This past weekend, the US lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a giant in the battle for equality in the United States.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was among so many firsts. The Jewish, Brooklyn-born feminist icon received a full scholarship to attend Cornell for her bachelor’s and graduated valedictorian. She was one of the first women to be accepted to Harvard Law School, the first woman to work on the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and, when circumstances caused her to transfer to Columbia to finish law school, she finished first in her class there, too.
When she graduated Cornell in 1954, she also married the love of her life, Martin Ginsburg. The following two years were turbulent, as Martin was drafted into the military and the couple moved to a tiny city in Oklahoma, where Ruth could only find a job as a typist, despite her academic credentials. To add insult to the injury, she was fired from her typist job when she became pregnant with her first child. Following Martin’s service, the little family moved to Cambridge, where Martin, (and one year later, Ruth), began Harvard Law School.
At Harvard, Ruth faced countless condescending indignities from her male peers and instructors, not the least of which included the Dean of Harvard Law telling her and the other women in her class that they had taken the places of deserving men
(Note, there were fewer than ten women in a class of 500.)
During their studies, Martin fell ill with testicular cancer, and Ruth stepped up to take notes for him in class so that he could finish his degree on time. Ruth was also caring for him, baby Jane, and completing her own work for law school. When Martin made a full recovery and accepted a full-time position in New York, Ruth transferred to Columbia University to complete her final year of law school. Here, too, she finished first in her class (1).
Gender discrimination continued to dog her even holding all the accolades she did as a graduate of Cornell and Harvard. Recommended for a Supreme Court clerkship, she wasn’t even interviewed, and it was only at the intervention of a college mentor that she landed a clerkship for a New York judge. This judge then went on to employ Ruth for two years instead of the customary one (2).
The outright gender discrimination that Ruth faced as one of the most qualified individuals for the jobs she applied to foreshadowed the deeply bitter sentiment American women still feel today regarding the impossibility of perfectly balancing professionalism and femininity. But, Ruth was known for never raising her voice or letting anger fuel her. Instead, she turned to education, looking outside the US for models of societies that better practiced gender equality.
Ruth’s creative approach led her to Sweden, both literally and figuratively
In 1961, the Columbia University School of Law Project on International Procedure invited Ginsburg to collaborate on a legal project with Swedish judge and scholar Anders Bruzelius. The project examined the justice systems of the two countries, an endeavor for which Ruth learned Swedish in New York before traveling with her young daughter to live in Sweden for several months while working as a researcher on the comparative project at Lund University (3).
The project was ultimately published as a book in Swedish called Civil Procedure in Sweden. Ruth would later note that her time spent on this project would come to inform her ideology of what could be possible in the US system of equality. For their work, Ruth and Anders earned honorary doctorates from Lund University, and were also presented with rings.
In 1969, Ruth and Anders were honored with jubilee honorary doctorates from Lund University for their work
By this point, Ruth had become just the second woman ever confirmed to serve on the US Supreme Court. At the ceremony in Sweden, then-Dean of the Lund University Faculty of Law, Mia Rönnmar, “emphasised that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a major role model for lawyers all over the world, admired for her courage, integrity, intellect and legal brilliance as well as her pioneering work for gender equality and human rights.” (4) After, Justice Ginsburg gave a speech about how she had seen that her dreams for equality in the US were rooted in Swedish realities. One of her strongest memories of her time in Sweden was of attending a Swedish trial that was presided over by a woman judge who was eight months pregnant (5).
In 2006, Angers passed away. In memory of her friend and former colleague, Ruth reflected on their relationship with a gravity that recognized their time working together as a guiding star she endeavored to follow from her position on the US Supreme Court: “The ring I was given by the promoter at the ceremony is the only ring I have worn daily from that day to today. It is a constant reminder of my Swedish connection, and of my wise and kind friend.” (5)
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