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The biggest difference I can spot is the number of other options the Presidents who nominated the two women had. During the election of 1980, Reagan had pledged to promote women to positions of power in the government, but when Potter Stewart's seat on the Supreme Court opened up he looked around, and there weren't a whole lot of women in the federal judiciary to choose from. Reagan began looking at state court judges instead, for a conservative female, and low and behold, there was SOC. So while SOC wasn't the most qualified "person" Reagan could have picked, she was one of the most qualified women. On the other hand, George W. Bush had a number of highly "qualified" female candidates with judicial experience to choose from: Janice Brown, Edith Jones, Edith Clement, etc. Instead Bush chose Miers.