The War On Women: Canadian Edition
By This story is, remarkably enough, dated June 2014:
Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay is defending comments he made last week about why so few women are appointed as judges in Canada.
MacKay was responding to Wednesday’s Toronto Star report about an Ontario Bar Association meeting at which he was asked about the lack of women and visible minorities on federally appointed court benches.
MacKay answered the question by saying that women don’t apply to be judges because they fear the job will take them away from their children — and that children need their mothers more than their fathers, the Star report said.
On Thursday, rather than back away from the comments, MacKay stood his ground.
“At early childhood, there’s no question I think that women have a greater bond with their children,” he said.
In the context of people defending similar gender disparities among Supreme Court clerks, I asked how Antonin Scalia somehow managed successful government, academic, and appellate court careers with nine children. Apparently, he just doesn’t really have any kind of special bond with his kids…