[Source: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/interviews/a14788/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg/] ​ ​

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

How, and to what extent did Ruth Bader Ginsburg contribute to the fight for gender equality?

Introduction

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of the earliest women law professors to become a judge, and the second ever woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court.1 Throughout her personal life, her education, and her academic and professional career, Ruth’s clarity of vision, intellect, and determination enabled her to thrive in the face of adversity.2 Throughout her career, Ruth fought for equality on the basis of sex, and achieved many legal victories in the pursuit of gender equality. Ruth led a profound attack on the patriarchal voice of law.3 Ruth fought many cases and had several fundamentally sexist laws repealed. Ruth changed the way that the world viewed women and she has become a feminist icon and a hero to the woman’s movement.

Early Life

On March 15, 1933, Joan Ruth Bader was born to Jewish parents, Celia and Nathan Bader, in Brooklyn, New York.4 She was the second daughter of her parents, after her older sister Marilyn, who died of meningitis at six years old, when Joan was only fourteen months old.5 Marilyn nicknamed Ruth “Kiki” because she was a “kicky baby”, and the nickname stuck.6 The Bader family lived in a working-class neighbourhood among Irish, Italian and Jewish neighbours where Joan attended her neighbourhood’s public schools, starting with Brooklyn Public Elementary school.7 There were several other Joans in her kindergarten class, and to avoid confusion, her mother suggested that the teacher call Joan by her middle name, Ruth. From that time, she was Kiki to her family and friends, and Ruth for official purposes.8

Ruth grew up in the United States of America (USA) in the 1930s and 1940s, where the role of women was very defined and restricted. Women could not practice law in most states, and there was a very prominent wage gap. Women could not attend Ivy League universities, serve on a jury in most

1 Herma Hill Kay, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor of Law”, Columbia Law Review, Vol. 104, No. 1 (2004), 1 2 Ibid. ​ ​ 3 Katie L. Gibson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy of Dissent, (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, ​ ​ ​ 2018), 1 4 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 3. 5 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg. ​ ​ 6 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 3. 7 Ibid. ​ ​ 8 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg. ​ ​

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states, open a bank account or credit card without a husband’s or relative’s permission and in some states could not own property. Women were not allowed to wear pants on the US Senate floor or serve in combat in the military.9 Despite these challenging circumstances for women in the USA during Ruth’s childhood, she was still able to develop a way of thinking which was not restricted to this status quo, and she was able to form progressive ideas about women and their role in society from a young age.

Throughout her education, Ruth was an enthusiastic and outstanding student. She visited the library often and she loved reading, writing, storytelling, and she was very fond of poetry.10 From a very young age, Ruth was aware of the disparity between boys and girls, how they were treated, viewed, and what was expected of them. “I remember envying boys long before I even knew the word ‘feminism’, because I liked shop better than cooking or sewing… The boys used to make things out of wood, and I thought that was fun, to use the saw, and I didn’t think it was fun to sew, and my cooking never came out the way it was supposed to.” (Ruth Bader ​ Ginsburg)11. Ruth also a fan of the Nancy Drew detective books because “Nancy was a girl who did things. She was adventuresome, daring, and her boyfriend was a much more passive type than she was.” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg).12 ​ Ruth had a lot of admiration for her mother, who taught her to ‘be a lady’, and to be independent, which was an unusual message to girls at the time.13 From childhood, Ruth surrounded herself with positive and strong female influences and developed ‘feminist’ ideas and thinking, before even becoming aware of it.

Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany the year Ruth was born, and World War II shadowed throughout Ruth’s childhood and adolescence. Although most of her childhood memories of her multiethnic Brooklyn neighbourhood were positive, Ruth and her family became increasingly aware of the existing anti-Semitism.14 The War became a part of Ruth’s early life, and her home and school activities were routinely interrupted by sirens for air raid drills.15

9 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 28. ​ ​ ​ 10 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 5. 11 Ibid, 4. ​ ​ 12 Ibid, 5. ​ ​ 13 “TRIBUTE: THE LEGACY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG AND WRP STAFF”, ACLU 100 Years, ​ ​ accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-wrp-staff#pioneer. 14 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 6. 15 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 6.

