Sexism and women's access to justice: Feminist judging in Indonesian Islamic judiciary

Abstract

Sexism in the judicial system is a persistent problem in countries where women frequently are held to a different moral standard than men. As such, some advocates and legal experts argue that feminist judging practices are necessary for ensuring women's access to justice. While many studies focus on the effect of sexism on gender inequality in politics, the extent to which sexism may lead to further gender inequality in the judiciary remains understudied. Additionally, much research on feminist judging relies on qualitative data from trial or court transcripts to determine judges' approaches, but quantitative examinations of feminist judging are still few. Drawing on a mixed methods sequential explanatory approach, our study examines how sexism contributes to shaping the support for feminist judging in the Indonesian Islamic judiciary. We use several cases of polygamy, marriage dispensation, divorce involving domestic violence, and post-divorce alimony as proxies to measure the support for feminist judging. The findings show that hostile sexism is not statistically associated with the support for feminist judging, but benevolent sexism facilitates judges' support for feminist approaches. Female judges are more likely to support feminist judging than male judges.