The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.

The statement frames judicial authority as deriving from reasoned persuasion rather than identity. By contrasting “arguments” with “gender,” it rejects the idea that a woman justice’s influence is exceptional, symbolic, or dependent on novelty; instead, it insists that legitimacy in a court is earned through legal analysis, logic, and rhetorical force. Read in light of O’Connor’s prominence as the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, the line also functions as a corrective to media and public narratives that foreground gender over jurisprudence. It affirms an ideal of professional equality: the same standards of argument should govern credibility and impact for all advocates and judges.