The Notorious RBG

Dave and I finally got around to seeing the hugely successful documentary, "RBG" yesterday at our favorite theater, the Enzian. This film, about one of the most famous people on the planet, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is totally entertaining from start to finish - no matter how you feel about her being an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court for the last 25 years.

The film begins with tiny, 85 year old RBG working out at the gym.  It's inspiring and hilarious.

Ruth and Marty.  A 56 year long
love affair. 

I used to tell folks that, unlike Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I pretty easily got a job in the late 1950s.  Why?  Because I was right out of high school and could type.  RBG was right out of Columbia Law School and could not. 

Watching the film yesterday reminded me of why I was so drawn to the Women's Movement in the early 1960s.   It made me feel proud again, not only of RBG, but of myself and others as well in all that we did to tilt cultural windmills.

RBG and her polar opposite Justice
Anthony Scalia, not only attending
the opera together, but actually in
the opera together. 

What else do I have in common with this notorious feminist icon?  Well, we have about a five year difference in age.  We're both short.  I'm 5 foot 3 inches tall.  She's 5 foot nothing.  We were both married to men who thought we could do anything.  In the film, the love story between RBG and her husband, Marty, is magnificent. 

Likewise the story of her famous relationship with Justice Anthony Scalia is amazing and touching.  Proving once again that people can love and respect each other and still have very differing opinions. 

When my daughter was in law school she had a friend who described herself as an anti-feminist.  I found it hard to believe that this smart young woman didn't know, or didn't appreciate,  what kind of trail blazing the women before them did. 

RBG went to both Harvard and then Columbia law schools, excelling at both.  She was in a class of nine women and 500 men.  The dean asked each one of these women how they could justify denying nine men a spot.  Today these, and other law schools, are pretty much 50-50 male and female. 

RBG, this tiny, quiet woman, changed the legal landscape for the better - for all of us.


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