A Justice Rendered by Women for Women? What Judicial Intervention Does to the Gender Gap

Abstract This paper examines the influence of judges’ gender on decisions in marital separation cases in France. Using detailed data on both judges and cases, we do not detect significant differences between male and female judges regarding child custody or child support. However, female judges grant significantly higher compensatory allowance compared to their male counterparts. Regardless of the dispute type, female judges do not render decisions closer to the demands of either female or male litigants than male judges do. Despite evidence that women judges are more sensitive to inequalities within couples than male judges, the effects of judicial decisions do not compensate for the inequalities created at the time of separation to the detriment of women. This is not due to judicial discretion but rather from the claims presented by litigants and the weight that judges assign to these claims in their decision-making processes. This paper thus challenges the notion of a feminine and therefore feminist justice, which would be “rendered by women for women.”