Centering and Decentering Women: U.S. Supreme Court Discrimination Opinions and a Discursive Struggle over Women’s Status

Abstract

We examined the Supreme Court’s workplace and educational gender-discrimination cases from the 1970s to the present, assessing how they discuss women, their status, and workplace and educational experiences. Our study is situated in scholarship on status hierarchies, gendered cultural frameworks, and sociolegal understandings of the role of justice ideology and social movement influences on court decision making. We used a novel method for assessing court opinions, a combination of computerized text and qualitative analysis, to distill distinct vocabulary and meanings articulated in opinions decided in favor of and against the original female plaintiffs. We found pronounced differences in the court’s discourse, with women centered in pro-plaintiff opinions, where decisions rely on an egalitarian gender framework, and decentered in pro-opponent opinions that draw on a traditional framework. These gender ideological frameworks remain largely stable over time, albeit with some changes, revealing an ongoing discursive struggle over women’s status in the court.