Women Imagining Justice

Abstract

I'm enormously honored to be here with such an impressive group of women interested in the complex question of Women, Justice, and Authority. Thanks to Judith Resnik and Mary Clark and the students working with them for all their hard work in putting this outstanding weekend together. The five of us are charged with the unenviable task of "Imagining Justice," a task not significantly less daunting than, say, imagining truth, humor, or community. In preparation for this afternoon, I've been in my office or in the subway trying to imagine justice and after some time, was horrified when I discovered that I was doing it wrong. Our charge was even worse than I had thought: We had to imagine justice as women. What could that possibly mean? What posture was I directed to assume in such a project? Given that we were the first panel of the conference, I felt a particular responsibility to at least get the question right.