Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

    The name Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become almost synonymous with her fiery dissents. But she has done much more than that. As she grew up, she was constantly told that she was a girl - as though girls couldn't achieve as much as boys. Part of the reason she married Marty Ginsburg was because he saw her as an equal. Later, when they both attended Harvard and she had to transfer to Cambridge so that Marty could get a job, the Harvard Law School dean refused to give her a degree - one that was granted years later during her tenure on the Supreme Court.

    Joan Ruth Bader was born in 1933. Her mother, who suffered from cancer, died when Bader was young. At Cornell University, she met Marty Ginsburg, her future husband. She would later say that he was the first man who cared that she had a brain. Later, in her first jobs, she experienced significant sexism and at Harvard Law as well. Despite graduating at the top of her class, she had difficulty finding jobs and clerkships. Later, she managed to land a job teaching at Rutgers University, later becoming its first female tenured professor. She also joined the ACLU to advocate for her fellow women, taking several cases to the Supreme Court. In the 1980s, she served on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals before being nominated to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993. There she assisted other women when they arrived on the court and wrote landmark dissents that she became famous for.

    Marty Ginsburg played a major role in all of this. He recognized what she was destined for and stepped aside, giving up his career to become a stay-at-home dad. He is also reputed to be an excellent cook in the place of RBG.

    Even toward the end of her life, Ginsburg refused to give in. When people told her that she should retire while a Democrat was in office, she chose to wait until she deemed that she was ready for retirement. She even went through workouts after bouts with cancer. She went to a personal trainer everyday after work and her workout routine has become famous on the Internet.