Janet DiFiore Faces Senate Boys' Club

On Wednesday, Janet DiFiore sat before the state Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about her qualifications to serve as chief judge of the New York state Court of Appeals.

What began as a typically mundane hearing from the nearly all-male committee, who asked about her independence from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and her thoughts on the Second Amendment, took a bizarre detour when they also informed DiFiore that she’s quite a looker!

Queens state Sen. Leroy Comrie apparently thought he was judging a beauty contest when he said to the former Westchester County district attorney: “You look much better than your picture.”

It was a stunning example of the everyday sexism that all women experience. Unlike men, women’s bodies are public and subject to social commentary, whether they’re walking down the street or in a job interview. When the next Court of Appeals nominee, former U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, goes before that same committee, will Comrie weigh in on his physical appearance? Of course not. The social default is to treat women as accessories and men as natural authority figures.

Assemblywoman Nily Rozic knows all about that. She routinely confronts the assumption from her fellow lawmakers and others in state government that she works for an elected official rather than being one herself.

Some men even conflate the women they work with and the women they’re married to.

The same day as DiFiore’s hearing, state Sen. Carl Marcellino gushed to Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia at a Senate Education Committee hearing that three women – Elia, New York City schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña and Nancy Zimpher, chancellor at the State University of New York – are now leading the state’s largest education systems:

“I’ve met with all three. They’re very capable, very bright, and I don’t think it’s ever been that way before,” Marcellino said. “Now I turn to my wife, and I said ‘Well, it’s up to you now, fix it.’”

What’s really amazing is that capable, bright women like DiFiore and Elia still have to suffer these fools.