What this case should make us all aware of is how many professionals are totally out of touch with popular, 'mainstream" culture. Anyone who has been reading newspapers, magazines, watching television, etc., is well aware of how much attitudes towards gender-related issues have changed over the last few decades.

I have personally been struck with how many professional men have neither the time nor the interest to read much more than what they need to read to keep up with their particular specialties, and in whatever leisure time they have, they prefer doing something physical to take their minds off their mentally strenuous work. 
So they are often woefully unaware of what the rest of society now takes for granted.

This judge's formative years were in South Africa, and as Alceste has pointed out below, his legal experience here did not prepare him for such cases. He has since been given a crash course to update him, and his present position is in another area anyway.