A Female Lawyers Group Wants Bad Judge Canceled, And They Kind Of Have A Point

Editor's note: Your ProbateShark respectfully requests the Florida Association for Women Lawyers to visit the Probate Court of Cook County to view really bad judges in action. This court is not sexist since all the judges are bad.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com 

A Female Lawyers Group Wants Bad Judge Canceled, And They Kind Of Have A Point

• 21 hours ago by Jill O’Rourke
• 8 Comments
• Share a Tip

The new NBC sitcom Bad Judge is being criticized by the Miami-Dade chapter of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers for depicting a female judge, something that’s rare enough in real life let alone on television, in a sexist manner. Chapter president Deborah Baker wrote a letter to NBC CEO Steve Burke asking that the show be taken off the air. She makes a pretty good point.
Baker calls the show a “step in the wrong direction,” because it “depicts a female judge as unethical, lazy, crude, hyper-sexualized, and unfit to hold such an esteemed position of power.” She acknowledges that the show is meant to be funny, but argues that it could reinforce very problematic ideas about women in positions in power:

“A misogynist who believes that women in power cannot control their sexuality, their bodies and their professional or personal conduct would have their views endorsed by this show.”

Baker even offers some statistics about women in the legal profession:

“In this country, (i) only four of the 112 Justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court have been women; (ii) less than 35% of the active judges sitting on the thirteen federal courts of appeal are women; (iii) only 32% of the active U.S. district court judges are women; and (iv) there are still nine federal district courts around the country where there has never been a female judge.”

As Jezebel points out, “let’s not make it even harder for women to be taken seriously in leadership positions!”
I only watched the pilot episode of Bad Judge, but I was not impressed. I thought Kate Walsh did a good job with the generally mediocre and/or terrible material she was given, but overall I found it to be pretty disappointing. It depicts her character, Rebecca Wright, in an over-the-top, gimmicky manner. We get it, she’s bad. She gets drunk and wears skimpy outfits and uses slang. The show seems to think her supposedly being good at her job makes up for everything, but I’d argue showing up late with a hangover and having sex in your office isn’t exactly professional behavior. It was already a poor execution of an unoriginal idea, so throwing sexism on the pile certainly isn’t doing the show any favors.
It’s disappointing that this show comes during the same season as both Mysteries of Laura, which does little to improve the depiction of working moms on television, and Selfie, which is all about a man shaping a woman into his ideal for femininity. TV may be making better progress than movies when it comes to female representation, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still problems.
(GIF: Tumblr)

You can reach this post's author, Jill O’Rourke, on twitter.

Read more: http://www.crushable.com/2014/10/27/entertainment/bad-judge-sexist-female-lawyers-want-canceled/#ixzz3HRGOw5SU