April 12, 2017 • 47 mins
Supreme Court Justic Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka The Notorious RBG, has become a pop cultural rock star for her judicial outspokenness on equality and reproductive rights. Cristen and Caroline delve into her incredible biography and what has propelled her recent popularity among young women.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mob never told you. From how Supports
dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen. And today this we we are discussing
something that was highly demanded by listeners. We are discussing
a rock star who goes by a notorious RBG, or,
(00:26):
as I call her, the grand Dame of descent, none
other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg has probably been blowing up your social media
feeds of late, because ever since her descent that she
wrote in the Supreme Court case Burrowell Versus Hobby Lobby,
(00:49):
it's as though we cannot stop talking about how incredible
she is. Because this was a thirty five page descent
she wrote in that to that five before Supreme Court ruling,
part of which she read from the bench, which justices
don't typically do. It's basically like a sassy finger snapping Yeah,
(01:09):
if you severely disagree with what the Court has ruled,
you will read your descent from the bench. And I
also like that she, Ruth bid Ginsburg wears a especially
fierce jabeau, which is the name for the judicial caller,
like the lace collar that you might see. She has
(01:31):
one that is it's almost Game of Thrones that she'll
wear when she reads the descent. And so just for
a quick rundown, the Supreme Court ruled five to four
basically that the government cannot require certain employers to provide
insurance coverage for methods of birth control and emergency contraception
that conflict with their religious beliefs. It's popularly called the
(01:54):
hobby lobby decision. And uh, Justice Ginsberg Man, I mean,
she wrote a strongly worded thirty five page descent that
everybody's talking about. Um. I mean, this is hardly her
first foray into women's rights and gender issues. Way more
on that later, But in her descent, she was joined
by Justice set of Mayor, who fully supported it, and
(02:17):
Justices Briar and Kagan who supported all but one section.
And that group right there of Ginsburg, Sta, Mayor, Kagan,
and Briar are considered the liberal group on the Supreme Court.
They tend to vote together, um, and and the three
women in particular and kind of understandably also tend to
(02:38):
vote together. And and just to give you an idea
of this descent, which I feel like there it's not
very often that we here quotes from Supreme Court descents
being circulated almost viral style on social media. But the
Court I fear has ventured into a mind field. Is
(03:01):
a Twitter friendly quote, for instance, from that Descent that
has made its way all around the internet. Yeah, it
was even incorporated into a song by that one guy
who does a song a day project or whatever. He
incorporated that into some of his lyrics. Some other things
that she wrote, um are that, and I think this
is important if you're going to have a discussion about
(03:22):
birth control and reproductive freedom and all that stuff. I mean,
money plays a huge part in this right And one
thing that Ginsburg wrote was it bears note in this
regard that the cost of an i u D is
nearly equivalent to a month's full time pay for workers
earning the minimum wage. So yes, women are still free
who work for hobby lobby to go get an i
(03:45):
u D. They will just have to drop serious cash
for it. Yeah. I d s do not come cheap
at all, but they are the most effective form of
birth control on the market, and they last for up
to five years, so it makes it financially infeasible for
a lot of these women to go and get what
is considered to be the best of the best in
(04:07):
terms of birth control, and a lot of what she
does in this Descent is distinguish the legal protections afforded
to and necessarily afforded to via freedom of religion in
the United States, the legal protections afforded to specific religious
organizations and nonprofit groups from the interests of for profit corporations,
(04:32):
and a lot of what she does is sort of
asked this bigger question of, well, if we offer a
religious exemption in this situation in something that not only
has a bearing, perhaps on women's sexual activity, which gets
way too much focused in the whole birth control debate
in quotes, but also on women's health care in general,
(04:53):
because birth control serves more functions healthcare wise than simply
preventing pregnancy. So if you make this exemption, then where
will that stop. So there's a quote, for instance, from
the Descent saying, would the exemption extend to employers with
religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions such as Jehovah's witnesses,
(05:15):
antidepressants with scientologists, medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids,
and pills coated with gelatin with certain Muslims, Jews and Hindus,
and vaccinations not much help there for the lower courts
bound by today's decision. Hence, as she goes on to
finally conclude the issue of the court venturing into a
(05:38):
potential mind field, Yeah, and um, you know google, definitely
google the full Descent. We won't just read it to you.
This podcast will not just be us reading the Descent
to you, although you know it makes for good reading. Um.
But Ginsburg was interviewed by Katie Kirk in a highly
circulated video and she came out and said that she
(06:03):
does believe that her male colleagues, save Brier, on the bench,
do have a blind spot when it comes to women.
And she went on to tell Katie Kirk that no,
she did not believe that the male justices in this
case understood the ramifications of their decision. And one thing
(06:23):
that jumped out to me in that conversation with Kirk
was how Ginsburg underscored the vital importance of access to
birth control for all women, not just women of higher
socioeconomic means who are not as affected directly by this
hobby lobby decision to be able to control their own,
as she put it, destinies, because if you don't have
(06:45):
access to birth control, that I mean, that takes that
removes so much choice. Yeah. I got into a rather
fruitless Facebook conversation about this with a male Facebook friend
who basically is like, well, you know they're not going
to cover my root canal, so why should they cover
your birth control? And I said, well, but your root
(07:06):
now does not affect your ability to make decisions for
yourself in terms of your life and your family and
your money, because it won't sideline you and take you
out of the workforce the way that maybe an unintended
or unhealthy pregnancy would. Yeah. And when it comes to
this issue freedom of religion, which is something that a
(07:28):
lot of people bring up as well, because obviously that
is a right that needs to be protected, that there's
a fundamental foundation of the u s Constitution. But as
Ginsburg put it so well, and as she she sort
of echoed this in the interview what she wrote in
the Descent about how one has the freedom to move
(07:49):
one's arm until it hits the other fellows knows, And
it's the same way with speech, and it's the same
way with religion. You can exercise your right freely until
it's affecting other people who don't share your views. And
she goes on to talk about how is she this
is nothing against her, you know, thinking that hobby the
owners of hobby Lobby shouldn't believe what they believe. She said,
(08:11):
They're free to believe what they want to. However, you
have no constitutional right to then voice that belief on
the women who work for you. So a lot of
a lot of young women I think our age essentially
did the Internet version of giving her a prolonged standing ovation.
(08:31):
Because hearing that from someone with such power, I think
it was very empowering for us to hear about. I
think that's a big reason why this episode has been
so highly requested. And I'll tell you Caroline that simply
spending a weekend reading all about her for this podcast
(08:52):
was so inspiring because I was not aware. Obviously I
was aware of, you know, work that she's done on
the Supreme Court, but I was not aware of the
extent of her legacy and what she considers her legacy
to be someone who has fought for her entire career
for the rights of women. Yeah, and so when you
(09:13):
have things like the notorious RBG t shirts for instance,
I mean people who created that and other stuff like
stickers that they posted all around d C and everything.
These people worshiped her before this hobby lobby case even
came around because of her amazing legacy. So her descents
in two cases Fisher versus University of Texas, which weakened
(09:35):
affirmative action laws and Shelby County versus Holder, which weakened
the Voting Rights Act, led to n y U law
students Shanna nis Nik creating that notorious RBG tumbler that
I'm sure a lot of you have already been to,
and Amina to Sao and Frank Chi creating the can't
spell Truth without Ruth stickers that ended up getting posted
(09:56):
all over d C. And what's so awesome is at
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is aware of this stuff. She was
somebody walked up to her in a restaurant and showed
her the stickers, and she has she had to ask
her staff like, what is this notorious business? And they
explained that, I mean, you know, you're talking about notorious
(10:18):
b I G. Who's this large African American man with
a large presence and it's being applied to teeny tiny
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a rapper. I mean, that's the thing.
It's like gangster rapper. And you have this like ty
little Jewish woman who weighs like as much as a
handful of pebbles, but she's so powerful. And there is
(10:40):
this incredibly charming part of that Katie Kirk interview where
Kirk asks her about the notorious RBG stuff, and she's
clearly tickled and at one point says, there is nothing
on the website that is not both pleasing and humorous
(11:00):
and in this massive grin, so she she knows she's
a rock star. And there was an article in The
New Republic that I posted a while back now on
the stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page about this
notorious RBG like Internet fame focus on Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(11:20):
And then you also have sort of in the same
vein the text with Hillary Clinton where she's wearing sunglasses
and it's this very funny meme and also the Internet
fame that broke out around uh Texas politician Wendy Davis.
And it's important because it's essentially millennial women and men
(11:44):
providing this I don't know, like new form of coolness
to these radically powerful women who for a long time,
uh or maybe not treated as such awesome rock stars
by young people. Yeah. I mean generally society's view of
powerful women is not necessarily an overwhelmingly positive one. But
(12:08):
then you do have these young whipper snappers. I'm thirty,
I can say that. I mean this this younger generation
of like more liberal feminist individuals coming up who were like,
right on, you're a strong, powerful woman, and you're sticking
up for other people's rights, and we're going to celebrate
you the only way we knew how, which is on
the internet, which means a bajillion other people can celebrate
(12:29):
with us. Yeah. And it's not only just a celebration
but also an acknowledgement of these women as role models.
