This week a beloved feminist icon was “replaced” by someone the Gilead resistance would easily call a gender traitor. And while any candidate might have failed to live up to RBG’s legacy, Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation feels like the ascendancy of the anti-Ruth. Womxn and members of the LGBTQIA+ community fear we are about to take a trip Back to the Future minus the happy Hollywood ending.
As someone who benefited directly from Roe v. Wade and so many other legal decisions that were motivated by the desire to remove bias on the basis of sex, I am heartbroken and afraid. As someone born (early) to the sign of Libra, I have long been obsessed with the -isms. I was a child of the 70s, a devotee of Free to Be You and Me. But my happy-hippy vibe came crashing down at the realization that being the victim of one -ism didn’t guarantee that someone would not become an instrument of a different -ism. I grew up around a community of Holocaust survivors whose racism for our BIPOC neighbors was overt. This struck young me as illogical and completely contradictory. But now, I know that being on the receiving end of an -ism, like any type of trauma, could just as likely leave one desperate to turn that firehose of hate onto someone else, as it could lead to compassion and empathy. I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m just saying it’s complicated.
As a ponderer of iconography and ancient pantheons, this week my thoughts have often turned to Lady Justice, or as she was known in the Greek pantheon, Themis. A quick Wikipedia search reminds me that she is “described as ‘[the Lady] of good counsel’, and is the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. In addition to appearing with the Scales of Justice, Themis is often shown holding a sword, which is “believed to represent her ability to cut fact from fiction.” I must say I much prefer this interpretation to a notion of the sword symbolizing law and order. Interestingly enough, the blindfold was a modern addition to the classical depiction. Think about that for a minute.
Lady justice
Themis of “divine law”
Image from Wikipedia
The name Themis literally means “divine law.” And some scholars go so far as to suggest that her mission was to uphold the word of the gods. And this where it gets even more complicated. Has the Ascension of Justice ACB brought us back full circle to Themis? In one sense, the rise of a woman to one of the top seats of power should be a cause for celebration. But as we all know, that depends on the woman in question, how she got there, and what her goals are. As a Pagan I am easily and often irritated by the normalization of breaches of church-state separation. The pandering to Judeo-Christian (mostly Christian) voters during political rallies that end with the words “And may God bless the United States of America.” And then there’s that same God’s continued presence on our currency. I don’t know how the Atheists even begin to deal with this. But seriously, as representations of Lady Justice look down upon ACB, the question becomes: whose law are you upholding? The witnessing of an unqualified woman cast as a Trojan horse for anti-womxn judgments is a double-eged sword.
And perhaps the only antidote is to bring qualified womxn into even higher seats of power. So vote. Vote to bring qualified womxn into the executive branch. Vote so that future justices are qualified candidates, not political pawns. Vote for cutting through the fiction to the find the facts.
Justice can be and should be aspirational. It should evolve and improve. Justice should be about opportunities, not revenge. And with that, I’ll leave you with these words from the womxn of my personal supreme court.
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both .”
“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice. ”
“Justice is indivisible. You can’t decide who gets civil rights and who doesn’t. ”
“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? ”
“Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.’ But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”