Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The dissenter

Joan Ruth Bader, we know her has Ruth Bader Ginsberg or the Notorious R.B.G., was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up humble, her parents were Jewish immigrants and worked hard to provide for their daughters. Tragically, RBG’s older sister passed away when she was young.

RGB was very bright; she loved to learn and read. She managed to graduate high school at 15 and later attended University where she graduated first in her class. She met her husband Marty in school and they quickly had their first child, Jane. When Jane was a toddler, RBG enrolled at Harvard Law.

RBG was one of 9 women in her class of 500; that means women made up less than 2% of the learners at Harvard Law School. Although the math hasn’t been done, one would expect the odds of a women getting into the competitive Harvard Law Review would be significantly less than 2%. Not only did RBG make it in, but she was the first woman to do so.

Harvard Law didn’t appreciate women attending their school. It is well known that there was discrimination in the school. An example of this is when the Dean of the law school invited all nine of the female students to a dinner and then proceeded to ask them why they thought they were worthy enough to take away a spot in the program from man.

RBG didn’t let much stop her, not the discrimination, not being locked out of Harvard’s library because it was only for men, and not when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. RBG cared for Marty, her daughter, and completed her classes. RBG would also get notes from all of Marty’s university classes and copy them down so he would keep up.

The Ginsberg’s moved to New York and RBG moved her studies to Columbia Law School. Again, RBG graduated first in her class, and again she experienced discrimination. This time, when trying to get a job. No law firm would hire a female lawyer. RBG began clerking and teaching.

RBG went on to fight for people’s rights her whole life, she was quite persistent and referred to as being the dissenter. She was an advocate for all marginalized people. She was the first Supreme Court Justice to preside over a same-sex wedding and fought gender inequality cases for both men and women. RBG won the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award for her contributions to civil rights and gender equality and went on to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993. At this time there was no women’s washroom available in the Supreme Court- one was put in that year. She was an icon and not just for fighting for equalities, but also for her humour and clothing.

RBG wore collars over her robes which became a part of her iconic look. RBG was grateful to her many loyal fans who often sent her collars which she would wear for special occasions. These can now be found in a museum and were featured in a Time article. She spoke about why she started to wear her collars (called a jabot) in an interview with the Washington Post stating “the robe was made for a man’s shirt and tie to show… I thought it would be appropriate if we included as part of the robe something typical of a woman”.  

Her humour was also well known, not that she was trying to be funny, she just gracefully spoke the truth. In one famous quote she pokes at the patriarchy in the judicial system “I am sometimes asked when there will be enough women in the Supreme Court, and I say ‘when there is nine’ and that shocks people, but there have been nine men for years and no one ever raised a question about that”.