And I think it's it's exciting. Um. And one other
word about the descents, because it has been Ruth Bader
Ginsburg's descents, particularly in Supreme Court season, that propelled her
(12:53):
internet fame. Just for a note, she read from the
bench her descents five times last year, which is pretty
much unprecedented for a justice. She's fired up and she's
going to put on her fierce Game of Thrones esque
Jabou and read her descent. You can't stop Ruth. You
(13:14):
can't stop Ruth, cannot stop Ruth. So who though is Ruth?
Who is the real notorious RBG Caroline. Yeah, because you
can tell in our voices that we are glowing talking
about her because she is so amazing. Well, so what
made her that way? And we will certainly look into
that in just a moment. So. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was
(13:43):
born Ruth Joan Bader in Brooklyn during the Great Depression,
and she told makers that when she was growing up,
her mother gave her two important pieces of advice. One,
be a lady, I don't be distracted by anger or resentment.
They only stap energy and waste time, which I think
she clearly has taken to heart. And to be independent.
(14:06):
She said she hoped I would meet Prince Charming, but
she stressed the importance of being able to make it
on my own. Yeah. Well, so I think she definitely
took these pieces of advice to heart. She ended up
going to Cornell where she met future husband Marty Ginsburg.
She was seventeen, he was eighteen. They married in nineteen
fifty four, right after she graduated, and he himself would
(14:27):
become a very accomplished lawyer. And listening to listening to
her talk about Marty is like I people just hoped
to find that kind of life partner. She said that
what she really appreciated about him was that he really
cared about what I thought. And she said, and this
(14:47):
during a time when most men hoped that women didn't
have a brain. Now, her family wanted her to marry Marty.
That's really fine, but just be a high school teacher.
And they were kind of disappointed when she decided to
pursue law, but at the same time, they were relieved
that she was at least married. Yeah, And they said, hey,
at least she has a husband whole supporter, and when
(15:09):
she goes off on this crazy adventure, well, it would
be a crazy adventure because when she got into Harvard Law,
where Marty also ended up going with her, she was
one of nine women in a class of more than
five hundred. Yeah. And she admitted to makers also that
she definitely felt the pressure all eyes on you, and
(15:31):
she had this feeling that if you failed, if you
answered a question wrong, if you didn't do something up
to standard, you were failing your entire sex. She definitely
had that pressure writing on top of her. But during
this time she wasn't just another law student. She was
also a mom of fourteen month old Jane, So on
top of her coursework and caring for the kiddo, Ruth
(15:54):
also ended up taking Marty's classes and writing his papers
for him because he was being treated for testicular cancer.
And so she says it was during this time in
her life that she realized how little sleep she could
get by on and how much she could stretch her
day out because she had to go to class, you know,
come home, take care of the baby, do Marty's work,
(16:14):
and then do her own work when she slept eight
or used the bathroom. I have no idea. Yeah, just
reading about that made me tired. Yeah. And then she
graduated law school from Columbia, not Harvard, because even though
she was ranked first in her class at Harvard Law,
the dean at the time just refused to grant her
(16:36):
a degree, seeing how she was a woman and even
though she had done her coursework there. But thankfully Columbia
accepted her and graduated her. And when it came time
for jobs, she received no offers. The same thing happened
to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the
first female justice on the Supreme Court. And at one
(16:59):
point she even had to explain to it might have
been that dean at Harvard or a professor at Harvard,
how she was going to justify taking a job that
should be going to a man at a law firm.
So that was the climate when she got out of
law school. Yeah, and because she couldn't find a job,
(17:19):
she ended up being a law professor amid a bunch
of other things that she was doing at the time.
And we will definitely talk about this in just a
second when we look at her legal career. Um she
taught at Rutgers and received tenure there in nineteen sixty nine.
But more recently in her personal life, she has experienced
a lot of health problems that have led a lot
of people to continue to question this poor woman about
(17:40):
when she's going to retire. Just leave her alone already.
But anyway, in n was treated for colon cancer, and
in two thousand nine she underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.
But the woman never missed a single oral argument during
those periods. She always made sure to get her treatments
on a Friday, so she had the weekend to recover
her so she could be back on the bench on Monday.
(18:02):
And who advised her to do that, standard O'Connor. That's right,
because she did the same thing. Yep. And when her husband,
Marty died in two thousand and ten, Ruth Peter Ginsburg
was on the bench the next day to hear arguments
because quote, that's what he would have wanted. So there's
really no stopping Ruth. It's true. And when you look
(18:24):
at her career, even before she is appointed to the
Supreme Court, it is nothing short of incredible. And if
you are a woman listening to this podcast, pay attention
because Ruth Peter Ginsburg has done a whole lot for you. Yeah.
And I thought that um New Yorker writer Jeffrey Tubbins
(18:46):
profile of her was so fascinating, so enlightening. It really
hit home how just how brilliant and accomplished she is.
She is the current courts most accomplished litigator, and Tubin
points out that part of her success is that Ginsberg
had quote exquisite timing. She brought women's rights cases at
(19:07):
precisely the moment the Supreme Court was willing to decide
them in her favor. And as we'll talk about, she
also had a very strict m O that she pursued
as far as bringing these cases because she didn't believe
in trying to set up all the dominoes at once
and knocked them all down at once. She believed in
going after all of these stereotypes about women that were
written into law, that were actual policy, and just knocking
(19:30):
them down one by one. And one of the ways
that she was able to do that too was by
presenting cases that demonstrated not necessarily how gender discrimination negatively
impacts women, but how negatively impacts men. Because if you
were bringing these cases before a Supreme Court at the
time filled with all male justices, then you need to
(19:53):
get inside their heads some so that they can relate
more closely to that. And that was another strategy that
she used that made her so successful in front of
the court. And in the nineteen sixties, this was the
Supreme Court uh the Warren Court, and she talked about
how during the era of the Warren Court, discrimination against
(20:17):
women was seen as more of a protective thing. So
there was this case where, um, there was a discrimination
case involving allowing women to be on jerry's because at
the time men had to go for jerry duty, but
it was only I think it was just optional for women.
And there was a case involving I think a wife
(20:39):
being murdered by a husband. There was a history of
domestic violence, and the guy ended up getting off partially
because there was an all male jury. And so she
was talking about how, you know, the first thing they
had to do was dismantle these sort of paternalistic and
protective ideas that were essentially it's discrimination just under the
(21:03):
guise of something that's actually doing women a favor. Well,
you don't. You don't have to be on a jury
and hear all those gory details if you don't want
to be right. And it's interesting to hear her take
on the court, the warr In court of the sixties,
and how she then echoes that when she talks about
her male colleagues in the hobby lobby case having a
blind spot, because she says that, I don't think and
(21:25):
this is the warr In court, I don't think they
regarded discrimination against women as discrimination at all. These are
people who thought they were good fathers. They were good
husbands and they didn't understand barriers that women faced as discriminatory,
and so just talking about how important, like Christan said,
it was to dismantle all of those preconceived notions. So
in the nineteen sixties, she is working as the associate
(21:48):
director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure,
which sends her to Sweden. So she's like, oh, what
am I gonna do. I'm just gonna teach myself Swedish
and so she did, big deal. So she then travels
to Sweden learns all about their legal system while she's
working with Swedish University's faculty and writing a book about
(22:08):
their legal system. And this was that this was highly
influential period for her because this is what really got
her thinking about the intersection and importance of women in
the law. So in Sweden, she was at the University
of Lundon. She noted to her interviewer that of the
school's students were women versus four percent of law students
(22:32):
in the US. During this time, Also, she observed a
core proceeding where the judge was an eight months pregnant lady.
I mean, I guess as opposed to an eight months
pregnant man. And it wasn't weird, it wasn't a thing.
It was just life. It was just a judge who cares.
It was just Sweden. It was just Sweden. And also
at this time, an Arizona woman was in the news
(22:54):
a lot for traveling to Sweden for an abortion after
she had taken the lidamide in the U s which
is known to cause a lot of terrible birth effects.
And then Bader Ginsburg read Simone de Beauvoirs Second Sex,
and she says that was an eye opener. Maybe the
law can catch up to changes in society. Yeah, it's
(23:15):
this complete, almost like the perfect storm of all these
things going on around her and all the experiences that
she had faced. Even when it came to her working
at Columbia Law School, she completely acknowledges that that was
a byproduct of affirmative actions starting to take place, of
people saying, okay, you top tier schools, do you have
(23:37):
a woman. Do you have a woman? Do you have
your woman? And she was like, I'll be a woman.
I'll be someone's woman. Take me um. And so in
the seventies she's still a professor. She's also a litigator,
and she is arguing several of the most important women's
rights cases in the Supreme Court's history. And I believe
(23:57):
she went before the Court five times one four of
her cases, which, in case you aren't great with statistics,
that's a really good record. And she worked to persuade
the justices at the time that the Constitution was not dead.
