Notorious

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, photo courtesy of New York Magazine

Why is the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg so monumentally heartbreaking for me at this time?

Because I don’t want her to be remembered as the Supreme Court justice who couldn’t quite hang on long enough, whose death ushered in a new era of life-altering decisions that no longer hold toward the middle but are now staked to a court with a far more restrictive agenda.

But I don’t want to talk about that. Her body has not yet been laid to rest. I don’t want the discussion of what might happen next to overshadow the enormous legacy of this woman’s valiant advocacy for other women and for those disenfranchised by the majority.

Why was her life, long before she became a Supreme Court justice, so meaningful to me?

Because I was the gender-fluid female who was told no repeatedly, from the time I was a small child, when I was told not to wish for certain Christmas and birthday gifts because they were for boys, through high school where I was not allowed to take wood shop or auto shop because those classes were for boys, and long into adulthood and even in my church, where I was told that even though I led the congregation in singing, I could not be considered the “Music Minister” because I wasn’t male.

Hard to believe, isn’t it, that this paragon of women’s rights began her professional career by teaching the law instead of practicing it, because despite graduating first in her class from Columbia Law School, no law firm in New York would hire her. Because they simply wouldn’t hire a woman.

Their loss.

Though she was known as liberal in her interpretation of the Constitution, Ginsburg was also highly respected for her sense of fairness and her acute knowledge of the law. She was also known for her sense of humor and her ability to get along with everyone—including Justice Anthony Scalia.

How she did is a mystery to me. In law school, I loved reading Supreme Court opinions—unless they were written by Scalia. I hated his world view, and seethed openly at his words. (Ask Mike, my law school study partner, who good-naturedly endured my rants against Scalia.) Yet Ginsburg, once she was on the court, not only found a way to engage with him civilly, she actually befriended him, proving herself a role model for me in yet another aspect.

When I began my writing career in 1975, I used my first and middle initials on by-lines when I submitted work for publication, as many other women writers did before me. We knew, as females, that our work would be taken less seriously by publishers if they knew our gender. As much as I would love to document our advance in this arena, make no mistake; this is largely still the case across the board, with women writers being paid less than men, and some women writers still opting out of revealing their gender to potential publishers until they have established contracts of equal value.

We still have a long way to go. But Ginsburg began to turn this ship around in 1971 when she argued and won her first gender discrimination case. (I was still in high school then. Had her success been on my radar, I would have quoted her arguments for my counselors; that was the same year I was denied entrance to the all-male industrial arts classes.) She went on to present the case against gender bias again and again, all the way to the Supreme Court, where she would one day sit as “a jurist of historic stature,” as Chief Justice John Roberts said of her.

May this be her legacy, not that she died too soon, but that she finally took her much deserved rest after devoting her entire life to the difficult and demanding task of bringing about substantial change in the quality of life for women and others. May her legacy be remembered always, and may she rest in peace—after she has a sweet and long-awaited reunion with her beloved Marty and perhaps a good laugh with Anthony Scalia about all of our shenanigans down here in the wake of her passing.