Thoughts on RBG from Martha Plimpton & the A is For Team
Yesterday, I tried to describe the impact Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had on my life when I posted this short but from the heart reflection on my Instagram account. Since then, it’s gone mini-viral, so I figured I’d share it with you directly.
Because of her, when I turned 18 I could apply for and receive a credit card without a male signatory.
Because of her, when I bought my house, I could apply for a mortgage without being married and without having a male co-sign.
Because of her, I could be called to do my civic duty and serve on a jury without being exempted on account of being a woman.
Because of her I grew up believing I had a claim to my personhood as an equally vested citizen of my country.
These changes happened in my own lifetime. And yet, my whole growing up, so deeply effected by her efforts, I never knew it was because of her and the countless clerks and lawyers she worked with arguing six of the most critical cases affecting women and families the Supreme Court had yet heard.
She changed this country for women. For EVERYONE. Because women's rights are HUMAN RIGHTS. Because of her, I realized my own potential as a professional, a homeowner, a person with credit, with assets, with independence. My thanks to this woman are inexpressible.
No matter where you begin, where you land is still, potentially, unknown. This devotion of hers to equality, not just to "being equal" but to the concept of equality as a dynamic and not a fixed standard, made her one of the most consequential legal and cultural minds of the 20th and 21st centuries. She's my hero. Thank you, Justice Ginsburg, for everything. #BECAUSEOFHER
Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood that women are human beings entitled to the full rights of citizenship, and she devoted her life to trying to make the law reflect that truth in a time when it wasn’t so obvious to the culture at large as it is now. A time that was not so long ago.
When she enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956, she was one of only 9 women in a class of nearly 500 men. She was turned away from a law library on the Harvard campus because only men were allowed inside. The Dean of Harvard Law asked her and the eight other women why they were taking the place of other, equally qualified men? Ginsburg responded by becoming the first woman to be on both the Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review, graduating from the latter tied for first in her class.
She knew that Americans, in fact all human beings, shared the same rights and privileges inherently afforded them under the Constitution and, surely, by the most fundamental understanding of Human Rights in general.
In her words, “Individual potential must not be restrained, nor equal opportunity limited, by law-sanctioned stereotypical prejudgment.”
She wrote those words in arguing for a woman named Susan Struck, who was pregnant and told she would lose her job if she didn’t have an abortion. It was a case Ginsburg hoped would set a precedent that would help overturn anti-abortion laws. It never made it to trial.
Instead, the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 overturned anti-abortion laws based on a right to privacy, which she, presciently, felt was too broad. Over the decades since we have seen the right to access abortion chipped away at by TRAP laws and other state-based restrictions. So much so that today abortion is less accessible across the country than it was before Roe v. Wade, even if it remains legal in all 50 states. A fact too many anti-abortion forces would have us forget.
One of the most wonderful things about the Notorious RBG love-fest in the last few years is that it’s a celebration of the quiet, determined, and patient work that goes into shaping the laws that shape our lives. Our lives are different now because of cases she argued, and won, years before she became only the second woman ever to serve on our Supreme Court.
All of us at A is For owe a debt to Ruth Bader Ginsburg that can never be fully expressed. We love her, we thank her, and we thank you for helping us honor her legacy by making sure that we all vote up and down the ballot this November.
Thank you for your continuing support and for joining with us in celebrating and honoring the life of a woman who fought for access to things we are all benefiting from today. Let’s pledge that we will share those victories, and that legacy, with everyone we come into contact with. And never forget that the rights we take for granted, the rights Justice Ginsburg worked so hard to ensure, can be taken away from us if we don’t remain vigilant. Let’s be sure to #MakeHerMemoryARevolution.
Share your tributes and feelings about what Ruth Bader Ginsburg means to you by using the hashtag #BecauseofHer and let us read them by including @aisfororg in your posts. We want to know what her work and victories mean to you. We want your voice to be shared.
Our love and thanks,
Martha Plimpton and the A is For Team
Board President & Co-Founder