Reconstructing Equality: Of Justice, Justicia, and the Gender of Jurisdiction

This image on the opening page of this essay graced the front of the brochure for the Conference Women, Justice, and Authority, held in 2000 at Yale Law School. The woman-robed, enthroned, and holding scales and sword-is one of many images inscribed on glass panels on windows at the law school. But she did not adorn our brochures because we thought anyone (including people working in the building) would know her as a local reference. Unlike many of the funky, enigmatic figures that dot buildings like the Yale Law School but whose meanings are obscure, this image is easily legible.

Indeed, images like her are ubiquitous, appearing in courthouses and newspaper cartoons around the United States. We-from many different countries-have learned to recognize this image as the symbol of Justice because we have been taught to do so by political leaders hoping to link their decisions to justice itself.