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Jewish traditions were a big part of Ruth’s childhood. The Baders belonged to the East Midwood Jewish Center, a conservative synagogue.16 Ruth valued the reverence for justice, learning and questioning that was part of her Jewish heritage. Ruth was particularly moved by the life of Deborah, the general, judge, and prophet. Ruth’s fondest memories include the Passover Seders, where she, as the youngest child, got to pose the traditional Seder questions. This fascination with Deborah and with asking questions foreshadow Ruth’s career and her role as one of the most active questioners on the United States Supreme Court bench.17 Ruth resented the rigid and hypocritical rules and the inferior role assigned to women within Judaism. Ruth, from childhood, was constantly challenging the conventional role of women.

Ruth’s mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and throughout her high school years, Ruth watched her mother suffer in pain.18 Nevertheless, Ruth immersed herself in academics and extracurricular activities, relied on hard work and discipline, and achieved top results throughout high school. Celia Bader died at home on Sunday, June 25, 1950, at the age of 48, and Ruth missed her high school graduation the following Tuesday to stay home with her grieving father.19

Education

Ruth began university in the fall of 1950, during the height of the Cold War.20 When Ruth arrived at Cornell University, it was assumed that she was there to husband hunt, as many women got married shortly after university and did not actually end up working.21 During World War II, a lot of women had taken over jobs that were traditionally seen as being men’s work. When the men returned from war, they wanted their jobs back and for women to get out of the workplace and back into the home. This led to an overemphasis of being a housewife and mother and a large amount of propaganda around womanhood.22 Although some women did receive tertiary education and did pursue

16 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg ​ 17 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 14. 18 Ibid, 18. ​ ​ 19 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 29. ​ ​ ​ 20 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 20. 21 Interview with Mrs Kukard, Cape Town, conducted by Eva Maraney, 30 March 2020. 22 Interview with Mrs Kukard, Cape Town, conducted by Eva Maraney, 30 March 2020.. ​

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professional careers, being a housewife was what was expected of the American woman in the 1950s. 23 Ruth defied this norm and thrived academically and professionally in the 1950s.

Ruth was awarded a full scholarship at Cornell University and her years there as a government major would shape her intellectual and personal development.24 Ruth published her first legal argument in November of her senior year at Cornell. Her argument was in opposition to a proposal to introduce wiretap evidence when trying espionage cases.25 Ruth met Martin Ginsburg during her first year at Cornell, and he became first her best friend and then husband in 1954.26 Martin was not threatened by Ruth’s intelligence, and he encouraged and took pride in her academic and professional pursuits, which was unusual for a man in the 1950s. Ruth graduated from Cornell University at the top of her class with a bachelor's degree in government.27

Martin and Ruth’s first child, Jane was born in 1955.28 Ruth, a new mother, enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1956, where she was one of only nine women amongst five hundred men.29 She achieved perfect grades and was one of only two women who made it onto the editorial staff of the Harvard ​ Law Review.30 In 1957, Martin was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and throughout his illness, Ruth assisted him with his studies and papers.31 Martin survived the cancer, graduated, and began working as a tax attorney at a firm in New York City, and so Ruth transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated in 1959 tied for first in her class.32

Career

Ruth was not offered any jobs upon graduation, even though she was extremely qualified and had impressive credentials. Ruth saw herslef fighting discrimination on several fronts: she was a woman,

23 “Women in the 1950s”, Khan Academy, accessed 27 April 2020, ​ ​ https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/women-in-the-1950s 24 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg . ​ ​ 25 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 20. 26 Ibid, 25. ​ ​ 27“Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, Biography, published February 12 2018, accessed 27 April 2020, ​ ​ https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ruth-bader-ginsburg. 28 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 16. ​ ​ ​ 29 Ibid, 40. ​ ​ 30Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg . ​ ​ 31 "Ruth Bader Ginsburg." Oyez, accessed 27 April 2020, www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg ​ ​ ​ 32 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 44. ​ ​ ​

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the mother of a four-year-old, and she was Jewish.33 After being rejected many times, Ruth found a job as a law clerk for a judge in the Southern District of New York called Edmund Palmieri.34

In 1961, Ruth was offered the opportunity to coauthor a book about civil procedure in Sweden. After World War II, women in Sweden had taken up jobs in a bigger proportion than in America and were questioning the restrictions against them, and some women in Sweden were working two jobs.35 During her working experience in Sweden, Ruth began to realise that it was becoming increasingly possible for women to overcome rigid gender roles through activism. Ruth began to speak at international conferences, lecturing at civil procedure classes at Columbia, and she published her first book, Civil Procedure in Sweden, in 1965.36 Ruth’s work in Sweden was a formative part of her career ​ ​ and it transformed how she thought about women.

