Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been a household name for most of my life; our generation does not know a time without her on the Supreme Court, fighting for women’s rights. As the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, she has overcome so much adversity and so many challenges just to make the world a better and more equal place.
Without her contributions to the Supreme Court, we would be living in a very different world today. She was involved in many of the pivotal Supreme Court cases that were centered around gender discrimination, such as the fight for equal pay and co-ed schools. She worked hard for women’s health issues and women’s rights to their own bodies.
Her dissenting opinions on the Supreme Court were plentiful, and they showed that she was someone who knew what she stood for and would always fight for her beliefs. She taught people such as myself to stand up for what they believe in, never backing down because of what men are saying or because you are in the minority.
Perhaps my favorite quote of hers is, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” This quote doesn’t seem so radical nowadays (although sometimes when I look at Congress or places of business, I think that some of them need reminding), but at the time that she was studying law, she was one of eight women in her graduating class at Harvard Law School, and she was only the second woman to be on the Supreme Court. It very well could be because of her that her quote does not seem quite as radical than it did when she was first getting started in her career.
Even before she was a part of the Supreme Court, she was constantly fighting for women’s rights. She argued against sex-based work discrimination, fighting for women to both get equal jobs to their male counterparts as well as get equal pay for these jobs. She also fought against pay cuts or job terminations that women faced simply for being married or being pregnant.
Without Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the world would no doubt be a much different place, a place in which it would be much harder to be a woman. And although we definitely still have not reached gender equality (I mean, the Equal Rights Amendment was just ratified after almost fifty years), we have definitely been taking some steps in the right direction because of her. She fought so hard for us that she never even got to take a break and retire; she worked hard up until the end.
So I would like to take this moment to thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Notorious RBG, for everything she has done in the fight for women’s rights and for being an inspiration to women everywhere, showing us that we can do anything that we set our minds to. And to thank her, you should register to vote and apply for your absentee ballot! We are voting for her replacement!
Thank you for everything, RBG.
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-helped-shape-the-modern-…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/18/ruth-bader-ginsb…