Ruth Bader Ginsberg will exist through every woman fighting for woman’s right

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a name that itself empowers millions of women all around the world. Affectionately called RBG, was a feminist icon, woman right’s champion, and second female US Supreme Court justice. She might not be the first female justice but she is unquestionably the first prominent advocate of woman’s justice in the judiciary. She was the first person to present a woman’s viewpoint in the Supreme Court establishing gender sensitivity in a legal platform. After repeatedly beating cancer, she almost seemed indomitable but to our utmost shock and anguish, she rested in power on September 18, 2020.

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in a Jewish family on March 15. 1993 in Brooklyn New York. Her family was education-oriented and thus inculcated the passion of learning in her mind. However, in her career, she has acutely suffered the ordeal of gender discrimination. She had to battle the ingrained sexism in every walks of her life from her initial days to her death. She attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she met Martin D. Ginsburg whom she married subsequently. Ginsburg once mentioned, “Meeting Marty was by far the most fortunate thing that ever happened to me," adding that the man who would become her husband was "the first boy I ever knew who cared that I had a brain". The married couple had a daughter, Jane the next year. Because of her pregnancy, she was relegated in her job at a social security office in Oklahoma – discrimination that was still legal in the 1950s. These despicable occurrences did not slow her down instead; it strengthened her adherence to gender equity.

Ginsburg was one of the nine women accepted to Harvard Graduate School out of a class of five hundred in the year 1956. At Harvard, the dean publicly questioned her about the justification of women taking the places of men. This event alone proponents the gravity of sexism in that era. Conquering these impediments, she obtained two major law reviews from Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School by 1959. Subsequently, even though she topped her class, she received no job following graduation. She asserted "Not a law firm in the entire city of New York would employ me," she added, "I struck out on three grounds: I was Jewish, a woman and a mother." It is another brutal consequence of the ingrained gender inequality in society. These incidents sprung her passion for civil rights developing her resolute determination to fight against sexism. She believed “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception” and worked for this cause relentlessly until her demise.  

Although she had to face many major setbacks during the initial days of her career, including being rejected for a clerkship position due to her gender by the then-Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, she continued to progress in her purpose. Eventually, she was able to procure the position as a law clerk for Edmund L. Palmieri, the judge of the United States district court of New York on1959 where she served until 1961. In the succeeding years, she worked as a research associate for Columbia Law School, followed by working as a Professor at Rutgers University School of law, where she taught them about women and law. Ginsburg used to say “Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you".  Guided by this ideology, she remained resilient in her fight for equality despite the unfairness and prejudice she faced as a lawyer in a male-dominated court. Her constant patience led to her first successful argument before the Supreme Court in 1971 when she acted as the lead brief in Reed v reed. The case scrutinized if men could automatically prefer women as estate executors after the demise of a relative. For the first time since the fourteenth amendment, the Supreme Court struck down a state law because of discrimination against women. This case was one of the early triumphs of her battle for gender equity. She perhaps revolutionized sex discriminatory laws in America more than anybody else did.

She continued her advocacy for gender equity by cofounding the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972 and became the project’s general counsel in 1973. This women’s right project along with ACLU projects, got involved in more than 300 gender discrimination cases by 1974. As the general counsel of the ACLU, Ginsburg fought six gender discrimination cases in the Supreme Court, of which she won in five. She astutely by using different strategic approaches dismantled the sexist law one by one rather than proposing the Supreme Court to outlaw all the rules that insinuated gender discrimination. Ginsburg targeted the laws that appeared to be gender-neutral but suggested women’s dependency on men. She very shrewdly corroborated how the sexist laws are harmful to both men and women weaved deep into American law. Unfortunately, Ginsburg faced backlash by many female activists of her time. However, it provided her an upper hand in the court. For instance, in 1975, she argued a case of a male widower who was denied the benefits after his wife died in childbirth. Moreover, she often contemplated on the economic gaps to make cases for equal rights.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bill Clinton later nominated her to the Supreme Court in 1993. Ginsburg was the second woman and first Jewish woman ever confirmed to that position. During her tenure as a justice, she rigorously advocated for women’s' rights through this platform. For instance, the long-standing male-only admission policy of Virginia Military Institute was struck down because of the violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth Amendment at her jurisdiction. Moreover, she was a voice of dissent to the court’s decision regarding the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. case, which repudiates gender discrimination in woman’s pay claim. 

Ginsburg relentlessly defended women’s abortion and reproductive rights. In her interview with the New York Times in 2009, she said, “the basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman”. Although the reproductive rights of women have constantly been under attack, she never stopped fighting for a second. She was also an active proponent against pregnancy discrimination.  

 She relentlessly combated gender discrimination until her last breath with the view to establishing a woman’s right in the community. “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks,” – her statement reflects her dogma regarding female rights. She made the laws fairer for women eradicating the impediments of brutal sexism. From government benefits to pay discrimination and the right to take over a deceased family member’s estate, she changed the legal history of the United States forever. She is the torchbearer of woman’s rights in the judicial system. She is gone leaving her legacy as the champion of women’s equality. She has been a resilient and upfront feminist long before the mass people were concerned about its gravity. She will always inspire women all around the world to fight for their rights. She was devoted “To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but for one’s community” “As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we'll all be better off for it.”- Her resolute belief leads her oath to create a safer and fairer world for women. She was a teacher, a feminist, an advocate, a judge but above all, she was a brave fighter who continued to battle for her ideals until her last breath. RBG exists in women fighting for their rights, and every person fighting against gender discrimination to establish an impartial world for every human being.

 

 

 

 

 

Written by

SADIA AHMMED