While Ruth lectured at Columbia Law School, there were no women professors at the university. In 1963, Ruth got a job as a professor at Rutgers University Law School in Newmark, New Jersey.37 Ruth experienced blatant sexism. She was paid less than men holding the same position as her, and she was profiled in the Newark Star-Ledger, under the headline “Robes for Two Ladies”, in which her ​ ​ appearance was accounted for over her actual work.38 Nevertheless, Ruth fully immersed herself in her work and published many articles during her time as a professor at Rutgers.

Ruth found out that she was pregnant for a second time in 1965.39 Ruth began to wear baggy clothes to work as she feared losing her job if it was found out that she was pregnant. Her son James was born on September 8th 1965, and Ruth was soon back to teaching her classes.40

Throughout the 1960s, there was a culture shift away from a respect for authority and the happiness to keep things the way that they had been in the 1950s and there was a general feeling that the society needed to be reformed in various ways. The Civil Rights Movement was prominent in the 1960s. The movement involved activism that sought to secure full political, social, and economic rights for

33Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg . ​ ​ 34 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 47. ​ ​ ​ 35 "Ruth Bader Ginsburg." Oyez, accessed 27 April 2020, www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg. ​ ​ ​ ​ 36 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 17. ​ ​ ​ 37“Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, Biography, published February 12 2018, accessed 27 April 2020, ​ ​ https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ruth-bader-ginsburg. 38 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 51. ​ ​ ​ 39 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 51. ​ ​ ​ 40 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg .. ​ ​ ​

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African Americans.41 The Civil Rights Movement brought a new, broader, awareness and consciousness to the prevalence of injustice and the denial of human rights to many people in America, one of these groups being women. The Civil Rights Movement sparked an increase nationwide activism and brought issues of injustice to the fore. Ruth drew inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal for employers to racially discriminate. 42 The law applied to gender discrimination too, but not enacted as such. In 1968, when President Lyndon B Johnson added discrimination on the basis of gender as a federal offense, people began to take it more seriously.43

With increasing numbers of men being drafted or volunteering for the Vietnam War, more and more women began filling up the law school seats. Second-wave feminist writers such as Simone de Beavoir and Betty Friedan made women begin to question and rebel against the narrow roles ​ ​ prescribed to them.44 The second-wave feminist movement was blossoming in America in the 1970s and it focused on issues of equality, equal pay, sexual freedom and discrimination. The second-wave slogan, “The Personal is Political,” identified women’s cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand how their personal lives reflected sexist power structures in society.45 Following WWII, more and more women wanted to pursue higher education and office jobs. Women were no longer accepting of being limited to being stay at home mothers or being expected to only be childbearers and wives. Betty Friedan hypothesized in her book, The Feminine Mystique (published in 1963), that women were victims of false beliefs requiring them ​ ​ ​ to find identity in their lives through husbands and children, and this caused women to lose their own identities in that of their family.46

In 1970, a group of young female law students asked Ruth to teach the first-ever Rutgers class on women and the law. Upon doing research, Ruth discovered that there was not much literature on the subject and it became obvious that her new class was much needed.47

41 “Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement”, Khan Academy, accessed 28 March 2020 ​ ​ https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/civil-rights-movement/a/introduction-to-the-ci vil-rights-movement. 42 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 53. ​ ​ ​ 43 Ibid. ​ ​ 44Sally Ann Drucker, “Betty Friedan: The Three Waves of Feminism”, Ohio Humanities, published 27 April ​ ​ 2018, accessed 28 March 2020, http://www.ohiohumanities.org/betty-friedan-the-three-waves-of-feminism/ 45 Ibid. ​ 46 Sally Ann Drucker, “Betty Friedan: The Three Waves of Feminism”, Ohio Humanities, published 27 April ​ ​ 2018, accessed 28 March 2020, http://www.ohiohumanities.org/betty-friedan-the-three-waves-of-feminism/. ​ 47 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 53. ​ ​ ​

