Today, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a dispute over whether a Colorado baker can refuse to sell a cake to a same-sex couple for their wedding simply because their union offends his religious beliefs. A ruling against the couple would not only mark a major setback in the fight for LGBT equality, it would threaten to unravel hard-won legal protections for women.

In a recently published study, University of Alabama scholars Dana Patton and Joseph Smith analyzed the transcripts of 3,583 oral arguments presented to the court over more than three decades. They found "female lawyers are interrupted earlier and more often, allowed to speak for less time between interruptions, and subjected to more and longer speeches by the justices compared to male lawyers."

Brenda Hale’s appointment to the leading role at the UK’s highest court was announced by Downing Street in July. A longstanding champion of diversity in the judiciary, she became the first female justice of the court in October 2009 and was appointed deputy president in June 2013.

More than once the justice emphasized her intolerance for the idea that a woman might not be afforded a life any less than a man, in politics or the workplace, legally or socially.