April 2022

Would a Justice Jackson be clearly heard on the male-dominated court?

Let me finish my point!” cried Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor when an advocate, Bert W. Rein, interrupted her for the umpteenth time against the court’s rules. “I am speaking!” protested Kamala D. Harris when Mike Pence talked over her during a vice-presidential debate. However authoritative a woman is, she is still disproportionately likely to be interrupted by a man, even one more junior than she. So how will Ketanji Brown Jackson fare if her nomination is confirmed? How much voice will she have?

About the author

Journalist, author, public speaker, consultant, non-executive director, broadcaster

Mary Ann Sieghart is author of the best-selling book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About it and Founding Partner of The Authority Gap Consultancy. She spent 20 years as Assistant Editor and columnist at The Times and won a large following for her columns on politics, economics, feminism, parenthood and life in general. She has presented many programmes on BBC Radio 4, such as Start the Week, Profile, Analysis, Fallout and One to One. She chaired the revival of The Brains Trust on BBC2 and recently spent a year as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She has chaired the Social Market Foundation think tank, is a Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, and sits on numerous boards. She was Chair of the judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.

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Mary Ann Sieghart