This is really significant. So this idea of a living constitution,
(24:19):
in other words, that what the framers are are, like
constitutional framers wrote, is something that can evolve alongside society. Yeah,
And one of her big cases was in nineteen seventy one,
it was Read versus Read. She succeeded in persuading the
justices that a clause in the Fourteenth Amendment applied not
(24:41):
just to race, but also to sex. And it's the
clauset says no state shall deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. And building
off of that success at early success, like I said earlier,
she made an effort to slowly and steadily go after
these government policies that descrimin needed based on sex, and
(25:02):
a few significant milestones in the seventies, she co founded
the Women's Rights Law Reporter, the first law journal in
the US devoted to gender equality issues. That was in
nineteen seventy. In nineteen seventy two, she became the first
tenured woman at Columbia Law School. Like I said, she
was like, I'll be your woman here. Let let it
(25:22):
be me. And she also co founded the Women's Rights
Project at the a c. L U to take on
issues of gender discrimination. And then in nineteen seventy four
she co authored the very first textbook on sex discrimination law.
This woman literally wrote the book on sex discrimination, gender discrimination,
(25:43):
women's rights in the legal context in the United States. Yeah,
and so as far as uprooting gender discrimination, you know,
Kristen mentioned earlier that Banner Ginsburg thought it was very
important to not just show how women were being hurt
by gender discrimination, but to show that men, especially fathers,
were also being hurt too. In nine five, she argued
a sex discrimination case on a man's behalf, Stephen Weisenfeld,
(26:07):
who was a widower who was not allowed to collect
Social Security benefits after his wife had died. Now, these
are benefits that if Steven had died, his wife would
have been able to go to the office collect these benefits.
You know, have money to support her and the child.
Why it doesn't make any sense. Why would the man
not be allowed to collect benefits when his wife had
(26:29):
died because the wife wasn't the breadwinner? Caroline right, And
so Bader Ginsburg is talking about this stereotype that had
been written into law, the one she wanted to undo
in this case was the idea of man as breadwinner,
woman as caretaker. The the idea that was etched in
stone at the time that it couldn't be the other
way around. And even if a man was a breadwinner,
(26:49):
why would he ever want to collect benefits in the
wake of his spouse's death. And she won, of course,
because she is the notorious RBG has always been as
all she's pretty much has always been. And so Jimmy
Carter President, Jimmy Carter peanut farmer, uh in nineteen eighty
he recognized that there was a notorious RBG in his
(27:11):
midst and so he appointed her to the DC Circuit Court.
But she did not use her position. It's often noted
to be some kind of liberal fire brand. Uh. There
there was a Columbia Law School professor Jamal Green who
said she fundamentally does not believe that large scale social
change should come from the courts, which is notable because
(27:35):
we often here today, especially with these kinds of cases
such as the hobby Lobby decision coming out about activist judges,
and while Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be seen at
by conservatives as one of those activist judges, that is
fundamentally not the way she sees the function of the court. Yeah,
it's not her style. She did actually take issue with
(27:57):
roe versus Wade. I was. I knew nothing about this.
I was. I was pretty surprised to read it. But
it makes sense when you look at her style. She
thought that Roe versus Wade sort of bulldozed the conversation.
She wanted to see the abortion debate, the abortion legislation,
the abortion court decisions go the way that her sex
discrimination cases did, take it down one at a time. Basically,
(28:20):
open a dialogue with legislators. Don't tell them, here's what
your deal is, guys. You open that dialogue to say,
here's a ruling, go forth and make it right. Well,
and that is probably why you see the Court handling
gay marriage and the United States in the way that
it is. It's taking it more on a. I mean,
(28:41):
it was able to take care of the federal aspect
of gay marriage in terms of taking out that clause
in Doma, but when it comes to the state by
state gay marriage laws, they want to leave it for
now at least up to the states. And she talks
about how with o versus Wade, what it did was
(29:04):
its focused on Texas, which had the most intense, surprise
UH anti abortion laws in the country at the time,
and she said that by sort of wrapping the whole
issue of legalized abortion up into one decision, that actually
gave anti abortion activists a single target to unify around
(29:28):
and actually empowered them in a way to you know,
to to make their campaign even more Um, I don't
know even more powerful what you could say, because what
are we seeing right now? We're seeing Roe v. Wade
being eroded? Guess what, state by state? And then in
n three, RBG is appointed to the Supreme Court by
(29:53):
President Bill Clinton. She becomes the second woman and the
first Jewish woman to sit on the bench. Yeah, she
joined Sandard O'Connor, who had been the lone woman on
the court since Reagan appointed her in N one. And
then when Sandard O'Connor stepped down. She retired from the
court in order to care for her husband. In two
(30:16):
thousand six, she was replaced by Samuel Alito, and ripe
to Ginsburg was a little bummed out by it, Let's
be honest, because Alito way more conservative than Sandrad O'Connor. Well, so,
then in the mid to late two thousand's, um, we
see Ginsburg like really becoming this this four I mean,
(30:37):
not that she wasn't a force already, but we see
her passion clearly in in a few specific cases. Well,
she starts dissenting, she becomes what do you call her?
The Queen of descent, the grand Dame of descent. Um.
If anyone wants to put that on a T shirt,
I'll take it. Um. So there are two cases in
two thousand seven that are super big and important, she
(30:57):
wrote a beautiful descent in Gonzala versus Carhart, which is
the case where the court upheld the federal ban on
part partial birth abortions with no provisions for a mother's
life being endangered. So, writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy wrote,
while we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon,
it seems unexceptionable to conclude, some women come to regret
(31:21):
their choice to abort the infant life they once created
and sustained. And then I picture Ginsburg like flaming up
like a phoenix from the fire and writing a dissent,
and she says that Kennedy invoked an anti abortion chibalist,
for which it concededly has no reliable evidence. Women who
have abortions come to regret their choices and consequently suffer
(31:43):
from quote severe depression and loss of self esteem. This
way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in
the family and under the constitution, ideas that have long
since been discredited. Well, and who helped discredit those ideas
she did? She did so her The fact that she
(32:03):
writes these powerful descents makes so much sense what you
once you see her legal legacy leading up to that,
and in that descent to she pointed out that the
protection of reproductive rights is not about some quote vague
or generalized notion of privacy, but rather about quote a
woman's autonomy to decide for herself her life's course and
(32:26):
thus enjoy equal citizenship stature. And that right there goes
right back to what she was talking about to Katie
Kirk about the importance of birth control access in terms
of a woman controlling her own destiny. That's absolutely right.
And so also in two thousand seven you get the
Lily lad Better case being thrown out, and don't worry,
(32:47):
we'll explain Ginsburg writing another slow dunk descent. So basically,
long stray short, Lily lead Better had been working for
a good year. She had climbed up the ladder to
become a manager. Found out after she retired that she
the whole time had been making a lot less than
her male counterparts, including men not only on her own level,
but even men below her, were making more. She sues
(33:09):
and a jury awards her nearly four million dollars. Awesome, okay,
but Goodyear appealed and the case made it all the
way up to the Supreme Court, who then throws it out.
Justice Alito, writing the opinion for the court, basically said
that Leadbetter had waited too long and that claims for
pay discrimination had to be brought within a hundred eighty
days of the violation, which would have been a little
(33:32):
crazy when you think about it, because that means she
would have had to appeal each and every paycheck. So
in her descent, Ginsburg said, how could she have appealed
the stuff when she didn't even know? She said, the
court's insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.
And this goes back to a or forward, I guess
(33:53):
to a conversation that I feel like has been going
on a lot lately, which is, you know, the conversation
of do you be polite and not talk with your
coworkers about how much you make? Because that being polite
means that a lot of women don't realize that they're
making a lot less than their male counterparts. And so
Ginsburg and this is another descent that she read from
(34:13):
the bench, meaning that she was really pod She basically
invited Congress to overturn her colleagues decision, which is super
powerful because so she she is not known for like
fiery or flowery language in her descents that she writes,
So when she read her descent from the bench, she
also made it more colloquial so that it could get
(34:37):
picked up by legislators and by people on the internet
and by news outlets so they could easily turn it
into sound bites and spread it. And it spread like
wildfire Girl. She invited Congress to overturn the decision, putting
it front and center in the media. And one of
the first things that Barack Obama did when he became
president was to sign a bill into law over ruling
(34:58):
the lad Better case. And so then we get the
Lily Lead Better Fair Pay Act of two thousand nine.
