If you are part of a minority group, any minority group, you have a responsibility to affect change for your community for all future generations to come. Nobody could have taught us that better than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
To be truthful, I did not know of her as much until after her death. Now the more I read of her, the more I want to learn and the more my eyes well up with tears rioting for release. To think that this woman, this diminutive soft-spoken woman made such fundamental changes to what we take for granted today is nothing short of confounding. Without her work (link) as part of the US Justice system
- state funded schools in the US could choose to not admit woman
- bank accounts or mortgages could no be held by woman without a man co-signer
- equal pay for equal work for woman and men would not have gotten better
- pregnant women at the workplace would not be protected
- same sex marriages would not be a reality
These are all the things I take for granted today thanks to this woman's groundbreaking contributions! This woman who cared for her newborn daughter and husband suffering from cancer at the same time all while attending Harvard herself and typing papers dictated by her husband for his academia! This woman who herself suffered 5 bouts of cancer and underwent chemo and radiation therapy without missing a day on the bench even at an advanced age of 67 and beyond. This woman, who, even in her death, makes history for women as the first woman to lie in state at the US Capitol after 34 men have had this honor in the last 160+ years.
All of us women, all around the world, must honor her legacy by doing our part in taking this crusade for equal rights forward. Not all of us can be legends, however a crucial step for womanhood each of us must undertake is to believe in one self, in one's ability to be an equal player at home and beyond and to not let anything deter from that faith. Covid has pushed woman's liberation back 20 years with far reaching social and economic consequences from mass unemployment and from the need to provide in-home childcare the burden of which falls disproportionately on women. However, this is not the time to give up - this is just our first of 5 cancers and we must forge forward, with more resolve than ever before! Women must participate in decision making, women must be independent and women must insist on equal rights at home and beyond, with parenting and economic contributions shared with men.
Let's not give up on the good fight! Let us all, in our small ways, be part of a history where our daughters and granddaughters can look back in disbelief that there was once a world where equality was not a given.
