On September 18, America came to face the advent of shock and mourning after news broke out of a tragic loss. Long-time Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away from pancreatic cancer at the golden age of 87.
Standing at 5’ 1’’, she had been one of the most remarkable women in Washington, to which her greatest characters resided with brilliance and work ethic. From the 20th century up until now, the late Justice’s infamous dissents and witty opinions defined a substantial course of history that opened doors for millions of Americans today.
This alone had framed her as a lion among liberals in a battle against the clad of injustice and patriarchy.
RBG was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. At youth, she had graduated from high school by the thriving age of 15. Still, despite being a notable student, her family had to choose among sending Ruth or her brother to college.
Female students faced a number of obstacles in pursuing higher education in the 1900s — and at that moment, the tunnel seemed to narrow onto the latter side. But in the advent of academia, RBG’s mother was adamant in providing her only daughter with more education, and at the very least, enough to secure a decent job as a history teacher.
Albeit her quiet personality, brilliance had been her middle name, while dedication was her second nature. She soon became a member of one of the most prestigious academic honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa, and ranked the highest among her other female students.
She later decided to marry Martin Ginsburg and have children before further commencing into legal studies at Harvard and Columbia University. Resultingly, she encountered a larger basis of discrimination along the way from even the highest institutional authorities.
The decision to maintain a maternal life and as well a professional life did not come without its feminine obstacles. At the age of 21, she had gotten demoted in a Social Security Administration workforce in Oklahoma after getting pregnant. Meanwhile, at the start of her legal career, Ginsburg had trouble finding a job because of her gender and marital status.
Like many other American women of the mid-1900s, who were often lone females in a sea of white men within the workforce, she often received a lower pay in comparison to other male colleagues at her law firms.
America would soon come to realize that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, however, was more than just a wife and mother. She was a historical embodiment of empowerment who had broken through the boundaries of her time.
Justice RBG’s Supreme Legacy
In spite of her small stature, Ginsburg had spent a lifetime fighting against gender discrimination — not just for women, but for men as well. As an attorney and director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she had argued six landmark cases with the Supreme Court on gender discrimination bases — and stunningly, she flourished in the wave of trials and won five out of them all.
After Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice, was appointed in 1981, President Bill Clinton had sought to commission more leading women. He had nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg 12 years later with a Senate approval of 96-3, making her the second woman to sit on the high court, and as well the first Jewish woman to ever join the circle of Justices. Her career as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court began where she had left off as an advocate for women’s rights.
In her words, “My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”
As the moderate, yet powerful consensus-builder, she had been known to be a luminary of the courtroom — the “Notorious RBG.”
She genuinely represented the greater good and argued on behalf of the mass minorities in this country. The United States v. Virginia case of 1996 unfolded thanks to Ginsburg, striking down gender-exclusive admissions in public institutions for higher education.
RBG had also written the majority opinion for the Olmstead v. LC ruling of 1999, which pillared a historic step for the rights of individuals with mental disabilities. Honorably, from countering voting discrimination with the Shelby County v. Holder case of 2013, along with the Obergefell v. Hodges case of 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage within all states under the 14th Amendment protection, her influence aimlessly mended in a full circle.
Deservingly, the Notorious RBG became a cultural phenomenon in the media. In her 80s, people knew her as the woman who did 20 push ups on a daily basis. She refused to step down after battling several cancers, and after receiving a great deal of pressure to retire from the political arena, which demonstrated no less than “pluck & spunk.”
At an era where women empowerment morphed into a brand to be sold in pop culture, RBG boldly reiterated what feminism really is — a movement that promotes dignity and universal respect to the voices that go unheard, and as well a momentum to challenge the systematic inequalities people face on a daily basis.
Time and time again, she manifested strength in the face of adversity and magnified what it meant to be a feminist, to have courage.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had truly been one of a kind.