Bamp dropped the mic notorious. So right now, these dissents
that she has been writing and notably reading from the
bench are crucial because it's not just an exercise in
a Supreme Court justice grabbing the mic and saying, well,
(35:20):
this is why I disagree with you. But actually that
is a process of law making, because there have been
cases and she thinks there will be more cases where
decisions are overturned and enacted in favor of the dissenting opinion. So,
when she's talking to Katie Kuric about the Hobby Lobby
(35:45):
decision and also Citizens United, which is a very closely
aligned decision sort of teed up for Hobby Lobby, which
is the Supreme Court decision that essentially rendered you know,
corporations being treated as people. She thinks that eventually at
least Hobby Lobby will be overturned. That in the future,
(36:08):
the descent that she writes will get its do it
will get its its day in court. And I mean, clearly,
we've established that she is all about women's right, it's
all about reproductive choice, all about feminism, etcetera. And she
thinks though that that all of this is so important
specifically not just because it affects women, but it's also
(36:31):
because it affects poor women. In particular, she has said
when it comes to ro versus Wade and now birth
control access are e hobby lobby quote, we have a
policy that affects only poor women and it can never
be otherwise. And I don't know why this hasn't been
said more often. The basic thing is that the government
has no business making that choice for a woman. And
(36:54):
she goes on to say, I think the side that
wants to take the choice away from women and give
it to the state, they're fighting a losing battle time
is on the side of change. Well, the question, though
Ruth pitter Ginsberg is eighty one years old, the question is, well,
who is going to be the agent of that change.
It is not going to be Chief Justice John Roberts
(37:16):
and Alito and Scalia, who I really enjoyed the fact
that Scalia and Druth Pittter Ginsberg actually pretty close. Yeah, Trivia,
Ruth and Marty would spend every New Year's Eve with
Scalia and his wife, and they often went to the
opera together. Yeah. So because I mean she thinks, like,
you know, this is business. Obviously, it's okay if you disagree. Um,
(37:39):
and and they both have tremendous respect for each other.
But who is it going to be? I mean, the
women on the court is very important because of that
issue that she talked about in the beginning of uh
that we mentioned in the beginning about perspective and male
justice is possibly sometimes having that blind spot. Yeah, and
(38:02):
I mean she she talks like, part of the reason
it's so critical for women to be at the table,
you know, in the Supreme Court is the same reason
that it's important for women to be at any table,
is that if you lose those other perspectives, you lose
a lot. You lose a lot more than just a
woman talking, You lose an entire lifetime of experience, especially
from someone's amazing and experienced as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Well,
(38:27):
and on the plus side, when it comes to the court.
Elena Kagan is not only the newest justice, but she's
also the youngest justice. She'll be there for a while
along with Sony, said a mayor. But now the big
question when it comes to Ruth beder Ginsburg, now that
we love her so much, everyone's asking her to leave.
Isn't that funny? Yeah? And I I I think you
(38:49):
should stop asking people when they're going to retire um
and leave her alone. But I mean, she's handling it
so graciously. She's like, look, guys, I'm fine. I'm gonna
stick around until i just can't do it anymore and
then I'll stop. But I mean, there is a strategy
behind the pressure being put on her to leave now
(39:10):
while there is a Democrat in office, because you know
then it will be Obama selecting her successor. So people
are saying, you know what, Ruth, go ahead and you
make an exit. That way, we will be guaranteed to
have another liberal justice in your place, because if the
(39:30):
next president is a Republican a lot more conservative, there
bore probably tap a conservative replacement should she leave during
that term, and then the court would be overwhelmingly conservative,
even with Kennedy's swing vote yes. And I mean I
can I can see the logic in a lot of
(39:50):
these liberal commentators. Point. I get it. But when you
think about when you go back to Ruth Bader Ginsburg
the lawyer, her style, her style is very slow, but
steady wins the race. It's not about installing activist judges
and thinking only about the short term and thinking only
(40:12):
about oh no, we need OBAMAA to appoint a liberal
justice so that we can continue to have this balance
on the court or whatever. It's much more the long view.
And uh, Lynda Greenhouse, who is a Yale Law School
fellow and former New York Times Supreme Court correspondent, talks
about this long view of history that she imagines Ruth
(40:35):
Bader Ginsburg holds. Uh. She says, quote, she has to
believe that justice will win out in the end, or
that if it doesn't, her departure at one point or
another couldn't be the major factor. And Greenhouse goes on
to say, I think this, and I bet Ginsburg does too,
that really it should be up to legislators to legislate.
(40:58):
You shouldn't have a court job. It is to legislate
every single aspect of our lives. Vader Ginsburg is very
in favor of having that two way street, of being
like we're going to rule on something and now society
take it, take it from there. I also wonder too,
if some of this, you know, people watching their watches,
(41:19):
keeping out on their watches to see like, okay, when Ruth,
when are you gonna leave? When are you gonna leave? Gale.
It's partially because she is rather small, and she speaks
rather slowly, and she her staffers even have a trick
where if she says something or they ask her a question,
(41:39):
you wait, you count to like two or three Mississippi,
because she usually just takes a minute naturally to answer you.
So some see that as a sign of her frailty.
But in fact, she still writes incredibly fast. She's one
of the fastest writers and responders still on the court. Well,
she had to be if she was up at two
(41:59):
am writing her husband's papers in law school. Right. Well,
but I thought she told the cutest story because she
is like this woman is hyper aware of what's going
on around her. It's not like she's in some bubble
and she was talking, she was commenting on the view
like she she took too long to stand up from
the bench one time, and people were like, oh, no,
she's so old and frail. And she was like, actually,
(42:21):
do you want to talk about, you know, men not
feeling comfortable kicking off their shoes around women. I kick
off my shoes under the bench, and she's like one
kind of got away from me, and so I couldn't
stand up fast enough because I couldn't find it with
my foot. I mean, God, Dad, I just love her.
I just I think this view that Greenhouse Yalaw Professor
Greenhouse pointed out is so perfect as far as like
(42:44):
the Supreme Court is bigger. Justice in the United States
is bigger than one person on the court. And I
do subscribe to Ginsberg's thought that hey, things, things will
work out. Time is on our side. I certainly hope, So,
I certainly hope. So yeah, I am. I am choosing
(43:08):
to be optimistic. Well, if anything, it makes me really
happy that we have a rock star in an eight
year old Supreme Court justice, woman who worked for her
entire life tirelessly legally advocating for the rights of women.
That's amazing. That to me says that you know, time
(43:31):
maybe is on our side. If if that's our celebrity
right now. If that's the woman we're putting on t shirts,
then the women you know growing up now we'll have
a brighter future. Agreed. So I hope that this satisfied
all of the requests that we've gotten recently for this episode,
(43:52):
and we now want to hear your thoughts on the
notorious r b G send them our way. Mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com is our email address.
Have any of you met her out of curiosity, just
let us know you can email us. You can also
tweet us at mom Stuff podcast and also messages on Facebook.
(44:14):
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. Will I have an email here from
Stacy Regarding best friend, She says, I thought i'd email
as I like possibly everyone feel. My relationship with my
VFF is a little unique. What actually makes our friendships
(44:35):
as special and so important to the both of us
is that we are in the same stage in our
lives and we have the same priorities in our life.
We both decided to leave little Old New Zealand to
seek greener pastures, her to l a myself to Taiwan.
Within two weeks of each other. We were going through
the exact same transitional issues at the same time, and
we're absolutely vital to each other in dealing with homesickness, culture,
(44:57):
shock and decision and the crippling self down that comes
with the job hunt. We don't have our families here
with us, and even if we did, they wouldn't understand
what we were going through in the way that we
need them to. Instead, we have each other, and thank
God for modern technology. I talked to the BFF every
day about every major and trivial thing in my life.
There may be sixty miles between us, but we've made
(45:20):
it seem like nothing. In fact, look at this. The
two of us are writing a book together. It's called
My Best Friend Is Better Than Yours and Other Truths.
She says, keep doing what you're doing. Living in an
Asian country and the weekly dose of English discussion is
always a welcome relief. So thank you, Stacy, and I've
(45:40):
got one here from William. He rights Good evening, ladies.
I'm a big fan of the show and I'm hoping
for some help. I will be running the Detroit Marathon
this year with the Hope Water Project. Our goal is
to drill wells for the Potoc tribe in Kenya, and
they are forgotten people first and foremost. They need a
reliable source of clean water. How is this the women's issue? Well,
(46:02):
the women and children of the po talk walk for
miles daily in search of any water source. Typically they
have to share it with animals and you can only
imagine the filth and disease that comes with it. By
drilling wells, we were able to provide the most valuable
of resources, time, time to be industrious, time to educate
the youth, and time to build a community. To remove
these people from the grips of poverty. Provides the funds
(46:26):
for clean water for one person, and I would love
to have participation from every state of the Union. If
the United States is a country in which we are
able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, I want
to provide these bootstraps on the other side of the world.
I don't know people in all fifty states, and by
the nature of your business, you do be eternally grateful
if you could promote this for me. And I'm not
(46:47):
above bribery. I think there might be a case of
bills too hard, A dale with your name's on us.
