Voyeurs on the Hill

Under what can only be classified as, "Um...gross," Justice Sotomayor talks about the confirmation process for single female judges.

After pre-approved questions from two Northwestern University School of Law professors, she was most revealing during questioning from law students, especially when one woman suggested that the questioning Sotomayor and the most recent other appointee, Elena Kagan, faced was laden with male-driven assumptions.

"You know, and I don't mean to be graphic, but one day after I'd been questioned endlessly, for weeks at a time, I was so frustrated by the minutiae of what I was being asked about and said to a friend, 'I think they already know the color of my underwear,'" the justice said.

"There were private questions I was offended by. I was convinced they were not asking those questions of the male applicants," Sotomayor said, alluding to questions about her dating habits. It was unclear if she was referring to private sessions, prior to her formal nomination hearing, with individual senators.

Continuing the conversational thread about dating questions posed to her, she declared, "I wondered if they ever asked those questions of the male candidates. But the society has a double standard."