For Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil, final year DPhil in Law candidate at Somerville College, University of Oxford, the legacy of the pioneering lawyer and activist Cornelia Sorabji needs to be more celebrated. Cornelia Sorabji (15 November 1866 – 6 July 1954) was the first woman to practise law in India and the first woman to study law at Oxford University. In May 2023, we were delighted to invite Aradhana to visit our exhibition Appearance by Carey Young, whose works explore law as an artistic medium, with a focus on power, gender equality and justice.
In this fascinating new piece for Modern Art Oxford, Aradhana gives her personal response to the legacies of pioneering women like Sorabji in relation to Young’s art works, presenting hope and optimism regarding the role of women as leaders within our judicial system.
‘I resented the injustice of the world in denying all those privileges of education to my sex which were so lavishly bestowed to men.’ This quote is from Mary Somerville’s posthumously published autobiography (Personal Recollections, 1874) and is the bedrock on which one of the first women’s colleges in University of Oxford, Somerville College, was established in 1879. It was Somerville College which opened its doors in 1889 to Cornelia Sorabji, the first woman to study law at Oxford and the first woman to practise law in India.
From being denied the Government of India Scholarship as she was a woman, to ‘needing’ to be chaperoned to her lectures at Oxford, and from having to convince the University to ‘allow’ her to sit the final examinations with the men in her cohort, to not being able to graduate till 1920, when Oxford University finally started awarding degrees to women; at each stage of her legal journey, she had to face insurmountable challenges. I wonder what it must have felt like to be the only woman in her cohort. How must the law have appeared to her – white, male, exclusionary? Immersed in these thoughts, I stare at Carey Young’s photograph, The Court Artist (Supreme Court). From afar, you can notice that she has juxtaposed her own mirror selfie with a photograph of what appears to be an all-male panel of judges. Closer inspection reveals that Young is not the only woman in this photo. The lineup of judges includes Sandra Day O’ Connor, the first woman judge to be appointed to the US Supreme Court, overshadowed by the men in the picture. And I wonder did Young juxtapose herself into the picture as an act of female solidarity? One can notice Young’s bare skin and curves as she positions herself as the female subject – a feminine presence inscribed into a male-dominated world, correcting the original picture which seems to ignore and overshadow the female presence.
Moving away from this photo and walking into Young’s film work Palais de Justice, I am transported into a world where the legal system is controlled by women. In this video installation, the presence of men is ephemeral. And I cannot help but smile and wonder how Cornelia Sorabji or Sandra Day O’ Connor would have reacted to seeing this. But my smile is short-lived as I remember that even in 2023, only one of the twelve justices in the UK Supreme Court Justices is a woman. It has been more than 100 years since women first entered the legal profession but as Lady Hale, the first woman justice of UK Supreme Court, reminds us, women are still fighting for ‘genuine equality of opportunities and equal treatment’ and that while women have made much progress, the ‘battle is yet to be won’.
The final installation that I view is Young’s latest film commission, Appearance (2023). In Young’s own words, this is a ‘silent sequence of video portraits featuring 15 British female judges diverse in age, seniority and ethnicity’. Appearance is a fitting title in many ways. In one way, this title is a sombre reminder that women continue to be judged for their appearance. A judgement they cannot escape even if they hold positions of power. In legal parlance, however, an ‘appearance’ refers to the physical appearance in the courtroom of a party to the lawsuit. It is through this appearance, that the defendant submits themselves to the jurisdiction of the court. Is that why one of the senior judges decided to bow to the camera as she would bow to the court? I find it intriguing that these portraits resemble a mug shot or a ‘Most Wanted’ advertisement. It makes me wonder if like the accused, who submits to judicial scrutiny in the courtroom, are the judges here submitting themselves to public scrutiny and accountability? And that leaves me with a crucial question regarding gender and judging – are these judges being scrutinised because they are judges or because they are women judges?
This video installation and its title could convey yet another meaning and this is the meaning that speaks to me. Each artwork in this exhibition makes me stop and wonder how law appears to the public and implores me to think how law should appear to the public. What captivates me are the extreme closeup shots – the ruby red nail paint, the rings, bat-shaped cufflinks, the white lace, the single pearl earring. When the wig and robe is removed, the objectivity and anonymity is shredded and the subjectivity stands out. I find these closeup shots to be a glaring contrast to the original photo of the lineup of the US Supreme Court judges (see above, Court Artist). To me, each of these closeup shots is a gentle reminder, a solace that women too occupy this space. A strong and clear prompt that it is no longer all men.
About the author:
Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil is a final year DPhil in Law candidate at Somerville College, University of Oxford. Her doctoral study examines how rape adjudication takes place in India. She seeks to highlight through her research how culturally dominant notions, underlying preconceptions, and prejudices about rape could influence the outcome of these cases. She is a Gopal Subramaniam scholar at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (Somerville College) and was awarded the Modern Law Review Scholarship in 2021 and 2022. Prior to taking up doctoral studies, she read on the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) and MPhil in Law at Oxford as a Cornelia Sorabji Scholar. She also holds a Bachelor of Laws (B.A. LL.B.) degree from the National Law University, Delhi (India). Aradhana has held Stipendiary Lectureship in Criminal Law at Pembroke College and Retaining Fee Lectureship in Constitutional Law at Somerville College. Presently, she is the Managing Editor of the Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog. From October 2023, she will hold the Early Career Fellowship in Law position at Somerville College.