Earlier this week, I spent over an hour in line [on a weeknight, in a dress, during a pandemic] in order to pay my final respects to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Yes, I often vehemently disagreed with her.
But this is a THREAD on the respect I have for her, anyway.
I am fully aware that the first woman on SCOTUS was Sandra Day O'Connor, not RBG. But in many respects, O'Connor was "before my time." She retired from the bench when I was in grade school. It was RBG, rather, who stood prominent before me as a woman pursuing a career in law.
And despite all the differences in our respective legal philosophies, Justice Ginsburg and women like her not only paved my way, but sometimes cut down trees to clear a path that didn't initially exist.
Where law schools recruited me, Justice Ginsburg dealt with a dean who would dare look her straight in the face and imply her spot should have gone to a man.
Where I know my career wouldn't be in jeopardy should I start a family, RBG hid her pregnancy until tenure was assured.
She was denied a clerkship because of her gender. She was paid less than her male colleagues. Both the law and society treated her differently because she was a woman.
She had the courage to take them on. To change them.
And I have benefitted immensely because of it.
You see, when I first started pursuing a career in law, it wasn't just a matter of, "Oh, well, if RBG can do it, so can I."
No. Because of Justice Ginsburg and many women like her, it simply never occurred to me that I couldn't.
Not once did I have to question whether there was a job I could not hold, a career I could pursue, or a position I could not attain because of my gender.
Why?
Because there was Ruth Bader Ginsburg not just on the bench, but everywhere. On mugs, on shirts, on memes.
She was everywhere, and she was THERE. On the highest court. And there was nothing I could not be.
And no matter how many times I internally ranted at her opinions, I was reading HER famous dissents in MY casebook.
And there was no one with whom I could not also dissent.
Then I would see her friendship with Justice Scalia.
And there was no one with whom I could not also be friends.
There will be time enough to talk about the woman who will fill her seat - and yes, it will be a woman.
But for now, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol, I will look at her remarkable life...and I will know that she made mine better.
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