Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Life
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on 18th September the febrile pre-election climate and the implications of her death for the make up of the Supreme Court at least partially eclipsed a remarkable life. Now the dust has (sort of, not at all really) settled, we’re taking a look at the life and work of a woman who was making gains for equality, steadily and effectively, long before she became the Notorious RBG.
Only the second female Supreme Court judge (for three years, 2006–2009, she was the only female justice), Bader Ginsburg was convinced that gender equality could be achieved via, not in spite of, the system. That equality is latent in the US Constitution, needing to be legally extracted case by base, is not typically the position of iconoclasts. When the biopic On The Basis of Sex was released in 2018, many who coveted RBG and celebrated her high profile dissents were sobered to find their hero far from the wry, disruptive icon that appeared on T-shirts, but a painstaking litigator and teacher, who believed “real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”
To effectively use the establishment in the pursuit of change — “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made” — required an astute, tough-minded persistence and an optimism that framed gender equality as a herculean but eminently achievable goal.
Joan Ruth Bader was born 15th March 1933 in Brooklyn to Jewish parents and brought up in Flatbush before embarking on her stellar career: Cornell University followed by Harvard then Columbia Law School, where she tied first in her class; Professorships at Rutgers and Columbia Law Schools; appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 by Jimmy Carter — and, finally — appointment by Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court in 1993 where she served, often memorably, until her death this year.
When her mother, Celia, the daughter of Austrian immigrants, died of cancer when Ruth was 17, Ruth was barred from joining a minyan, or mourning group, on account of being female. She met Marty Ginsburg that year and married him in 1954, a month after graduating from Cornell (as the highest ranking female student in her class). When Marty was diagnosed with cancer while they were both studying at Harvard, Ruth effectively took over his studies alongside her own, while caring for him and their young daughter. Her capacity for work and her physical toughness were always startling. She would often work through the night, her gym workouts were legendary and she learned Swedish in less than a year, in the evenings, in order to co-author a Swedish/US study.
Marty died in 2010 after a 54 year marriage, and, in step with their work ethic, Ruth returned to the Supreme Court the following day. Their marriage was characterised by its equality, that they both worked outside the home throughout their lives was unusual and groundbreaking in retrospect. They are survived by two children, Jane and James.
When Ruth was asked how she would like to be remembered, she said this: “Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. ’Cause I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid.”
