Tribute to the best feminist there ever was
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg poses for the official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on November 30, 2018.
What you need to know:
- At five feet tall, Justice Ginsburg rose from an unknown but brilliant lawyer fighting for women’s rights before the Supreme Court to an international figure and unlikely hero for the younger generation.
- The life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg can hardly be summarised in two-volume memoirs, let alone a 500-word piece.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the iconic American jurist and the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States died on Friday, September 18.
At five feet tall, Justice Ginsburg rose from an unknown but brilliant lawyer fighting for women’s rights before the Supreme Court to an international figure and unlikely hero for the younger generation. Cheeky law students nicknamed her “Notorious RBG” in reference to the rapper “Notorious BIG” after reading her fiery Supreme Court arguments, a moniker that Ruth was not embarrassed to embrace and popularise.
The life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg can hardly be summarised in two-volume memoirs, let alone a 500-word piece. From battling multiple cancers (pancreatic and colon), to raising a family while in law school and nursing a husband fighting cancer early in their marriage – and more recently stubbornly refusing to retire, RBG lived a life that many of us can only dream of.
Extraordinary life
However, the sum total of RBG’s extraordinary life, besides being a revered women’s rights crusader with a penchant for iconic neck pieces, was the fact that RBG was not only an example of what we could be, but a paragon of resilience and grit.
Despite her small frame, RBG did not allow her circumstances or gender to stand in the way of what she wanted to achieve. As a young lawyer, she knew the task ahead of her – to convince a ‘manel’ of Supreme Court judges to recognise women’s rights –would not be easy.
Linda Greenhouse, a contributing columnist for the New York Times described Ruth as a ‘modest incrementalist’ who slowly worked her way up, case after landmark case, earning her the befitting title of the ‘Thurgood Marshall of the Women’s Rights Movement’.
Big fancy speeches
Ruth found joy in the mundane. While the rest of us applauded the big fancy speeches, the movies and books about her, what we sometimes failed to see was the pain, effort and disappointment she had endured to become the ‘Notorious RBG’.
And therein lies the secret to RBG’s incredible strength; that she did not mind putting in the work, the sleepless nights (she made it through with only four hours of sleep) and the major heartbreaks.
She could have given up when, after graduating top of her class from Columbia Law, she failed to get a high-ranking job at a law firm because she was a young woman with a four-year-old child. She could have given up in the face of criticism from some feminist leaders on why her clients were mostly male.
She could have given up when the ugly bouts of cancer came, but instead, Ruth scheduled her chemotherapy sessions on Fridays so she would recover over the weekend and never miss a day in court.
I don’t know what Ruth has taught you, but she has taught me not to ignore the small stuff, because most times, it is the small stuff that leads to the big stuff.
