Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

by Irin Carmon

She likes to quote the opening words of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union.” Beautiful, yes, but as she always points out, “we the people” originally left out a lot of people. “It would not include me,” RBG said, or enslaved people, or Native Americans.

RBG had a husband who bragged that his wife had done better than him.

“Both men and women have one main role: that of being human beings.”

“Sex, like race, is a visible, immutable characteristic bearing no necessary relationship to ability.”

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

while the world had changed, the law was stuck in the old ways.

“one doesn’t learn that lesson in a day. Generally, change in our society is incremental, I think. Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity,” she said simply. “It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

When fathers take equal responsibility for the care of their children, that’s when women will truly be liberated,” RBG explained