The eternal wisdom of RBG
The legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the questions we're left to ask.
We live in a world that rewards answers over questions, and projection over reflection, but I have been thinking about one question a lot this week. While Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has left her quotes plastered all over the internet and caused Republicans to swarm like hyenas over her U.S. Supreme Court seat, one tribute has stayed with me. Gloria Steinem wrote that we can each honour Ruth Bader Ginsburg by asking ourselves, ‘What would Ruth do?’ This question, Steinem said, becomes a tool we can use to guide our lives by asking it of ourselves today, tomorrow, and the next. By asking it often and revisiting her words regularly, we can continue to learn from RBG and nurture the precious legacy she has left behind. As Steinem wrote, “It’s up to us to keep her spirit alive.”
While there is so much to learn from RBG about womanhood (“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent”); perseverance (“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time”); and equality (“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception”), it is a lesson regarding spirit that I have held onto most tightly. You see, she may be affectionately known as The Notorious RBG - a reference to the rapper ‘The Notorious BIG’ after she became the voice of dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court - but Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always been relatively shy. Early on in her career, when the second wave of feminism hit in the ‘60s and ‘70s, RBG’s soft voice and quiet temperament didn’t lend her to protesting in the streets. Instead of battling her personality, she embraced it. She quickly plowed her bright mind and big thoughts into what she knew - the law. She co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union and took on cases where women and men were discriminated against on the basis of their sex. Her genius lay in her subtle, counterintuitive approach. By defending men (most famously a widower who couldn’t receive government support as the sole carer of his child), she quietly weaved a web changing the legal landscape to help women exist without being legally discriminated against on the basis of their sex. From 1973 to 1976, Ruth Bader Ginsberg argued six sex discrimination cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and won five.
She made progress for women by winning legal victories for men and the reason she convinced those nine male judges to take part in this quiet social revolution, was because - as reporter Linda Greenhouse said recently on The Daily - “she was doling it out in such little, inoffensive doses, that by the time they were finished swallowing everything that she had served them, they had, in fact, become a partner in that revolution.” She flipped the script, and did so quietly. Instead of trying to contort herself into some loud individual to appease a movement that didn’t serve her temperament, she used her temperament to contribute to the movement in unforeseen ways. Her story reminds me of something Oprah Winfrey once said during a Stanford Business School interview: “Align your personality with your purpose, and no one can touch you.”
In a world that values answers and projection, it’s often a struggle for the introverted to feel in control. I thought I was a terrible interviewer until I read the preface in Slouching Towards Bethlehem a few years ago. There I discovered Joan Didion also thought she sucked. And for the same reasons: she was quiet, shy, and a little awkward. Her only advantage as a reporter, she wrote, was that she was so small, unobtrusive and inarticulate that her interview subjects often forgot her presence ran “counter to their best interests” - and they always revealed more than they intended. Sometimes our self-perceived flaws are in fact our assets, and it’s not until we start looking at them differently, that we discover how to use them. As writer Heather Havrilesky once said, “You’ve got to lean way in to what you already are. Lean way the f**k in… look right at the worst — the so-called worst — things about yourself and figure out how to celebrate those things.” That is where The Notorious RBG found her magic, and I have no doubt that is where you will find yours. Time to flip the script, and keep her spirit alive in the process.
Some related (and unrelated) recommendations:
If you haven't watched the 'RBG' documentary, add it to your Weekend Watch List. Also add the film based on her early career, 'On The Basis Of Sex'.
If you prefer a podcast, listen to The Daily's two-part series covering RBG's life and career, and the current battle to replace her seat in the Supreme Court.
I received the word 'f**k' in multiple texts on Saturday morning, after news of RBG's passing emerged, so I smiled a little when I saw this article from The Cut.
In 2016, RBG gave her advice for living in this New York Times article. I thoroughly appreciated the marriage advice.
This New Yorker article exploring how RBG was 'the great equalizer' is a necessary read.
In non-RBG news, I enjoyed this profile on Martha Stewart. The headline is everything.
I also enjoyed this profile on the founder of Netflix in Good Weekend.
Finally, this Yacht Rock playlist has been essential listening this week.
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