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After being underpaid for years by Rutgers, Ruth and the other female professors filed a class-action pay-discrimination claim against the university and they won. The university implemented equal pay for men and women and compensated for what the women should have made during their years of being underpaid. 48

It was in the 1970s, when Ruth was working with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that her work had a sharp new focus on women enduring discrimination. She and her colleagues began to send strongly worded letters and complaints to advocate for women who were being discriminated against, but these letters eventually came to seem futile.49 Ruth realised that something had to change constitutionally. Throughout the 1970s, Ruth litigated a series of cases solidifying a constitutional principle against gender-based discrimination, all of which would set precedents and a strong basis for her following cases.50

In 1970, Ruth and Martin Ginsburg, who was a prominent tax lawyer in New York, worked together on a case where a man was discriminated against on the basis of sex. The man lived with his elderly mother and he tried to take a payment for a caregiver as a tax deduction, but was disallowed. The man was a bachelor, and the Internal Revenue Service only granted such deductions to women, widowers, or married men. The case was taken to court, Ruth and Martin won, and the sexist law was changed.51 Ruth knew that the court recognizing that discrimination on the basis of sex was wrong would set a precedent that she could use in future cases.

It was Ruth’s victory in the Reed v. Reed case in 1971 that put her at the forefront of the professional ​ ​ legal world.52 Sally Reed, whose son commited suicide, was fighting for her son’s estate, which automatically fell to his father. Ruth won the case for Sally Reed, and this was the first time a law of this nature was abolished and it was a landmark victory in Supreme Court history.53 Ruth’s victory earned her credit and respect in the legal world, and she would go on to fight to eradicate sexism further.

48 Ibid, 54. ​ ​ 49 Ibid, 60. ​ 50 “The Honourable Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, World Justice Project, accessed 27 April 2020, ​ ​ ​ https://worldjusticeproject.org/about-us/who-we-are/honorary-chairs/ruth-bader_ginsburg 51 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 63. ​ ​ ​ 52 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg. ​ ​ 53 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 67. ​ ​ ​

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In 1972, Columbia Law School hired Ruth as its first female professor.54 Although Ruth was very qualified, she was met with hostility and some of her new colleagues labeled Ruth’s case as one of affirmative action, evidence of a very prominent sexist attitude within the profession.55 The women at Columbia began contacting Ruth for assistance. Women employees at the university got lower pay and lower pension benefits than men did, and they did not receive any kind of pregnancy coverage as a part of their health insurance plans. Ruth helped file another class-action lawsuit on behalf of the female teachers and administrators at the university, and won the case.56 In another case, the university was about to fire over twenty four maids, mostly women of colour, but not one male janitor. Ruth, with backing from the ACLU, for whom she was a volunteer lawyer, advocated for the maids, and in the end, none of the maids were fired.57 Ruth did a lot of work at Columbia to erradicate blatant sexist structures.

In 1972, Ruth co founded the ACLU Women’s Rights Project (WRP), which took on the mission of fighting for gender equality, with a focus on public education, the law, and bringing cases to court. Ruth split her time between the WRP and teaching at Columbia. In 1973, Frontiero v. Richardson was ​ ​ Ruth’s first major case in front of the Supreme Court. Her goal was to have the court recognise that the Constitution fundumentally banned sex discrimination. Ruth argued that “Sex, like race, is a visible, ​ immutable characteristic bearing no necessary relationship to ability.”58, and Ruth won her case.59 Ruth published the first-ever casebook on sex discrimination in 1974.60 Most of the cases that Ruth fought were sex-based discrimination cases. Ruth fought for both women and men who were victims to the sexist legal system. Many of Ruth’s colleagues were critical of her taking on cases with male plaintiffs, but Ruth’s aim was to expose how both men and women were being discriminated against on the basis of sex, and that one could not be fully free without the other also being fully free.61

Through the WRP, Ruth fought numerous pregnancy-related cases. She argued for women who had been fired or refused promotions for being pregnant, and fought against companies who excluded pregnancy coverage from their health insurance plans.62 In 1978, Ruth and her team of feminist

54 "Ruth Bader Ginsburg." Oyez, accessed 27 April 2020, www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg. ​ ​ ​ ​ 55 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, My Own Words, (New York: Simon & ​ ​ ​ Schuster, 2016), 38. 56 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 56. ​ ​ ​ 57 Ibid. ​ ​ 58 Ibid, 71. ​ ​ 59 Ibid, 73. 60 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg. ​ ​ 61 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 84. ​ ​ ​ 62 “TRIBUTE: THE LEGACY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG AND WRP STAFF”, ACLU 100 Years, ​ ​ accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-wrp-staff#pioneer.

