Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Judge Judy May ‘Not Want Pay Parity With Men’ But Men Probably Want Pay Parity With Her

Judge Judy Sheindlin told a room of 300 attendees at the fifth annual Forbes Women’s Summit on Tuesday that she “certainly [doesn’t] want pay parity with men.”

She was joking, of course, because few men will ever make $47 million dollars a year hosting a syndicated daytime talk show where they get to decide whether an errant teenager has to repay his girlfriend the $500 she loaned him before he broke her heart.

What is not a joke, however, is that Judge Judy is not a Feminist™.

This is not “news,” as Sheindlin has always been frank about this very dark side of herself but it’s still sad for the many career women who consider Sheindlin a role model, not least of all Nicki Minaj, who says she spends “all of her free time watching Judge Judy.” But we must accept, if begrudgingly, that this a free country and we are all at liberty to have bad and wrong opinions.

Perhaps Judge Judy identifies feminism with a type of victimhood that she is loath to accept. Perhaps she’s experiencing some sort of belated teenage angst that’s leading her to reject what the liberal masses so passionately want her to espouse.

Perhaps she hates women.

We may never know why Judge Judy feels the way she feels but there’s still time for her to accept her fate as the feminist icon we want her to be. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that Beyonce’s feminism was born.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter at @arr_scott

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version