LAW COURTS

Gender bias prevalent in society at large certainly affects its jurisprudence: the actions of lawyers and judges in civil and criminal law. Beyond that, such institutions are influenced, for both good and ill, by entrenched habits of thought and action; this makes reform difficult. Today, the upshot of these facts is that too many lawyers are content to go along with standard patterns of anti-male bias in the courts and collect their pay, rather than really fighting for justice for their clients. MERGE and related organizations have encountered hundreds of cases of this kind locally. (Some lawyers who do fight for their clients use UNjust methods; that is a separate problem.) As for judges, they are subject to the same inherited and popular prejudices as other humans. And, these days, to a special one: if they do anything anyone might consider anti-female, there will be screams in the media; if they are unjust to males, there will be no price to pay. All too often, they opt to play it safe for themselves.

We are here to change all this. Over time we will post numerous general discussions (labels beginning with A) and individual case histories (labels beginning with B) to expose problems of gender bias in this crucial arena of society, in hopes of spurring desperately needed reforms.