LADY JUSTICE Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America

Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at the online news magazine "Slate" and host of the podcast "Amicus," opens in her usual understated, approachable narrative style, quoting from the first stanza of Paulie Murray's poem, "Dark Testament": "Where men forever crush the dreamers/Never the dream." She proceeds with stories of women attorneys confronting male-dominated legal and legislative systems that often keeps women and minorities from achieving their full measure of civil rights. Some names are familiar--Sally Yates, Anita Hill, Vanita Gupta, and Stacey Abrams--while others are perhaps less so--Robbie Kaplan, Brigitte Amiri, and Nina Perales. Lithwick closes by somberly observing, "We are in a truly frightening moment," but she also notes that ". . . women plus law equals magic." A tough but important listening experience. S.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2022]