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lawyers got The Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed. The act stated that employers had to treat pregnancy just as they treated any other medical reason for having to take time off of work.63 The WRP took on hundreds of discrimination cases, each setting a set of precedents, and each case building on another in the direction of equality and justice.

By 1978, the percentage of women in law schools had risen to thirty percent.64 By this time, Ruth was one of the most prominent women’s rights lawyers in America.65 In 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated Ruth as a judge to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Only two other women had ever been appointed as an appeals court judge before Ruth.66 For the next thirteen years, Ruth wrote opinions in over three hundred cases.67 Ruth was a centrist and held a moderate, balanced point of view.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ruth to the Supreme Court. Ruth was confirmed and took her seat on the Supreme Court on the 10th of August 1993.68 Ruth was the second ever female (and the first ever Jeiwsh female) justice to sit on the Supreme Court.69 Ruth Bader Ginsburg still sits on the Supreme Court today, and has not lost sight of her focus on gender equality.

Conclusion

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work completely transformed the rules about gender and used the law to question the accepted long-standing view that men were superior to women.70 Many believe that Ruth changed the way that America, and the world, see women. Ruth’s legacy is her enormous contribution in the fight for gender equality and human rights. Ruth has, for her entire professional career, fought against fundamental and institutionalised exism existent in legal and social frameworks. Ruth is a true feminist activist, as her focus has always been on securing equal rights for men and women, as opposed to focusing solely on women. Even though she was been criticised for her work, Ginsburg

63 Ibid. 64 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 86. ​ ​ ​ 65 Ibid, 87. ​ ​ 66 Aaron M Houckand Brian P. Smentkowski, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, last ​ ​ ​ updated April 16 2020, accessed 27 April 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg. ​ ​ 67 Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 92. ​ ​ ​ 68 “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”, Biography, published February 12 2018, accessed 27 April 2020, ​ ​ https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ruth-bader-ginsburg. 69 Susan Burgess, “Reviewed Work(s): The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Scott Dodson” Law & Society ​ Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2016), 1044 ​ 70 Susan Burgess, “Reviewed Work(s): The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Scott Dodson” Law & Society ​ ​ Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2016), 1044. ​

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never lost sight of her mission and her goal to achieve gender equality, and her work in abolisting certain sexist statutes are testimony to her enormous and successful contribution to gender equality and human rights, and it is fair to say that we live in a better, more equal world today thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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ADDENDUM

IMAGES

Ruth at two years old. Fifteen-year- old Ruth as camp Rabbi at her Jewish youth camp. [Source: Ginsburg, Hartnett & Williams, [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, My Own Words, 233.] Notorious RBG, 26.] ​ ​

Professional bridal photograph of Ruth, 1954. [Source: Ginsburg, Hartnett & Williams, My Own Words, 234.] ​ ​ ​ ​

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Ruth in the Cornell University yearbook, 1954. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 27] ​ ​

The men (and two women) of the Harvard Law Review Board of Editors, 1957-58. (Ruth circled ​ ​ in red). [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 42] ​ ​ ​

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Martin, Ruth and Jane in Summer 1958. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 44.] ​ ​ ​

Ruth at Rutgers School of Law, where she began teaching in 1963. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, ​ Notorious RBG, 52.] ​

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Ruth at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 67.] ​ ​ ​

Ruth was the first tenured woman at Columbia Law School where she worked as a Professor.

[Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 75.] ​ ​ ​

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Columbia Law Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1980. [Source: Ginsburg, Hartnett & Williams, ​ My Own Words, 234.] ​ ​ ​

Justice Ginsburg being sworn into the Supreme Court. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious ​ ​ RBG, 110.] ​

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Official informal group photograph of the Supreme Court, taken on december 3, 1993. [Source: ​ Ginsburg, Hartnett & Williams, My Own Words, 236.] ​ ​ ​ ​

President Obama and Justice Ginsburg at the State of the Union Address in 2009. [Source: ​ Ginsburg, Hartnett & Williams, My Own Words, 237.] ​ ​ ​ ​

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Ruth and Martin at Ruth’s ten-year Supreme Court law clerk reunion. [Source: Carmon & ​ Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, 126.] ​ ​

The current Supreme Court of the United States. [Source: Carmon & Knizhnik, Notorious RBG, ​ ​ 142.]

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INTERVIEW WITH MRS KUKARD

Eva: What was the effect on men returning from the Second World War on the woman’s role in America in the 1950s?

Mrs Kukard: So, because a lot of women had taken over jobs in things such as factories, truck driving or other forms of work that had always traditionally been seen as ‘men’s work’, when the men came back from fighting, they were then faced with the problem of not having enough jobs for the returning men, so they needed to get the women back out of those kinds of jobs and back into the home, which is why you kind of have a slight over-emphasis of being a housewife and a mother and a provider, and there was a level of propaganda around that kind of view of womanhood, because they don’t want women to be taking jobs. Because the American economy was booming after the war, and many middle-class families could live on just one income, so they did not need many women to be in the workplace, and they also did not want women to be in the workplace, because it would take jobs away from men.

Eva: What were the prescribed gender roles to women in America in the Cold War context, particularly in the 1950s?

Mrs Kukard: This is very generalised and there were always people who didn’t follow these rules at all, but the general kind of pattern is that a middle class woman was expected to be a housewife. Women were expected to be at home, having children, and there was the stereotypical expectation that you are engaged in domestic chores. Because of the prosperity that was around, there were lots of new gadgets and devices that could be used to prepare all kinds of fancy food so that when your husband walks in the door, there is a whole lovely pot roast on the stove and the children are all clean and had their baths and ready to greet daddy with his slippers. So, there is that kind of stereotypical housewife picture. But there were a lot of women who did work. There were women from poorer backgrounds who did not have the option of having only one income, you had single-parent households where women had to work. Obviously, for women of colour, it was much more likely that they would be in domestic service or other kinds of employment, and you’ve got women who were able to get an education and get into the workplace. A lot of middle class women did go to university, but often they would do their degree, find a boyfriend while they were at university, get married and then not actually work. But some women did choose to work. One has to be careful of not over-exaggerating the stereotype, there were always people who did not follow these ‘rules’ to some extent. And for men, their role was to be the provider. This was the kind of era where you might have gotten a job and

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stayed in that job for the rest of your life. This was my grandfather’s generation, and he worked in the same company from when he got back from the war until he retired, so that was pretty normal. Work was very stable and the economy was very stable, there was a lot of prosperity and there was a high standard of living in America.

Eva: Moving onwards, in brief, what was the Civil Rights Movement?

Mrs Kukard: The Civil Rights Movement has a long history, and it emerged and took off during the Second World War because there was the promise that the war was a chance for black people to have opportunities. So, they were allowed to actually fight alongside white soldiers and actually given the same rights. There was a big push amongst the early civil rights activists to say that if black people kind of ‘prove their worth’ in the war effort, then they may be given rights in general in society. So the older generation of activists started really campaigning in the late 1800s and were older men by the 40s and 50s who had done a lot of the groundwork. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which was founded in 1909, worked with trying to get legislative rights. They identified key cases that they could take all the way up to the Supreme Court as kind of ‘test cases’ of law that then created precedents, that meant that individual states actually had to change laws and change how they did things. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, which was a case where a black child had not been allowed to enroll in a white school that was closest to her, and was instead expected to go to a school that was much further away, that had mostly black kids. In that case study, the Supreme Court ruled that you could not segregate schools. The goal was to then, from that platform, move into campaigning to actually have that precedent upheld. From the 1950s, the Montgomery Bus Boycott is a turning point, and you have a move to a broadening out of the appeal, to mass based action and mass protest action. They wanted to show that through peaceful, non-violent means, they can try and persuade the white communities the error of their ways and point out to the government that they were not living up to the standard of the constitution. That continued into the 1960s, by the mid 60s, there was a bit of a pushback against that with the rise of the Black Power Movement, and a feeling that perhaps some more violent measures needed to be taken into effect.

