcQtaU
His suggestion would be to resist saying ‘that Judge is sexist”.. in favor of saying, “that Judge said a sexist thing” – which is more likely to reduce defensiveness and to allow for self-correcting behavior.
Anyway.
Just a thought.. but, as usual, compelling and challenging info coming from the NSRLP.
OK Females are more successful, and males are more often deemed to be vexatious, but I think the study should have drawn COMPARISONS IN ALL CASES, not just one.
As a male I certainly identify with being described as “vexatious”. In 20 court actions, and 3 Tribunal appeals, I was described as “vexatious” in ALL of them. FWIW I managed to WIN by settling in all but 1 court action and 1 tribunal action.
Obviously I would have done FAR better without the character assassination, by all the “officers of the court” and yes even the judges/adjudicators.
In the lost court action, in 2015, the judge awarded adverse MAXIMUM costs, “to emphasize the importance of having a lawyer.” My suit was for 2,400 in small claims court. Adverse costs of 3,750.00 were awarded. The opposing counsel admitted that my claim MAY be worth $100.
NOTE: History is written by the victors, and tell the story they want you to read. Like history judges write what they want you to read.
Overall Outcomes for Male vs Female SRLs
When we break down outcomes among the cases currently in the
CLD (n= 208), we find that a higher percentage of women are
successful in their cases compared with male SRLs (44% female,
30% male). As well, more male SRLs (38%) were either designated
“vexatious” or accused of vexatious behaviour than females (31%).
Hi everyone and thank you for your comments. We were expecting to hear some of these challenges and tried to anticipate them in the report. It is of course perfectly reasonable to raise the question of male gender stereotypes – and when we report out on the vexatiousness data we expect to have something substantive to point to there (ie what “male” behaviour is considered vexatious versus what “female” behaviour). We accept of course that there are going to be gendered characterizations of male SRL conduct also, but the female stereotypes are the ones that this report focuses on because these were the ones that were most obvious, even primitive, and frequent. We simply did not see the same extent of gender characterizations about men (although to repeat, we expect we may see more when we analyze the vexatious male SRL cases). I hope that readers will accept this report for what it is ie a text-based analysis of the prevalence and nature of FEMALE stereotypes in SRL cases. It does not mean that men do not get “type-cast” also.
Hello Julie
If your data base is large enough, you could compare the comments characterising behaviour in male vs female SRL cases with cases where only one party is an SRL. This would allow you to assess whether stereotypes present in the language are explained by SRL bias, whether there is an additional gender factor or whether it is a blend of the two.
In light of the METOO movement, this is a timely and necessary study asking powerful, privileged (typically white men) to consider, as stereotyping people based on gender and social condition (poverty) are contraventions of the Human Rights Act.
Allan Wade’s work, “Violence, Language, and Responsibility” analysed police, media reports and judicial decisions in sexual abuse cases and revealed equally disturbing findings.
The affect that decision makers have on individual people lives, as well as on the overall social environment in which we all live, is significant. Very important work.