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On the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Feminist Icon of Millennials

2020-09-20T16:07:58.955Z


Whether on T-shirts or in social networks - Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still a role model for the young generation in old age: a woman who fought steadfastly for justice and whose message resonates.


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Expressions of mourning in Washington

Photo: Samuel Corum / Getty Images

"I dissent - I disagree."

With these words, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the feminist icon of the millennials late in her fulfilled life: the notorious RBG, Ruth Badass Ginsburg, the fragile old lady with the huge glasses and the bobbin collar who really stirred up the men's club.

Her contradiction to a decision by the Supreme Court that the Voting Rights Act to protect discriminated voters was no longer up to date made the then eighty-year-old a symbolic figure in 2013 - a blatant grandma who fought steadfastly for justice.

Memes and gifs circulated in social networks, an entire branch with RGB merchandising sprouts, documentaries, films, biographies were written.

And culture lover Ginsberg enjoyed her surprising pop culture status, which validated her work over three generations.

The sharply formulated dissent became the trademark of Ginsburg as Supreme Federal Judge: Whether to decisions like Bush v.

Gore, who stopped the Florida re-counting of votes in 2000, or Ledbetter v.

Goodyear, who in 2007 dismissed an employee's lawsuit for equal pay for too much elapsed time, or Burwell v.

Hobby Lobby, which in 2014 allowed a family business to withhold insurance benefits for contraceptives for religious reasons.

She wasn't really a deviator, but above all a gifted tactician who was less focused on confrontation than on communication.

For 50 years, Ginsburg argued precisely and relentlessly that American reality prevented equality for women before the law.

She emphatically demonstrated to a dominantly male legal caste the impact this discrimination has on US society.

And she sometimes played the ball skillfully through gang: two of her cases before the Supreme Court complained about financial discrimination against men.

"Your work made me feel under the protection of the American Constitution for the first time"

Gloria Steinem, icon of the American women's movement, on Ruth Bader Ginsburg

With her work, Ginsburg has created a changed legal landscape, says law professor Arthur Miller in the documentation "RBG".

Gloria Steinem, icon of the American women's movement in the 1970s, says: "Your work made me feel for the first time that I was under the protection of the American constitution."

Perhaps not all of her young fans knew the details of Ginsburg's legal life, but one thing was known: RBG was one of the original "nasty women", women who did not adhere to the traditional rule that good girls do not perk up and certainly not make demands posed.

Yet she wasn't exactly a darling of the women's movement in the 1970s.

She didn't have the glamor of Gloria Steinem;

she wasn't a rough pistolera like Betty Friedan.

The fact that her disciplined thoroughness did not position her as a revolutionary earned her the skepticism of feminists as well as her close friendship with her arch-conservative colleague Antonin Scalia.

Many overlooked Ginsburg's indispensable function as the backbone of the women's movement: their supposed victories in specific cases of discrimination were actually based on a great foresight;

she strove for a fundamental rethink in American jurisprudence and the fundamental anchoring of equality between women and minorities.

Of the six discrimination lawsuits that she brought before the Supreme Court, she won five.

"Kindergarten teacher" for the men in the Supreme Court

Before she was appointed to the highest US court by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg claimed to be a kind of "kindergarten teacher" because "the judges believed that gender discrimination did not exist".

In fact, part of their strategy was to pick up the men where they were.

Her biographer Jane Sherron De Hart describes how Ginsburg "led the judges to a desired verdict in such a way that they could feel comfortable with it."

Ginsburg never reacted angrily to ignorance and condescension because her mother had taught her that it was a way of getting in your own way.

Rather, she found "opportunities to teach," as she put it - which ultimately also revealed a deeply human attitude.

RBG knew discrimination, and she lived equality.

She began her Harvard studies when her daughter Jane was just fourteen months old;

the dean asked her to justify taking the place of a man.

She became a lawyer when women were not welcome in this profession, and after graduation, despite excellent credentials, could not find a job because law firms did not employ female lawyers.

And she married Marty Ginsburg, a tax attorney who respected and supported her and thwarted her serious nature with loving humor.

Marty Ginsburg, who died in 2010, once said about the power structure in their relationship that she didn't talk to him about cooking and he didn't tell her about the law.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was concerned with principles.

"It is essential for equality between men and women that they make decisions and control those decisions," she said of her position on abortion in 1993. "If you create restrictions that inhibit your decision, you put them at a disadvantage because of their gender. "The Federal Court of Justice's line of argument in the Roe v. Wade case, which cemented the right to abortion in the United States in 1973, considered it unfortunate because it was based on private law rather than equality.

The political consequences of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death - the replacement of her post and a possible conservative majority in the Supreme Court - now constitute a possible revision of Roe v.

Wade in prospect.

Under Ginsburg's argument, the 1973 judge's verdict would be more difficult to challenge;

In her view, she would have spared the nation a prolonged and enormously polarizing abortion debate.

RGB's slim stature of barely 1.55 meters led many to underestimate her.

But as much as she is considered a giant, she also symbolizes the fragility of what has been achieved.

Perhaps she was aware of this, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why she was such a patient evidencer of the fundamental facts that do not meet the requirements of the American Constitution.

One of the most beautiful declarations of love that her young admirers made for her on the internet is: "You can´t spell truth without Ruth".

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-09-20

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