If you can help me out things. So everybody go
check out the Hope Water Project and support William who
is running in the Detroit Marathon this year to help
fund that, which sounds like a fantastic initiative. So thanks
(47:10):
to William, and thanks to everybody who's written to us.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address, and if you want to read along with
all of the fantastic sources that we've found about the
notorious RBG, well you can find that podcast, as well
as all of our other podcasts and sources, well as
all of our blogs and videos over its Stuff I've
(47:31):
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
com
Welcome to stuff Mob never told you. From how Supports
dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen. And today this we we are discussing
something that was highly demanded by listeners. We are discussing
a rock star who goes by a notorious RBG, or,
(00:26):
as I call her, the grand Dame of descent, none
other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg has probably been blowing up your social media
feeds of late, because ever since her descent that she
wrote in the Supreme Court case Burrowell Versus Hobby Lobby,
(00:49):
it's as though we cannot stop talking about how incredible
she is. Because this was a thirty five page descent
she wrote in that to that five before Supreme Court ruling,
part of which she read from the bench, which justices
don't typically do. It's basically like a sassy finger snapping Yeah,
(01:09):
if you severely disagree with what the Court has ruled,
you will read your descent from the bench. And I
also like that she, Ruth bid Ginsburg wears a especially
fierce jabeau, which is the name for the judicial caller,
like the lace collar that you might see. She has
(01:31):
one that is it's almost Game of Thrones that she'll
wear when she reads the descent. And so just for
a quick rundown, the Supreme Court ruled five to four
basically that the government cannot require certain employers to provide
insurance coverage for methods of birth control and emergency contraception
that conflict with their religious beliefs. It's popularly called the
(01:54):
hobby lobby decision. And uh, Justice Ginsberg Man, I mean,
she wrote a strongly worded thirty five page descent that
everybody's talking about. Um. I mean, this is hardly her
first foray into women's rights and gender issues. Way more
on that later, But in her descent, she was joined
by Justice set of Mayor, who fully supported it, and
(02:17):
Justices Briar and Kagan who supported all but one section.
And that group right there of Ginsburg, Sta, Mayor, Kagan,
and Briar are considered the liberal group on the Supreme Court.
They tend to vote together, um, and and the three
women in particular and kind of understandably also tend to
(02:38):
vote together. And and just to give you an idea
of this descent, which I feel like there it's not
very often that we here quotes from Supreme Court descents
being circulated almost viral style on social media. But the
Court I fear has ventured into a mind field. Is
(03:01):
a Twitter friendly quote, for instance, from that Descent that
has made its way all around the internet. Yeah, it
was even incorporated into a song by that one guy
who does a song a day project or whatever. He
incorporated that into some of his lyrics. Some other things
that she wrote, um are that, and I think this
is important if you're going to have a discussion about
(03:22):
birth control and reproductive freedom and all that stuff. I mean,
money plays a huge part in this right And one
thing that Ginsburg wrote was it bears note in this
regard that the cost of an i u D is
nearly equivalent to a month's full time pay for workers
earning the minimum wage. So yes, women are still free
who work for hobby lobby to go get an i
(03:45):
u D. They will just have to drop serious cash
for it. Yeah. I d s do not come cheap
at all, but they are the most effective form of
birth control on the market, and they last for up
to five years, so it makes it financially infeasible for
a lot of these women to go and get what
is considered to be the best of the best in
(04:07):
terms of birth control, and a lot of what she
does in this Descent is distinguish the legal protections afforded
to and necessarily afforded to via freedom of religion in
the United States, the legal protections afforded to specific religious
organizations and nonprofit groups from the interests of for profit corporations,
(04:32):
and a lot of what she does is sort of
asked this bigger question of, well, if we offer a
religious exemption in this situation in something that not only
has a bearing, perhaps on women's sexual activity, which gets
way too much focused in the whole birth control debate
in quotes, but also on women's health care in general,
(04:53):
because birth control serves more functions healthcare wise than simply
preventing pregnancy. So if you make this exemption, then where
will that stop. So there's a quote, for instance, from
the Descent saying, would the exemption extend to employers with
religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions such as Jehovah's witnesses,
(05:15):
antidepressants with scientologists, medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids,
and pills coated with gelatin with certain Muslims, Jews and Hindus,
and vaccinations not much help there for the lower courts
bound by today's decision. Hence, as she goes on to
finally conclude the issue of the court venturing into a
(05:38):
potential mind field, Yeah, and um, you know google, definitely
google the full Descent. We won't just read it to you.
This podcast will not just be us reading the Descent
to you, although you know it makes for good reading. Um.
But Ginsburg was interviewed by Katie Kirk in a highly
circulated video and she came out and said that she
(06:03):
does believe that her male colleagues, save Brier, on the bench,
do have a blind spot when it comes to women.
And she went on to tell Katie Kirk that no,
she did not believe that the male justices in this
case understood the ramifications of their decision. And one thing
(06:23):
that jumped out to me in that conversation with Kirk
was how Ginsburg underscored the vital importance of access to
birth control for all women, not just women of higher
socioeconomic means who are not as affected directly by this
hobby lobby decision to be able to control their own,
as she put it, destinies, because if you don't have
(06:45):
access to birth control, that I mean, that takes that
removes so much choice. Yeah. I got into a rather
fruitless Facebook conversation about this with a male Facebook friend
who basically is like, well, you know they're not going
to cover my root canal, so why should they cover
your birth control? And I said, well, but your root
(07:06):
now does not affect your ability to make decisions for
yourself in terms of your life and your family and
your money, because it won't sideline you and take you
out of the workforce the way that maybe an unintended
or unhealthy pregnancy would. Yeah. And when it comes to
this issue freedom of religion, which is something that a
(07:28):
lot of people bring up as well, because obviously that
is a right that needs to be protected, that there's
a fundamental foundation of the u s Constitution. But as
Ginsburg put it so well, and as she she sort
of echoed this in the interview what she wrote in
the Descent about how one has the freedom to move
(07:49):
one's arm until it hits the other fellows knows, And
it's the same way with speech, and it's the same
way with religion. You can exercise your right freely until
it's affecting other people who don't share your views. And
she goes on to talk about how is she this
is nothing against her, you know, thinking that hobby the
owners of hobby Lobby shouldn't believe what they believe. She said,
(08:11):
They're free to believe what they want to. However, you
have no constitutional right to then voice that belief on
the women who work for you. So a lot of
a lot of young women I think our age essentially
did the Internet version of giving her a prolonged standing ovation.
(08:31):
Because hearing that from someone with such power, I think
it was very empowering for us to hear about. I
think that's a big reason why this episode has been
so highly requested. And I'll tell you Caroline that simply
spending a weekend reading all about her for this podcast
(08:52):
was so inspiring because I was not aware. Obviously I
was aware of, you know, work that she's done on
the Supreme Court, but I was not aware of the
extent of her legacy and what she considers her legacy
to be someone who has fought for her entire career
for the rights of women. Yeah, and so when you
(09:13):
have things like the notorious RBG t shirts for instance,
I mean people who created that and other stuff like
stickers that they posted all around d C and everything.
These people worshiped her before this hobby lobby case even
came around because of her amazing legacy. So her descents
in two cases Fisher versus University of Texas, which weakened
(09:35):
affirmative action laws and Shelby County versus Holder, which weakened
the Voting Rights Act, led to n y U law
students Shanna nis Nik creating that notorious RBG tumbler that
I'm sure a lot of you have already been to,
and Amina to Sao and Frank Chi creating the can't
spell Truth without Ruth stickers that ended up getting posted
(09:56):
all over d C. And what's so awesome is at
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is aware of this stuff. She was
somebody walked up to her in a restaurant and showed
her the stickers, and she has she had to ask
her staff like, what is this notorious business? And they
explained that, I mean, you know, you're talking about notorious
(10:18):
b I G. Who's this large African American man with
a large presence and it's being applied to teeny tiny
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a rapper. I mean, that's the thing.
It's like gangster rapper. And you have this like ty
little Jewish woman who weighs like as much as a
handful of pebbles, but she's so powerful. And there is
(10:40):
this incredibly charming part of that Katie Kirk interview where
Kirk asks her about the notorious RBG stuff, and she's
clearly tickled and at one point says, there is nothing
on the website that is not both pleasing and humorous
(11:00):
and in this massive grin, so she she knows she's
a rock star. And there was an article in The
New Republic that I posted a while back now on
the stuff I've Never Told You Facebook page about this
notorious RBG like Internet fame focus on Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(11:20):
And then you also have sort of in the same
vein the text with Hillary Clinton where she's wearing sunglasses
and it's this very funny meme and also the Internet
fame that broke out around uh Texas politician Wendy Davis.
And it's important because it's essentially millennial women and men
(11:44):
providing this I don't know, like new form of coolness
to these radically powerful women who for a long time,
uh or maybe not treated as such awesome rock stars
by young people. Yeah. I mean generally society's view of
powerful women is not necessarily an overwhelmingly positive one. But
(12:08):
then you do have these young whipper snappers. I'm thirty,
I can say that. I mean this this younger generation
of like more liberal feminist individuals coming up who were like,
right on, you're a strong, powerful woman, and you're sticking
up for other people's rights, and we're going to celebrate
you the only way we knew how, which is on
the internet, which means a bajillion other people can celebrate
(12:29):
with us. Yeah. And it's not only just a celebration
but also an acknowledgement of these women as role models.
