I have no doubt that Elena Kagan is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, just as I had no doubt that Sonia Sotomayor was (and is!) qualified.  But what do their nominations tell us about women in the legal profession today?

Two wonderfully successful professional women.   One never married/no children.  One married for only a few years; never remarried/no children.

Doesn’t this suggest that we are still in a world in which it is far, far too hard to demonstrate your competence and rack up the sorts of accomplishments that lead to a Supreme Court nomination if

(1) you have a loving, supportive husband who just might ask, “Honey, is it really necessary to spend the third week-end in a row in the office working on that brief/ preparing that series of lectures for your new law school class?” or,
(2) your daughter comes down with the measles the night before you are to deliver closing argument in an important case; your son is playing in a series of games that will decide the championship in a sport about which he cares passionately at the very time you are to be out of town taking depositions/giving a guest lecture at a law school more prestigious than the one in which you currently are teaching, etc.?

Yes, we have very successful married mothers in the profession, including two who were nominated to the Court in the past (O’Connor and Ginsburg) — but if 60% of the nominees to date (including Harriet Miers:  never married/no children)  can’t get there if it requires them to be superwomen, somehow pursuing a demanding career without ever faltering, while maintaining a relationship with a spouse/significant other and managing to raise children, don’t we still have a long way to go?