An engaging overview of RBG’s life
The book Notorious RBG, The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik is an engaging overview of RBG’s life, marriage, education, legal career, and days on the Supreme Court. If you don’t have time for the 24 hour audiobook, this 5 hour one will give an interesting, balanced outline of the life experiences shaping her advocacy, insights into a number of her precedent setting cases, and who she was as a judge, woman, wife, mother, and friend.
I wondered if male judges would have been equally pressured to retire from the Supreme Court, insuring a like minded replacement; at the very least, it would have cost her a minimum of four years of service. She fought so hard just to have a legal career, and serving the underserved with masterfully crafted precedent setting opinions was her passion and her purpose; it feels unseemly to even have asked her to cut her life’s work short by even one year, let alone several. The greatest judges have earned that fullness of time, her more than most, and she deserved to be the one to make that choice, as she had given so many others such long denied rights.
Some of my favorite takeaways in a book with many to choose from:
~Her goal is not fame, but to do the best job she can.
~Ceramic spittoons still line the Supreme Court bench along the justices’ feet
~She dazzled the dreariness of dissent with a collar that captured the light
(which Banana republic is making available again through 12/31/20)~When researching to teach a class on Women and the Law, she came across this line in a textbook: “Land like woman is meant to be possessed.”
~“Tired of accepting Rutgers giving her the ‘ladies discount’ salary, RBG helped the other female professors file a federal class action pay discrimination claim against the university. They won.”
~“RBG cooked her last meal in 1980.”
~Daughter Jane wrote a book full of all the moments she made her mother laugh. It
was called Mommy Laughed.
~Prior to RBG’s arrived on the bench, Sandra Day O’Connor had to use a distant
bathroom, but the addition of the second female justice prompted the installation
of a convenient women’s bathroom.
~Lawyers arguing Supreme Court cases often mixed up the names of the two female
justices.
I wondered if male judges would have been equally pressured to retire from the Supreme Court, insuring a like minded replacement; at the very least, it would have cost her a minimum of four years of service. She fought so hard just to have a legal career, and serving the underserved with masterfully crafted precedent setting opinions was her passion and her purpose; it feels unseemly to even have asked her to cut her life’s work short by even one year, let alone several. The greatest judges have earned that fullness of time, her more than most, and she deserved to be the one to make that choice, as she had given so many others such long denied rights.
Some of my favorite takeaways in a book with many to choose from:
~Her goal is not fame, but to do the best job she can.
~Ceramic spittoons still line the Supreme Court bench along the justices’ feet
~She dazzled the dreariness of dissent with a collar that captured the light
(which Banana republic is making available again through 12/31/20)~When researching to teach a class on Women and the Law, she came across this line in a textbook: “Land like woman is meant to be possessed.”
~“Tired of accepting Rutgers giving her the ‘ladies discount’ salary, RBG helped the other female professors file a federal class action pay discrimination claim against the university. They won.”
~“RBG cooked her last meal in 1980.”
~Daughter Jane wrote a book full of all the moments she made her mother laugh. It
was called Mommy Laughed.
~Prior to RBG’s arrived on the bench, Sandra Day O’Connor had to use a distant
bathroom, but the addition of the second female justice prompted the installation
of a convenient women’s bathroom.
~Lawyers arguing Supreme Court cases often mixed up the names of the two female
justices.
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