And I think it's it's exciting. Um. And one other
word about the descents, because it has been Ruth Bader
Ginsburg's descents, particularly in Supreme Court season, that propelled her
(12:53):
internet fame. Just for a note, she read from the
bench her descents five times last year, which is pretty
much unprecedented for a justice. She's fired up and she's
going to put on her fierce Game of Thrones esque
Jabou and read her descent. You can't stop Ruth. You
(13:14):
can't stop Ruth, cannot stop Ruth. So who though is Ruth?
Who is the real notorious RBG Caroline. Yeah, because you
can tell in our voices that we are glowing talking
about her because she is so amazing. Well, so what
made her that way? And we will certainly look into
that in just a moment. So. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was
(13:43):
born Ruth Joan Bader in Brooklyn during the Great Depression,
and she told makers that when she was growing up,
her mother gave her two important pieces of advice. One,
be a lady, I don't be distracted by anger or resentment.
They only stap energy and waste time, which I think
she clearly has taken to heart. And to be independent.
(14:06):
She said she hoped I would meet Prince Charming, but
she stressed the importance of being able to make it
on my own. Yeah. Well, so I think she definitely
took these pieces of advice to heart. She ended up
going to Cornell where she met future husband Marty Ginsburg.
She was seventeen, he was eighteen. They married in nineteen
fifty four, right after she graduated, and he himself would
(14:27):
become a very accomplished lawyer. And listening to listening to
her talk about Marty is like I people just hoped
to find that kind of life partner. She said that
what she really appreciated about him was that he really
cared about what I thought. And she said, and this
(14:47):
during a time when most men hoped that women didn't
have a brain. Now, her family wanted her to marry Marty.
That's really fine, but just be a high school teacher.
And they were kind of disappointed when she decided to
pursue law, but at the same time, they were relieved
that she was at least married. Yeah, And they said, hey,
at least she has a husband whole supporter, and when
(15:09):
she goes off on this crazy adventure, well, it would
be a crazy adventure because when she got into Harvard Law,
where Marty also ended up going with her, she was
one of nine women in a class of more than
five hundred. Yeah. And she admitted to makers also that
she definitely felt the pressure all eyes on you, and
(15:31):
she had this feeling that if you failed, if you
answered a question wrong, if you didn't do something up
to standard, you were failing your entire sex. She definitely
had that pressure writing on top of her. But during
this time she wasn't just another law student. She was
also a mom of fourteen month old Jane, So on
top of her coursework and caring for the kiddo, Ruth
(15:54):
also ended up taking Marty's classes and writing his papers
for him because he was being treated for testicular cancer.
And so she says it was during this time in
her life that she realized how little sleep she could
get by on and how much she could stretch her
day out because she had to go to class, you know,
come home, take care of the baby, do Marty's work,
(16:14):
and then do her own work when she slept eight
or used the bathroom. I have no idea. Yeah, just
reading about that made me tired. Yeah. And then she
graduated law school from Columbia, not Harvard, because even though
she was ranked first in her class at Harvard Law,
the dean at the time just refused to grant her
(16:36):
a degree, seeing how she was a woman and even
though she had done her coursework there. But thankfully Columbia
accepted her and graduated her. And when it came time
for jobs, she received no offers. The same thing happened
to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the
first female justice on the Supreme Court. And at one
(16:59):
point she even had to explain to it might have
been that dean at Harvard or a professor at Harvard,
how she was going to justify taking a job that
should be going to a man at a law firm.
So that was the climate when she got out of
law school. Yeah, and because she couldn't find a job,
(17:19):
she ended up being a law professor amid a bunch
of other things that she was doing at the time.
And we will definitely talk about this in just a
second when we look at her legal career. Um she
taught at Rutgers and received tenure there in nineteen sixty nine.
But more recently in her personal life, she has experienced
a lot of health problems that have led a lot
of people to continue to question this poor woman about
(17:40):
when she's going to retire. Just leave her alone already.
But anyway, in n was treated for colon cancer, and
in two thousand nine she underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.
But the woman never missed a single oral argument during
those periods. She always made sure to get her treatments
on a Friday, so she had the weekend to recover
her so she could be back on the bench on Monday.
(18:02):
And who advised her to do that, standard O'Connor. That's right,
because she did the same thing. Yep. And when her husband,
Marty died in two thousand and ten, Ruth Peter Ginsburg
was on the bench the next day to hear arguments
because quote, that's what he would have wanted. So there's
really no stopping Ruth. It's true. And when you look
(18:24):
at her career, even before she is appointed to the
Supreme Court, it is nothing short of incredible. And if
you are a woman listening to this podcast, pay attention
because Ruth Peter Ginsburg has done a whole lot for you. Yeah.
And I thought that um New Yorker writer Jeffrey Tubbins
(18:46):
profile of her was so fascinating, so enlightening. It really
hit home how just how brilliant and accomplished she is.
She is the current courts most accomplished litigator, and Tubin
points out that part of her success is that Ginsberg
had quote exquisite timing. She brought women's rights cases at
(19:07):
precisely the moment the Supreme Court was willing to decide
them in her favor. And as we'll talk about, she
also had a very strict m O that she pursued
as far as bringing these cases because she didn't believe
in trying to set up all the dominoes at once
and knocked them all down at once. She believed in
going after all of these stereotypes about women that were
written into law, that were actual policy, and just knocking
(19:30):
them down one by one. And one of the ways
that she was able to do that too was by
presenting cases that demonstrated not necessarily how gender discrimination negatively
impacts women, but how negatively impacts men. Because if you
were bringing these cases before a Supreme Court at the
time filled with all male justices, then you need to
(19:53):
get inside their heads some so that they can relate
more closely to that. And that was another strategy that
she used that made her so successful in front of
the court. And in the nineteen sixties, this was the
Supreme Court uh the Warren Court, and she talked about
how during the era of the Warren Court, discrimination against
(20:17):
women was seen as more of a protective thing. So
there was this case where, um, there was a discrimination
case involving allowing women to be on jerry's because at
the time men had to go for jerry duty, but
it was only I think it was just optional for women.
And there was a case involving I think a wife
(20:39):
being murdered by a husband. There was a history of
domestic violence, and the guy ended up getting off partially
because there was an all male jury. And so she
was talking about how, you know, the first thing they
had to do was dismantle these sort of paternalistic and
protective ideas that were essentially it's discrimination just under the
(21:03):
guise of something that's actually doing women a favor. Well,
you don't. You don't have to be on a jury
and hear all those gory details if you don't want
to be right. And it's interesting to hear her take
on the court, the warr In court of the sixties,
and how she then echoes that when she talks about
her male colleagues in the hobby lobby case having a
blind spot, because she says that, I don't think and
(21:25):
this is the warr In court, I don't think they
regarded discrimination against women as discrimination at all. These are
people who thought they were good fathers. They were good
husbands and they didn't understand barriers that women faced as discriminatory,
and so just talking about how important, like Christan said,
it was to dismantle all of those preconceived notions. So
in the nineteen sixties, she is working as the associate
(21:48):
director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure,
which sends her to Sweden. So she's like, oh, what
am I gonna do. I'm just gonna teach myself Swedish
and so she did, big deal. So she then travels
to Sweden learns all about their legal system while she's
working with Swedish University's faculty and writing a book about
(22:08):
their legal system. And this was that this was highly
influential period for her because this is what really got
her thinking about the intersection and importance of women in
the law. So in Sweden, she was at the University
of Lundon. She noted to her interviewer that of the
school's students were women versus four percent of law students
(22:32):
in the US. During this time, Also, she observed a
core proceeding where the judge was an eight months pregnant lady.
I mean, I guess as opposed to an eight months
pregnant man. And it wasn't weird, it wasn't a thing.
It was just life. It was just a judge who cares.
It was just Sweden. It was just Sweden. And also
at this time, an Arizona woman was in the news
(22:54):
a lot for traveling to Sweden for an abortion after
she had taken the lidamide in the U s which
is known to cause a lot of terrible birth effects.
And then Bader Ginsburg read Simone de Beauvoirs Second Sex,
and she says that was an eye opener. Maybe the
law can catch up to changes in society. Yeah, it's
(23:15):
this complete, almost like the perfect storm of all these
things going on around her and all the experiences that
she had faced. Even when it came to her working
at Columbia Law School, she completely acknowledges that that was
a byproduct of affirmative actions starting to take place, of
people saying, okay, you top tier schools, do you have
(23:37):
a woman. Do you have a woman? Do you have
your woman? And she was like, I'll be a woman.
I'll be someone's woman. Take me um. And so in
the seventies she's still a professor. She's also a litigator,
and she is arguing several of the most important women's
rights cases in the Supreme Court's history. And I believe
(23:57):
she went before the Court five times one four of
her cases, which, in case you aren't great with statistics,
that's a really good record. And she worked to persuade
the justices at the time that the Constitution was not dead.
