SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares the following:(a) There is an intersection between gender-based discrimination or gender-based violence and the rule of law. This is evidenced by the following:
(1) Forty-three percent of survey respondents of people incarcerated in women’s prisons in California indicate intimate partner violence played a role in their criminalization or
incarceration, with several respondents commenting the trauma of their own childhood abuse or witnessing abuse of their own children was also a factor.
(2) Of the 10 countries in the world with the highest rates of female incarcerations, the United States ranks first with the largest number of women and girls imprisoned.
(3) Though California is one of the few places in the United States where the number of people incarcerated in women’s prisons is significantly decreasing, Black women make up 25 percent of the prison population in women’s prisons in California, even though Black people make up only 6.5 percent of California’s population.
(4) Women’s involvement in the commission of crimes is often due to factors related to limited economic mobility, a lack of educational opportunities, poverty, discrimination,
violence, and drug use.
(5) One of the most wide-known examples of employment discrimination that intersects with gender is the persistent wage gap between men and women, where the median salary for women in 2022 was $52,360, while the median salary for men in 2022 was $62,350. An even deeper analysis reveals that the wage gap for Black, Latina, and Native American women is under $0.66 for every dollar that White, non-Hispanic men make.
(6) As of 2019, more women were earning college degrees than men, yet the wage gap has not substantively improved as a result.
(7) Analyses of the economic impacts of COVID-19 reveal disparate impacts along gender lines with women 2.4 times more likely than men to report losing paid work due to caretaking expectations. This exacerbated already existing workplace-related gender
disparities.
(8) The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicates that between 2018 and 2021, they received 27,291 charges alleging sexual harassment, noting an increase in the two years following the #MeToo movement of 2017. Women filed 78.2 percent of these charges, however, more significantly, women filed 62.2 percent of the total harassment charges. The EEOC indicates that in 43.5 percent of the sexual harassment charges, a concurrent retaliation charge was filed.
(b) To ensure individuals have effective access to justice, courts have
a responsibility to account for how power and gender relations may influence cases, including, but not limited to, assessing the risk to the victim, respect for the human rights of individuals, and countering discrimination and bias.
(c) To ensure equity in the justice system, the judiciary should receive training related to the role of gender in court proceedings, including the elimination of stereotypes, assessing inequities in power, and meeting the needs of groups in unique
situations of vulnerability.