By Julia Kemp
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female justice on the Supreme Court, dedicated her life to promoting gender equality and is one of the most influential women in politics. Ginsburg grew up in a low-income Jewish household in Brooklyn, New York where she faced many hardships as an ambitious young woman. She went to Cornell University where she graduated first in her class as one of only eight women attending in 1954. At Cornell, she met her husband, Martin Ginsburg. Martin and Ruth had a very happy marriage, and had their first child, Jane, while they both attended Harvard law school. Martin was described as outgoing and fun-loving while Ruth was described as shy and soft-spoken. In 2010, Ruth lovingly described Martin as, “the only young man I dated who cared that I had a brain.” When Martin contracted testicular cancer in 1956 while at Harvard, Ginsburg not only took care of her young daughter while attending school, but also she attended all of Martin’s classes to ensure that he would graduate too. Ginsburg’s ambition and strength in face of many obstacles in the patriarchal education system of the time foreshadow her many successes in her later career.
Though Ginsburg was first in her class at both Cornell and Harvard, she faced rejection as she tried to join law firms as an attorney. Eventually, Ginsburg became a professor at Rutgers University Law School from 1963 to 1972, then at Columbia from 1972 to 1980. Furthermore, Ginsburg directed the American Civil Liberties Union in the 80s where she argued six cases on gender equality to the Supreme Court. One of her most notable victories is Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, where Ginsburg argued that a male widower should receive the same survivor benefits as a female widow in order to take care of their children. According to Ginsburg, “the prime generator of discrimination accounted by women in the economic sector is the pervasive attitude, now lacking functional justification that pairs women with children, men with work.” The law that gave women who have lost their husbands more benefits than men who have lost their wives implies that men don’t need the economic support of their wives and that women depend on their husbands for all economic support. Ginsburg argues that this law is outdated because women have the power and capabilities to enter the workforce, and that not all men are the breadwinners of their families. Ginsburg’s success in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld helped her gain status in the political sphere, and allowed her to earn her way into the Supreme Court.
Throughout her career on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg established herself as a woman of grace and power, who dissented against cases that threatened women’s rights. She fought for gender equality and for a woman’s right to choose her own path. Ginsburg’s work in education, attorney work, and on the Supreme Court inspire young, ambitious women of today to strive toward change, and to never give up on their goals.