This is really significant. So this idea of a living constitution,
(24:19):
in other words, that what the framers are are, like
constitutional framers wrote, is something that can evolve alongside society. Yeah,
And one of her big cases was in nineteen seventy one,
it was Read versus Read. She succeeded in persuading the
justices that a clause in the Fourteenth Amendment applied not
(24:41):
just to race, but also to sex. And it's the
clauset says no state shall deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. And building
off of that success at early success, like I said earlier,
she made an effort to slowly and steadily go after
these government policies that descrimin needed based on sex, and
(25:02):
a few significant milestones in the seventies, she co founded
the Women's Rights Law Reporter, the first law journal in
the US devoted to gender equality issues. That was in
nineteen seventy. In nineteen seventy two, she became the first
tenured woman at Columbia Law School. Like I said, she
was like, I'll be your woman here. Let let it
(25:22):
be me. And she also co founded the Women's Rights
Project at the a c. L U to take on
issues of gender discrimination. And then in nineteen seventy four
she co authored the very first textbook on sex discrimination law.
This woman literally wrote the book on sex discrimination, gender discrimination,
(25:43):
women's rights in the legal context in the United States. Yeah,
and so as far as uprooting gender discrimination, you know,
Kristen mentioned earlier that Banner Ginsburg thought it was very
important to not just show how women were being hurt
by gender discrimination, but to show that men, especially fathers,
were also being hurt too. In nine five, she argued
a sex discrimination case on a man's behalf, Stephen Weisenfeld,
(26:07):
who was a widower who was not allowed to collect
Social Security benefits after his wife had died. Now, these
are benefits that if Steven had died, his wife would
have been able to go to the office collect these benefits.
You know, have money to support her and the child.
Why it doesn't make any sense. Why would the man
not be allowed to collect benefits when his wife had
(26:29):
died because the wife wasn't the breadwinner? Caroline right, And
so Bader Ginsburg is talking about this stereotype that had
been written into law, the one she wanted to undo
in this case was the idea of man as breadwinner,
woman as caretaker. The the idea that was etched in
stone at the time that it couldn't be the other
way around. And even if a man was a breadwinner,
(26:49):
why would he ever want to collect benefits in the
wake of his spouse's death. And she won, of course,
because she is the notorious RBG has always been as
all she's pretty much has always been. And so Jimmy
Carter President, Jimmy Carter peanut farmer, uh in nineteen eighty
he recognized that there was a notorious RBG in his
(27:11):
midst and so he appointed her to the DC Circuit Court.
But she did not use her position. It's often noted
to be some kind of liberal fire brand. Uh. There
there was a Columbia Law School professor Jamal Green who
said she fundamentally does not believe that large scale social
change should come from the courts, which is notable because
(27:35):
we often here today, especially with these kinds of cases
such as the hobby Lobby decision coming out about activist judges,
and while Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be seen at
by conservatives as one of those activist judges, that is
fundamentally not the way she sees the function of the court. Yeah,
it's not her style. She did actually take issue with
(27:57):
roe versus Wade. I was. I knew nothing about this.
I was. I was pretty surprised to read it. But
it makes sense when you look at her style. She
thought that Roe versus Wade sort of bulldozed the conversation.
She wanted to see the abortion debate, the abortion legislation,
the abortion court decisions go the way that her sex
discrimination cases did, take it down one at a time. Basically,
(28:20):
open a dialogue with legislators. Don't tell them, here's what
your deal is, guys. You open that dialogue to say,
here's a ruling, go forth and make it right. Well,
and that is probably why you see the Court handling
gay marriage and the United States in the way that
it is. It's taking it more on a. I mean,
(28:41):
it was able to take care of the federal aspect
of gay marriage in terms of taking out that clause
in Doma, but when it comes to the state by
state gay marriage laws, they want to leave it for
now at least up to the states. And she talks
about how with o versus Wade, what it did was
(29:04):
its focused on Texas, which had the most intense, surprise
UH anti abortion laws in the country at the time,
and she said that by sort of wrapping the whole
issue of legalized abortion up into one decision, that actually
gave anti abortion activists a single target to unify around
(29:28):
and actually empowered them in a way to you know,
to to make their campaign even more Um, I don't
know even more powerful what you could say, because what
are we seeing right now? We're seeing Roe v. Wade
being eroded? Guess what, state by state? And then in
n three, RBG is appointed to the Supreme Court by
(29:53):
President Bill Clinton. She becomes the second woman and the
first Jewish woman to sit on the bench. Yeah, she
joined Sandard O'Connor, who had been the lone woman on
the court since Reagan appointed her in N one. And
then when Sandard O'Connor stepped down. She retired from the
court in order to care for her husband. In two
(30:16):
thousand six, she was replaced by Samuel Alito, and ripe
to Ginsburg was a little bummed out by it, Let's
be honest, because Alito way more conservative than Sandrad O'Connor. Well, so,
then in the mid to late two thousand's, um, we
see Ginsburg like really becoming this this four I mean,
(30:37):
not that she wasn't a force already, but we see
her passion clearly in in a few specific cases. Well,
she starts dissenting, she becomes what do you call her?
The Queen of descent, the grand Dame of descent. Um.
If anyone wants to put that on a T shirt,
I'll take it. Um. So there are two cases in
two thousand seven that are super big and important, she
(30:57):
wrote a beautiful descent in Gonzala versus Carhart, which is
the case where the court upheld the federal ban on
part partial birth abortions with no provisions for a mother's
life being endangered. So, writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy wrote,
while we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon,
it seems unexceptionable to conclude, some women come to regret
(31:21):
their choice to abort the infant life they once created
and sustained. And then I picture Ginsburg like flaming up
like a phoenix from the fire and writing a dissent,
and she says that Kennedy invoked an anti abortion chibalist,
for which it concededly has no reliable evidence. Women who
have abortions come to regret their choices and consequently suffer
(31:43):
from quote severe depression and loss of self esteem. This
way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in
the family and under the constitution, ideas that have long
since been discredited. Well, and who helped discredit those ideas
she did? She did so her The fact that she
(32:03):
writes these powerful descents makes so much sense what you
once you see her legal legacy leading up to that,
and in that descent to she pointed out that the
protection of reproductive rights is not about some quote vague
or generalized notion of privacy, but rather about quote a
woman's autonomy to decide for herself her life's course and
(32:26):
thus enjoy equal citizenship stature. And that right there goes
right back to what she was talking about to Katie
Kirk about the importance of birth control access in terms
of a woman controlling her own destiny. That's absolutely right.
And so also in two thousand seven you get the
Lily lad Better case being thrown out, and don't worry,
(32:47):
we'll explain Ginsburg writing another slow dunk descent. So basically,
long stray short, Lily lead Better had been working for
a good year. She had climbed up the ladder to
become a manager. Found out after she retired that she
the whole time had been making a lot less than
her male counterparts, including men not only on her own level,
but even men below her, were making more. She sues
(33:09):
and a jury awards her nearly four million dollars. Awesome, okay,
but Goodyear appealed and the case made it all the
way up to the Supreme Court, who then throws it out.
Justice Alito, writing the opinion for the court, basically said
that Leadbetter had waited too long and that claims for
pay discrimination had to be brought within a hundred eighty
days of the violation, which would have been a little
(33:32):
crazy when you think about it, because that means she
would have had to appeal each and every paycheck. So
in her descent, Ginsburg said, how could she have appealed
the stuff when she didn't even know? She said, the
court's insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.
And this goes back to a or forward, I guess
(33:53):
to a conversation that I feel like has been going
on a lot lately, which is, you know, the conversation
of do you be polite and not talk with your
coworkers about how much you make? Because that being polite
means that a lot of women don't realize that they're
making a lot less than their male counterparts. And so
Ginsburg and this is another descent that she read from
(34:13):
the bench, meaning that she was really pod She basically
invited Congress to overturn her colleagues decision, which is super
powerful because so she she is not known for like
fiery or flowery language in her descents that she writes,
So when she read her descent from the bench, she
also made it more colloquial so that it could get
(34:37):
picked up by legislators and by people on the internet
and by news outlets so they could easily turn it
into sound bites and spread it. And it spread like
wildfire Girl. She invited Congress to overturn the decision, putting
it front and center in the media. And one of
the first things that Barack Obama did when he became
president was to sign a bill into law over ruling
(34:58):
the lad Better case. And so then we get the
Lily Lead Better Fair Pay Act of two thousand nine.
