Gender Bias Essay

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Gender bias throughout the court system is shown often when the process comes to sentences and the consequences of the crimes in which individuals partake in. Gender bias comes about when dealing with whether or not a female is charged less than males. Females are usually given smaller sentences rather than males, even if they committed the same crime. On March 22, 2006, for instance, Mary Winkler murdered her husband at their home in Selmer, Tennessee. A year later, she was sentenced to only seven months in custody. The gender bias that goes on in the court system; as revealed in this case, is something many people overlook because they are so concerned with the aspect of racial bias. In the court system, women are constantly discriminated and treated different, gender bias is shown when dealing with sentencing, family law issues, juvenile arrests, and treatment of female lawyers.
When deciding the sentences and consequences of the person, the judge tends to be harder on male defendants in criminal matters. “I found that blacks, males, and offenders with low levels of education and income receive substantially longer sentences” (Mustard 5). Gender bias is considered stereotypical attitudes about the roles of men and women and misconceptions about the social and economic realities faced by both sexes. Respect is enhanced for the court and the law and increases the civility when the courtroom has no gender bias present. A judge is not supposed to make his or her decisions based on sex. In order to examine the gender bias that took place in the court system, a task force was created. The first gender bias task force was formed by the New Jersey Supreme Court. The New Jersey Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of New Je...

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...therefore less responsible for their crimes.
Eliminating gender bias in the court system is something that needs to be taken care of quickly. With gender bias being an issue in the court system, equality and fairness is being questioned. People are not being treated the same way because of the attitudes the judges put on and give to the defendants and lawyers. Judges should not be able to pass with these approaches towards women in the court system. Eliminating this issue is important because every individual is entitled to their equal rights. Sentencing should not be determined by race, gender, sexuality but by the crime that has been committed. Researchers are still working on trying to eliminate all these issues of gender bias in the court system that still occur today. The problems will soon come to an end and individuals will all be treated equally.

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