For the past seven years, political scientist Alice Kang has tracked how women broke the glass ceiling to be appointed to the highest courts in democratic countries.
Teaming up with colleagues at Texas A&M and Arizona State, Kang built a database of judicial appointments of women to courts equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court in both developing and stable democracies. The scholars also looked at political factors that preceded the appointments of these female judges.
In a recently publish study, Kang and her co-authors examined 159 high courts over 124 countries over four decades.