No Help Wanted: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's 'Different Voice'.

What, if anything, has Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's tenure on the Supreme Court meant for the position of women under the law? Has there been any hint of feminism in O'Connor's jurisprudence? Has her voice been distinctively feminine? This paper considers Justice O'Connor's gender jurisprudence for evidence of the different moral voice identified by Carol Gilligan in her 1981 classic. Some feminist legal theorists who could be identified as "feminine-voice" theorists interpreted and extended Gilligan's theory to argue that caring and relationship characterize a specifically feminine voice in legal theory and practice. This paper concludes that, although O'Connor did bring a different voice and a different perspective to the Court, it was not the caring, relational voice identified by feminine-voice theorists. Rather, it is the perspective of liberal feminist legal theorists, women lawyers of O'Connor's generation who insisted that women don't need special accommodations to achieve equality with men. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]