Eva: Did the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement have an effect on activism in general in America, did it spark other forms of activism?

Mrs Kukard: Yes. So across the 50s and 60s, you’ve got all kinds of activism, particularly youth activism. So, if you think about 1968, which is the year that there were massive student riots in Paris. All the way across the 1960s, there's a growing feeling that the young people are unhappy with the

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way that society is operating. There is the beginning of the hippy movements and the anti-Vietnam war protests and nuclear disarmerment protests, protests for women’s rights, protests for gay rights. There is this culture shift away from a respect for authority and the happiness to keep things the way that they had been in the 50s in the baby boomer generation who were becoming young adults in the 60s. They were the generation that really pushed back against their parents’ moral codes and view of the world, and they were saying that they had to have a slightly different vision of society. There was a general feeling that the society needed to be reformed in various ways. People also took from the techniques of protest that King was using and that inspired other kinds of protest as well.

Eva: What characterises and what were the main goals of the second-wave feminist movement?

Mrs Kuakrd: First wave feminism was about voting rights. It was the suffragette movement, trying to make sure that women had the vote, which would make sure that women had an equal say on the running of society. The second wave feminist movement’s iconic quote is “the perosonal is political”. The second wave feminists were trying to argue that the way that the family is set up and the way that society treats women is repressive and that they needed to change the way that they treated women, not only in the workplace or in society, but in the family. Obviously the more extreme second wave feminists were arguing against marriage and against having children, sort of the stereotypical ‘burn your bra’ extreme viewpoint, but that was not everyone’s view of course. In general, there was a critique of the notion that women should just stay at home and not have ambition and seeking to be pursuing their own goals and agendas and that everything should be subordinated to the husband and the children. The woman’s role in society needed to be critiqued.

Eva: Thank you for your time.

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Bibliography

● Burgess, Susan. “Reviewed Work(s): The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Scott Dodson” Law & Society Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2016), 1043-1046

● Carmon, Irwin and Shana Knizhnik. Notorious RBG. New York: HarperCollins, 2017.

● Drucker, Sally Ann. “Betty Friedan: The Three Waves of Feminism”. Ohio Humanities. Published 27 April 2018. Accessed 28 March 2020. http://www.ohiohumanities.org/betty-friedan-the-three-waves-of-feminism/

● Gibson, Katie L. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy of Dissent. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 2018.

● Ginsburg, R Bader, M Hartnett and W W. Williams. My Own Words. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

● Houckand, Aaron M and Brian P. Smentkowski. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”. ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. Last updated April 16 2020. Accessed 27 April 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg

● Interview with Mrs Kukard, Cape Town, conducted by Eva Maraney, 30 March 2020

● “Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement”. Khan Academy. Accessed 28 March 2020. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/civil-rights-movement/a/intr oduction-to-the-civil-rights-movement.

● Kay, Herma Hill. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor of Law”, Columbia Law Review, Vol. 104, No. 1 (2004), 1-20

● “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”. Biography. Published February 12 2018. Accessed 27 April 2020. https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ruth-bader-ginsburg.

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● "Ruth Bader Ginsburg.". Oyez. Accessed 27 April 2020. www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg

● “The Honourable Ruth Bader Ginsburg”. World Justice Project. Accessed 27 April 2020. https://worldjusticeproject.org/about-us/who-we-are/honorary-chairs/ruth-bader_ginsburg. ​

● “TRIBUTE: THE LEGACY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG AND WRP STAFF”. ACLU 100 Years. Accessed 27 April 2020. https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-wrp-staff#pioneer.

● Weisberg, Jessica. “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I'm Not Going Anywhere”. Elle. Published 23 September 2014. Accessed 30 March 2020. https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/interviews/a14788/supreme-court-justice-ruth-ba der-ginsburg/.

● “Women in the 1950s”. Khan Academy. Accessed 27 April 2020. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/women-in-t he-1950s.

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Reflection

I first heard about RBG when I saw someone with her book, My Own Words, in the school hallway ​ ​ about two years ago. Upon enquiring about who she was, I was instantly fascinated when I heard about this “Jewish, female, feminist Supreme Court Judge”.