Bamp dropped the mic notorious. So right now, these dissents
that she has been writing and notably reading from the
bench are crucial because it's not just an exercise in
a Supreme Court justice grabbing the mic and saying, well,
(35:20):
this is why I disagree with you. But actually that
is a process of law making, because there have been
cases and she thinks there will be more cases where
decisions are overturned and enacted in favor of the dissenting opinion. So,
when she's talking to Katie Kuric about the Hobby Lobby
(35:45):
decision and also Citizens United, which is a very closely
aligned decision sort of teed up for Hobby Lobby, which
is the Supreme Court decision that essentially rendered you know,
corporations being treated as people. She thinks that eventually at
least Hobby Lobby will be overturned. That in the future,
(36:08):
the descent that she writes will get its do it
will get its its day in court. And I mean, clearly,
we've established that she is all about women's right, it's
all about reproductive choice, all about feminism, etcetera. And she
thinks though that that all of this is so important
specifically not just because it affects women, but it's also
(36:31):
because it affects poor women. In particular, she has said
when it comes to ro versus Wade and now birth
control access are e hobby lobby quote, we have a
policy that affects only poor women and it can never
be otherwise. And I don't know why this hasn't been
said more often. The basic thing is that the government
has no business making that choice for a woman. And
(36:54):
she goes on to say, I think the side that
wants to take the choice away from women and give
it to the state, they're fighting a losing battle time
is on the side of change. Well, the question, though
Ruth pitter Ginsberg is eighty one years old, the question is, well,
who is going to be the agent of that change.
It is not going to be Chief Justice John Roberts
(37:16):
and Alito and Scalia, who I really enjoyed the fact
that Scalia and Druth Pittter Ginsberg actually pretty close. Yeah, Trivia,
Ruth and Marty would spend every New Year's Eve with
Scalia and his wife, and they often went to the
opera together. Yeah. So because I mean she thinks, like,
you know, this is business. Obviously, it's okay if you disagree. Um,
(37:39):
and and they both have tremendous respect for each other.
But who is it going to be? I mean, the
women on the court is very important because of that
issue that she talked about in the beginning of uh
that we mentioned in the beginning about perspective and male
justice is possibly sometimes having that blind spot. Yeah, and
(38:02):
I mean she she talks like, part of the reason
it's so critical for women to be at the table,
you know, in the Supreme Court is the same reason
that it's important for women to be at any table,
is that if you lose those other perspectives, you lose
a lot. You lose a lot more than just a
woman talking, You lose an entire lifetime of experience, especially
from someone's amazing and experienced as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Well,
(38:27):
and on the plus side, when it comes to the court.
Elena Kagan is not only the newest justice, but she's
also the youngest justice. She'll be there for a while
along with Sony, said a mayor. But now the big
question when it comes to Ruth beder Ginsburg, now that
we love her so much, everyone's asking her to leave.
Isn't that funny? Yeah? And I I I think you
(38:49):
should stop asking people when they're going to retire um
and leave her alone. But I mean, she's handling it
so graciously. She's like, look, guys, I'm fine. I'm gonna
stick around until i just can't do it anymore and
then I'll stop. But I mean, there is a strategy
behind the pressure being put on her to leave now
(39:10):
while there is a Democrat in office, because you know
then it will be Obama selecting her successor. So people
are saying, you know what, Ruth, go ahead and you
make an exit. That way, we will be guaranteed to
have another liberal justice in your place, because if the
(39:30):
next president is a Republican a lot more conservative, there
bore probably tap a conservative replacement should she leave during
that term, and then the court would be overwhelmingly conservative,
even with Kennedy's swing vote yes. And I mean I
can I can see the logic in a lot of
(39:50):
these liberal commentators. Point. I get it. But when you
think about when you go back to Ruth Bader Ginsburg
the lawyer, her style, her style is very slow, but
steady wins the race. It's not about installing activist judges
and thinking only about the short term and thinking only
(40:12):
about oh no, we need OBAMAA to appoint a liberal
justice so that we can continue to have this balance
on the court or whatever. It's much more the long view.
And uh, Lynda Greenhouse, who is a Yale Law School
fellow and former New York Times Supreme Court correspondent, talks
about this long view of history that she imagines Ruth
(40:35):
Bader Ginsburg holds. Uh. She says, quote, she has to
believe that justice will win out in the end, or
that if it doesn't, her departure at one point or
another couldn't be the major factor. And Greenhouse goes on
to say, I think this, and I bet Ginsburg does too,
that really it should be up to legislators to legislate.
(40:58):
You shouldn't have a court job. It is to legislate
every single aspect of our lives. Vader Ginsburg is very
in favor of having that two way street, of being
like we're going to rule on something and now society
take it, take it from there. I also wonder too,
if some of this, you know, people watching their watches,
(41:19):
keeping out on their watches to see like, okay, when Ruth,
when are you gonna leave? When are you gonna leave? Gale.
It's partially because she is rather small, and she speaks
rather slowly, and she her staffers even have a trick
where if she says something or they ask her a question,
(41:39):
you wait, you count to like two or three Mississippi,
because she usually just takes a minute naturally to answer you.
So some see that as a sign of her frailty.
But in fact, she still writes incredibly fast. She's one
of the fastest writers and responders still on the court. Well,
she had to be if she was up at two
(41:59):
am writing her husband's papers in law school. Right. Well,
but I thought she told the cutest story because she
is like this woman is hyper aware of what's going
on around her. It's not like she's in some bubble
and she was talking, she was commenting on the view
like she she took too long to stand up from
the bench one time, and people were like, oh, no,
she's so old and frail. And she was like, actually,
(42:21):
do you want to talk about, you know, men not
feeling comfortable kicking off their shoes around women. I kick
off my shoes under the bench, and she's like one
kind of got away from me, and so I couldn't
stand up fast enough because I couldn't find it with
my foot. I mean, God, Dad, I just love her.
I just I think this view that Greenhouse Yalaw Professor
Greenhouse pointed out is so perfect as far as like
(42:44):
the Supreme Court is bigger. Justice in the United States
is bigger than one person on the court. And I
do subscribe to Ginsberg's thought that hey, things, things will
work out. Time is on our side. I certainly hope, So,
I certainly hope. So yeah, I am. I am choosing
(43:08):
to be optimistic. Well, if anything, it makes me really
happy that we have a rock star in an eight
year old Supreme Court justice, woman who worked for her
entire life tirelessly legally advocating for the rights of women.
That's amazing. That to me says that you know, time
(43:31):
maybe is on our side. If if that's our celebrity
right now. If that's the woman we're putting on t shirts,
then the women you know growing up now we'll have
a brighter future. Agreed. So I hope that this satisfied
all of the requests that we've gotten recently for this episode,
(43:52):
and we now want to hear your thoughts on the
notorious r b G send them our way. Mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com is our email address.
Have any of you met her out of curiosity, just
let us know you can email us. You can also
tweet us at mom Stuff podcast and also messages on Facebook.
(44:14):
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you right now. Will I have an email here from
Stacy Regarding best friend, She says, I thought i'd email
as I like possibly everyone feel. My relationship with my
VFF is a little unique. What actually makes our friendships
(44:35):
as special and so important to the both of us
is that we are in the same stage in our
lives and we have the same priorities in our life.
We both decided to leave little Old New Zealand to
seek greener pastures, her to l a myself to Taiwan.
Within two weeks of each other. We were going through
the exact same transitional issues at the same time, and
we're absolutely vital to each other in dealing with homesickness, culture,
(44:57):
shock and decision and the crippling self down that comes
with the job hunt. We don't have our families here
with us, and even if we did, they wouldn't understand
what we were going through in the way that we
need them to. Instead, we have each other, and thank
God for modern technology. I talked to the BFF every
day about every major and trivial thing in my life.
There may be sixty miles between us, but we've made
(45:20):
it seem like nothing. In fact, look at this. The
two of us are writing a book together. It's called
My Best Friend Is Better Than Yours and Other Truths.
She says, keep doing what you're doing. Living in an
Asian country and the weekly dose of English discussion is
always a welcome relief. So thank you, Stacy, and I've
(45:40):
got one here from William. He rights Good evening, ladies.
I'm a big fan of the show and I'm hoping
for some help. I will be running the Detroit Marathon
this year with the Hope Water Project. Our goal is
to drill wells for the Potoc tribe in Kenya, and
they are forgotten people first and foremost. They need a
reliable source of clean water. How is this the women's issue? Well,
(46:02):
the women and children of the po talk walk for
miles daily in search of any water source. Typically they
have to share it with animals and you can only
imagine the filth and disease that comes with it. By
drilling wells, we were able to provide the most valuable
of resources, time, time to be industrious, time to educate
the youth, and time to build a community. To remove
these people from the grips of poverty. Provides the funds
(46:26):
for clean water for one person, and I would love
to have participation from every state of the Union. If
the United States is a country in which we are
able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, I want
to provide these bootstraps on the other side of the world.
I don't know people in all fifty states, and by
the nature of your business, you do be eternally grateful
if you could promote this for me. And I'm not
(46:47):
above bribery. I think there might be a case of
bills too hard, A dale with your name's on us.
If you can help me out things. So everybody go
check out the Hope Water Project and support William who
is running in the Detroit Marathon this year to help
fund that, which sounds like a fantastic initiative. So thanks
(47:10):
to William, and thanks to everybody who's written to us.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address, and if you want to read along with
all of the fantastic sources that we've found about the
notorious RBG, well you can find that podcast, as well
as all of our other podcasts and sources, well as
all of our blogs and videos over its Stuff I've
(47:31):
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com