She became a social media icon in her 80’s when she was nicknamed “Notorious RBG” a name that instantly made her famous also to people who were not into politics and all of a sudden we found her face and quotes on T-shirts, cups, pins ,bumper stickers and so on…Did she like it? Yes she did! Because she understood the deeper and more important meaning of all this notoriety…her message of equality and justice was going to be heard by all. This is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Born March 15,1933 in Midwood Brooklyn by a mid class jewish family, she grew up craving the privilege of education that her parents reserved for her brother who benefit from the limited finances of the family to attend college. This was going to be just the first of many occasions in which she had to put her necessities or rights on hold in favor of someone else. Ruth was heavily influenced by her mother and of her she once said, “My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent.” She excelled in school since attending the James Madison High School in Brooklyn, but unfortunately the mother was diagnosed with cancer and died the day before Ginsburg’s high school graduation. The loss was devastating to the young woman who always said that her mother was the most intelligent person she had ever known. Ginsburg’s success in academia continued throughout her years at Cornell University, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1954. That same year, Ruth Bader became Ruth Bader Ginsburg after marrying her husband Martin. After graduation, she put her education on hold to start a family. She had her first child in 1955, shortly after her husband was drafted for two years of military service. When he returned and enrolled to Harvard University, she followed him and registered as well. At Harvard, Ruth juggled between the difficulties of motherhood and of a male-dominated school where she was one of nine females in a 500-person class. She faced gender-based discrimination from even the highest authorities there, who constantly blamed her for taking a man’s spot at Harvard Law. But she persisted and also served as the first female member of the Harvard Law Review. Unfortunately her husband Martin was diagnosed with cancer in 1956, during her first year of law school, but not even this great challenge discouraged her from her goals and she succeeded in keeping her sick husband up-to-date with his studies while maintaining her own position at the top of the class and taking care of a toddler. Luckily Martin recovered from cancer, graduated from Harvard, and moved to New York City to accept a position at a law firm there. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had one more year of law school left, so she transferred to Columbia Law School where she graduated first in her class in 1959. Her exceptional academic record was not enough though to shield her from the gender-based discrimination women faced in the in the male-dominated law professions in the 1960s. In fact it was really difficult for her to find a job until a Columbia professor explicitly refused to recommend any other graduates before U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri hired Ginsburg as a clerk. Ginsburg clerked under Judge Palmieri for two years. After this, she was offered some jobs at law firms, but always at a much lower salary than her male counterparts, so she decided to pursue her other legal passion, civil procedure and joined the “Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure”. In 1963 she accepted a job as a professor at Rutgers University Law School, a position she maintained until 1972 when she accepted an offer to teach at Columbia University. There, she became the first female professor at Columbia to earn tenure. During the 1970 she directed the influential “Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union” and she led the fight against gender discrimination successfully arguing six landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ruth had a broad concept of gender discrimination, she was not fighting just for the women left behind, but for the men who were discriminated against as well. She in fact experienced her fair share of gender discrimination during her life and career, even going so far as hiding her pregnancy from her Rutgers colleagues. In 1980 Ruth accepted President Jimmy Carter’s appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia where she served for thirteen years until 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court of the United States. She was the second woman to sit on the bench of the United States Supreme Court in its 212 year history. Ruth Bader Ginsburg began her career as a Justice where she left off as an advocate, fighting for women’s rights and believing that a major social change should not come from the courts, but from Congress and other legislatures. This method allows for social change to remain in Congress’ power while also receiving guidance from the court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg became legendary also for the phrase “I dissent” with which she used to argue in court against gender-based discrimination cases. She used to express this dissent not only through her powerful words but also using “fashion”! She in fact had a specific collar jabot she wore on her black judicial robe, that became “the accessory to have” in the past few years, recreated by many artists and jewelers. She didn’t only have one collar, but lots of them ,one for every occasion! Even though her most famous is the Dissent Collar, that she wore whenever she wanted to communicate her condemnation (The day after Trump’s election, she wore it to sit on the bench, even though the court didn’t issue any decisions that day.) When Katie Couric in a televised interview asked the Justice why she had selecting this particular jabot to express disagreement, she explained : “It looks fitting for dissent.”
Until her death on September 18, 2020, Ruth worked out everyday with a personal trainer in the Supreme Court’s exercise room, and for many years she could lift more than both Justices Breyer and Kagan. Until the 2018 term, Ginsburg had not missed a day of oral arguments, not even when she was undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, or after surgery for colon cancer, or the day after her husband passed away in 2010.
This week a beautiful bronze statue of RBG was unveiled in downtown Brooklyn. It’s a creation of artists Gillie and Marc and part of Statues for Equality, a series to raise awareness about the important roles women have had in history and the constant impact they continue to have nowadays. I can only imagine the inspiration that the statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg might convey on all the little girls who, thanks to her, can feel now entitled to dream as big as their male peers.
Check out also:
A 2018 documentary entitled RBG based on Ginsburg’s
Also, a film based on her life On the Basis of Sex with Felicity Jones, as RBG.
In My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark for younger readers.
Homage in front of RBG High school the day after her passing
