So you don't believe that there are any other explanations for this than that it must be sexist? Most judges are male, so why do you think that they would be sexist against their own gender?
1, The conclusion of the researchers seems to be that this is attributable to sexism, this makes sense because all other relevant variables are taken into consideration, and the problem persists. More specifically, judges view women as less threatening even if they commit the same crime a man does, leading to lighter sentences, this doesn't necessarily mean that they hate men, but rather that they have preconceived notions about men and women that impact their decisions.
2, It is possible for men to be sexist against men. I think we both remember the images of ultra woke guys holding up signs that say "kill all men."
3, I suppose another explanation could exist, but the academic consensus suggests that sexist stereotypes fuel the disparity, so I just trust the researchers.
Additionally, this didn't break down the rulings based on the race of the judge giving the sentence. So, we don't know if Black judges gave preferential sentences to Black criminals and harsher sentences to Whites, and the White judges gave harsh sentences to Blacks and lighter sentences to Whites. We can't prove racial bias on the part of judges. Additionally, it didn't compare the same judge's sentencing based on White vs Black defendants. Maybe hard-on-crime judges are more prevalent in majority-Black areas?
Black judges can be racist too. Actually they have been proven to be racist.
A 2010 study I read a while back took fictional robberies and put them in front of judges to determine sentences. So mock sentencing basically. The only thing that differed was the race of the robber, it found that even black judges sentenced black people longer. So this is the same fake robbery (judges think it's real obviously) but one variable changes, the race of the fake perpetrator, and the trend persists even with black judges.
Hundreds of factors go into sentencing: the type of weapon used, the type of drugs, if the attack was particularly cruel, if the attacker showed remorse in court, if the crime was done in a way as to try to avoid hurting people, etc. I think that the uniqueness of every case makes it very difficult to compare them on race, especially since I pointed out originally that different races have different cultures. They are going to go about crimes in different ways based on motivations and what they were exposed to.
That's why we have controls, I know for a fact that the Booker report took weapon possession into account. Plus, going back to the 2010 study, in that case the crime was literally the exact same from one judge to another except for the race of the perpetrator.
(Sorry for poor grammar, I am writing this in a rush cause I got some school stuff)