I saw the movie based on her life, On the Basis of Sex, about a year later, and my fascination with ​ ​ Ruth grew. I was genuinely so taken aback by the magnitude of her contribution to achieving gender equality, her intelligence and her confidence. I will never forget the first scene of the film: you can just see hundreds of men walking into Harvard in their uniform suits, and Ruth’s character stands out in her blue dress. The dean of the college addresses the law students about what it means to be a “Harvard Man”, and Ruth sits there calmly, glancing over to the very few other females in the room. She did not let any kind of adversity, expectations or gender roles define her.

I wanted to be more like Ruth. I came to truly admire her. I think that the reason Ruth and her work resonated with me is because I identify with her on many levels. We are connected by our Jewish and female identities, which are very significant and mean a lot to both of us. Her dedication to achieving gender equality is also something I strongly admire and identify with. I like to think that like Ruth, I also am very determined and have a good work ethic.

This project was initially really daunting to me. It took me a while to get a start on it, however, once I began, I fully immersed myself into this project and actually found it very enjoyable.

Reading Ruth’s book, which contains much of her writing and work, had a really profound effect on me. I was so impressed by her and her intelligence and the way that her mind works. Her book includes her writings from when she was a young girl until she was a grown woman, and each piece in its own right is impressive and inspiring to me.

As well as being blown away by her academic and professional work, I was absolutely touched by the stories of her personal life. Ruth’s adoration and admiration for her mother is something that I likewise feel for my own mother. Her loving, beautiful, and supportive relationship with her husband Martin was really lovely to read about. The book really impacted and affected me in such a way that I was almost drawn to tears several times while reading it. I feel like I know Ruth personally.

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Overall, I had a very positive and enjoyable experience with my research project. Through my research, I have a newfound appreciation and passion for female activism, the incredible women upon whose shoulders we stand, what it means to be a woman in today’s times, and the fight for the achievement of gender equality. Although things have gotten a lot better for women over the years, there is definitely still work to be done. Learning about Ruth has given me a new sense of inspiration and seeing how much she has done gives me a sense of confidence.

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Criteria Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Not achieved Partly achieved Achieved Excellent 1. Selects relevant 0 - 2 3 - 4 5 – 7 8 - 10 information and data from a variety of sources. Poor selection of data Some data and Relevant and suitable Apt and excellent (10) and information not information data and sources selection of sources always relevant. irrelevant. selected and and data. integrated. 2. Sound knowledge and 0 - 2 3 - 4 5 – 7 8 - 10 understanding of the period. Shows little or no Shows some Shows adequate Shows thorough, (10) understanding of the understanding and knowledge and excellent understanding period. knowledge of the understanding of the of the period. period. period. 3. Historical enquiry, 0 – 4 5 - 9 10 - 15 16 – 20 interpretation and communication (argument). Shows little or no Shows some Shows adequate Shows an excellent (20) understanding of how to understanding of understanding of how understanding of how write a coherent how to write a to write a coherent to write a coherent argument from the coherent argument argument from the argument from the evidence. from the evidence. evidence. evidence. 4. Presentation of 0 - 2 3 - 4 5 - 7 8 - 10 information is coherent, logical and well-structured. Presentation of Some logicality and Information is Excellent logic, insight (10) information lacks coherence is logically and and coherence evident coherence and logicality. evident. coherently presented throughout. with minor lapses. 5. Reflective process. 0 – 4 5 - 9 10 - 15 16 – 20 (20) No reflection. A limited and An articulated and Deep insight and superficial reflection. good reflection on the understanding of the process of discovery. process. 6. Research feedback: topic 0 – 4 5 - 9 10 - 15 16 – 20 choice, list of sources, outline, first draft submitted Shows no engagement Shows limited Shows good Shows active (20) with topic and research engagement with engagement with engagement with topic completed to date. Only topic and research topic and research and research submitted one aspect. completed to date. completed to date. completed to date. Submitted two out of Submitted three Submitted all four three aspects. aspects aspects. 7. Acknowledgement and 0 – 2 3 – 4 5 – 7 8 – 10 reference of sources – Correct format and variety. Few sources consulted, Some minor flaws in A variety of sources Excellent variety and (10) limited research, lacking referencing used, minor challenging source details, mostly technique, adequate omissions in list. material included, no incorrectly listed. reading but some errors in compilation of aspects neglected, reference list. technique mostly correct. Comment:

Total: ______Date: ______

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