th<\/sup> Circuit from 1989 to 2009.<\/p>\n\u201cI was hugely honored to say I was the first female judge in the circuit. That\u2019s historical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steenrod worked alongside many male judges, who she says were very supportive of her career and treated her well.<\/p>\n
Although she received much respect and support from within the courthouse, Steenrod says, it was the public who had a difficult time accepting a woman in a powerful position.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most difficult part of being the first woman judge was teaching the general public to accept a woman as a judge, and that was hard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
There was a saying Steenrod heard that goes, \u201cmen are stern, and women are mean.\u201d This saying rang true for her two decade-long career as a female judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI held people to the behavior that I expected in a courtroom. So I would be perceived by a lot of the general public, especially early on as being mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, even with her best efforts to run the courtroom fairly, Steenrod was forced to overcome many obstacles due to her gender. Although she always referred to her defendants as Mr. and Miss, Steenrod had a hard time receiving the respect she deserved, being called demeaning names such as \u201chun\u201d, while on the stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not your hun. You may refer to me as your honor or judge, but do not ever call me \u2018hun\u2019,\u201d the retired judge said sternly. \u201cHow many people would say that to a male judge?\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time of her sitting on the bench, Steenrod admits just how shocking it was to see how many people could not conceive of the idea of a female being a judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne time in Chicago, a cab driver asked me if I was the court reporter.\u201d<\/p>\n
At times, Steenrod even found the lawyers addressing one another to argue a case, instead of herself, taking matters into their own hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attempts were made in my courtroom. But I didn\u2019t not allow that to happen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Steenrod stood strong for what she believed to be proper courtroom etiquette, and refused to let her rules for appropriate behavior fall short because of the lack of respect.\u00a0 As a result of her well-run courtrooms, Steenrod was assigned to many high volume court cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday there are a lot more women practicing law in Peoria,\u201d Steenrod said. Presently, two female associate judges sit in the 10th<\/sup> Circuit. However, \u00a0men still outnumber women on the bench as a judge.<\/p>\nPeople such as Judge Steenrod have made a mark in history by paving the way for women all over the country to accomplish their career goals, while making changes in a predominantly male dominated arena. Now that Judge Steenrod is retired, she is able to enjoy her time off by knitting, socializing with friends and staying true to the logo on her t-shirt; \u2026 life is good.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0First Law Schools to Admit Women\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nIt wasn’t until the late 1800’s that women were given the opportunity to attend law school. In 1869\u00a0Lemma Barkaloo and Phoebe Wilson Couzins were the first women to be admitted to study law at Washington University. Click here<\/a> to view a time line of the first schools in the US which admitted women into their law schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Kelly Gorrell Judge Rebecca R. Steenrod was the first female Judge on the bench in the 10th Circuit. Below is a story profiling her time on the bench, while explaining the troubles she faced being one of the first women judges. Also, below is \u00a0a time line displaying the first law school’s \u00a0to admit women.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[149,37,150,148,147],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-10th-circuit","tag-com-425","tag-female","tag-judge","tag-law-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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