Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley. She is the author of Almost Madam President:Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’ in 2008, Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News, and co-author of Gender and the American Presidency: Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced.

Gutgold (communication arts and sciences, Penn State Lehigh Valley) shows how the rhetoric of the four women who have served on the US Supreme Court parallels the history and treatment of women in the US generally and in law schools and the legal profession more specifically. Just as women politicians and women in general no longer have to address the novelty of their gender, the women of the Supreme Court have gradually come to that same place. The pioneers, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both experienced serious discrimination, which their rhetoric mirrors by frequently weaving stories of discrimination and progress into their speeches and opinions. The most recent two women justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, came of age at a more enlightened, though certainly not perfect, time when women were common in law schools as students, professors, and deans, and were treated more equally in the profession. Their rhetoric mirrors that experience in the same way that O'Connor's and Ginsburg's mirror theirs. Brief biographical sketches of each of the justices work to solidify the book's interest and usefulness. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

• Foreword, by Larry Catá BackerChapter One. Up From Obscurity:Women and the United States Supreme CourtChapter Two. Sandra Day O’Connor: Pioneering and Pragmatic in Words and DeedsChapter Three. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Legal Architect of the Women’s MovementChapter Four. Sonia Sotomayor: Intense Intellectualism and Cultural PrideChapter Five. Elena Kagan: Fierce Intellect and Interpersonal FinesseChapter Six. Women and the Supreme Court: Moving Beyond Gender

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley. She is the author of Almost Madam President:Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’ in 2008, Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News, and co-author of Gender and the American Presidency: Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced.

Gutgold (communication arts and sciences, Penn State Lehigh Valley) shows how the rhetoric of the four women who have served on the US Supreme Court parallels the history and treatment of women in the US generally and in law schools and the legal profession more specifically. Just as women politicians and women in general no longer have to address the novelty of their gender, the women of the Supreme Court have gradually come to that same place. The pioneers, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both experienced serious discrimination, which their rhetoric mirrors by frequently weaving stories of discrimination and progress into their speeches and opinions. The most recent two women justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, came of age at a more enlightened, though certainly not perfect, time when women were common in law schools as students, professors, and deans, and were treated more equally in the profession. Their rhetoric mirrors that experience in the same way that O'Connor's and Ginsburg's mirror theirs. Brief biographical sketches of each of the justices work to solidify the book's interest and usefulness. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

• Foreword, by Larry Catá BackerChapter One. Up From Obscurity:Women and the United States Supreme CourtChapter Two. Sandra Day O’Connor: Pioneering and Pragmatic in Words and DeedsChapter Three. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Legal Architect of the Women’s MovementChapter Four. Sonia Sotomayor: Intense Intellectualism and Cultural PrideChapter Five. Elena Kagan: Fierce Intellect and Interpersonal FinesseChapter Six. Women and the Supreme Court: Moving Beyond Gender