When the symbol does not correspond to the substance: The images of justice and the social roles of women and men in the legal world through time

The first woman judge in Argentina, Honor María Luisa Anastasi de Walger, was appointed in the civil jurisdiction in 1955. Very little time after that, in 1959, another woman that also represents Justice entered the court, but she is very different from the first one, with lack of feminine attributes: she wears a long gown to cover her immense body, weights about 1,800 kilograms, is made of solid bronze and was placed in a niche, at the entrance of the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice Palace, in the Capital City of Argentina, Buenos Aires, where it has remained until now. She is a statue based on a model made by the famous Argentine artist Rogelio Yrurtia, finished in 1938.

            Women´s access to the Judicial sphere has been banned for a long time; however, women were symbolically represented by statues, sculptures, paintings and pieces of pottery, made by men most of the times. Since the XVIII century, these representations have reflected, and at the same time legitimated, the typical domination structure at the Rule of Laws (rational-legal domination in the Weberian sense), in which male lawyers hold decision-making positions.

            The aim of this study is, then, to analyze some characteristics of different images of Justice through time, and how these images have reinforced the different roles of men and women in the Legal world; specifically, we are interested in focusing on some sculptures made in our society, in a certain historical period (first half of the XX century).