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Ginsburg's
impact
on women
spanned
age
groups,
backgrounds
By
JOCELYN
NOVECK
apnews.com
NEW
YORK -
Sure,
there
were the
RBG
bobbleheads,
the
Halloween
getups,
the lace
collars,
the
workout
videos.
The “I
dissent”
T-shirts,
the
refrigerator
magnets,
the
onesies
for
babies
or
costumes
for
cats.
And yes,
the face
masks,
with
slogans
like:
“You
can’t
spell
TRUTH
without
RUTH.”
But
the pop
culture
status
that
Ruth
Bader
Ginsburg
found —
or
rather,
that
found
her — in
recent
years
was just
a side
show,
albeit
one that
amused
her, to
the
unique
and
profound
impact
she had
on
women’s
lives.
First as
a
litigator
who
fought
tenaciously
for the
courts
to
recognize
equal
rights
for
women,
one case
at a
time,
and
later as
the
second
woman to
sit on
the
hallowed
bench of
the
Supreme
Court,
Ginsburg
left a
legacy
of
achievement
in
gender
equality
that had
women of
varied
ages and
backgrounds
grasping
for
words
this
weekend
to
describe
what she
meant to
them.
“She
was my
teacher
in so
many
ways,”
said
Gloria
Steinem,
the
nation’s
most
visible
feminist
leader,
in an
interview.
But even
if she
hadn’t
known
her
personally,
Steinem
said, it
was due
to
Ginsburg,
who died
Friday
at 87 of
complications
of
cancer,
that
“for the
first
time I
felt the
Constitution
was
written
for me.”
“Now, it
wasn’t
written
for me —
it left
out most
folks,
actually,
when it
was
written,”
Steinem
added.
But, she
said, by
forcing
the
courts
to
address
issues
like
workplace
discrimination,
sexual
assault
and a
host of
others,
Ginsburg
“literally
made me
feel as
if I had
access
to the
law,
because
Ruth was
there.”
But
the
extent
of
Ginsburg’s
influence
was felt
not only
by older
women
like
Steinem,
86, who
understood
from
experience
the
obstacles
Ginsburg
faced,
such as
not
being
able to
find a
job at a
New York
law firm
despite
graduating
at the
top of
her
class at
Columbia
Law
School.
Younger
women
and
girls
also say
they
were
inspired
by the
justice’s
achievements,
her
intellect
and her
fierce
determination
as she
pursued
her
career.
Hawa
Sall,
20, a
first-generation
college
student
in New
York,
said it
was
Ginsburg
who
inspired
her to
attend
Columbia,
where
she’s
now an
undergraduate
studying
human
rights
and
planning
on law
school.
“Her
resilience,
her
tenacity,
her
graciousness
through
it all —
she’s
always
been one
of my
biggest
inspirations
in
life,”
said
Sall,
who
lives in
Brooklyn
where
Ginsburg
was
born,
and
whose
family
comes
from
Mali and
Senegal.
“She’s
what
I’ve
always
wanted
to be,
and
still
want to
be.”
Sall
says she
was
fascinated
by what
she
learned
about
Ginsburg
when she
attended
an event
at the
Lower
Eastside
Girl’s
Club in
Manhattan
for the
2015
book,
“Notorious
RBG,” by
Irin
Carmon
and
Shana
Knizhnik
(the
title
played
on the
name of
Brooklyn
rapper
The
Notorious
B.I.G.)
That
book was
part of
a wave
of
rock-star
like
fame
that
enveloped
Ginsburg
in her
later
years on
the
bench,
making
her a
hero to
a
younger
generation:
There
was also
a famed
impression
by Kate
McKinnon
on
“Saturday
Night
Live,” a
feature
film,
starring
Felicity
Jones as
Ginsburg,
and the
hit
documentary
“RBG,”
both in
2018.
Julie
Cohen
and
Betsy
West,
who
co-directed
“RBG,”
saw
firsthand
how
women of
all ages
quickly
identified
with
Ginsburg.
“We’d go
to
screenings
... and
afterward
older
women
who had
been
through
the kind
of
discrimination
she
faced as
a young
woman
would be
sobbing
...
because
they
knew
what she
was up
against,
and what
she did
to help
them and
their
daughters
and
granddaughters,”
West
said.
But
also,
Cohen
added:
“She
became a
huge
symbolic
figure
for
young
women
and even
girls in
a way
that we
hadn’t
anticipated.
So many
children
came to
the
movie,
often
little
girls
dressed
in
little
robes.
...
Girls
seemed
to find
her just
mesmerizing.”
West
theorizes
the
fascination
might
have
come
from
Ginsburg’s
small
stature.
Her
legacy,
though,
was
nothing
less
than
enormous,
she
said:
“She
changed
the
world
for
American
women.”
It
wasn’t
just
Democratic-leaning
women
who
praised
Ginsburg.
Stacey
Feeback,
a
33-year-old
Fayetteville,
North
Carolina,
voter at
a
weekend
rally
for
President
Donald
Trump,
said the
justice
was “an
inspirational
woman.”
“She
meant a
lot to
the
(women’s)
movement,”
Feeback
said.
“She’s
been an
inspiration.
She’s
brought
America
and
women
forward
in a
generation.”
Ginsburg
first
gained
fame as
a
litigator
for the
Women’s
Rights
Project
of the
American
Civil
Liberties
Union,
which
she
directed
in the
’70s.
The
project
marked
“a real
turning
point
for
situating
women’s
rights
not just
as a
gender
issue,
but as a
civil
rights
issue
that
affected
all of
us,”
said Ria
Tabacco
Mar, its
current
head.
At
the
time,
the
Supreme
Court
had
never
applied
the
Constitution’s
guarantee
of
“equal
protection
of the
laws” to
strike
down a
law
because
of
gender
discrimination.
That
changed
in 1971
with a
case in
which
Ginsburg
helped
persuade
the high
court to
invalidate
an Idaho
law that
called
for
choosing
men over
women to
administer
the
estates
of the
dead.
Two
years
later,
she
again
prevailed
— making
her
first
oral
argument
before
the high
court
she
would
later
join —
in the
case of
a female
Air
Force
officer
whose
husband
was
denied
spousal
benefits
that
male
officers’
wives
automatically
received.
“For
every
gender
injustice
that we
see
today,
Ruth
Bader
Ginsburg
saw it
first,
and she
fought
it
first,”
said
Tabacco
Mar.
Devi
Rao, one
of
Ginsburg’s
law
clerks
in 2013,
said the
justice
had
taught
her that
“law
isn’t
just
about
the law
— it’s
about
the
people
whose
lives
are
impacted
by those
laws.”
Rao,
who now
works on
appellate
cases
for a
civil
rights
firm,
said
Ginsburg
“distinguished
herself
in a
man’s
world
and on a
man’s
court
without
looking
like
them or
sounding
like
them,
but
simply
because
they
couldn’t
deny the
power of
her
ideas.
She
teaches
women
and
girls
not to
count
themselves
out even
though
they
don’t
look
like
those in
power.”
It’s
that
lesson
that
mothers
like
Brianne
Burger
hope
their
daughters
will
understand.
Earlier
this
year,
Burger
posted a
photo of
her
daughter
Adi, 5,
on
Facebook,
outfitted
as RBG
in black
robe and
glasses
for a
school
dress-up
day in
Washington,
D.C. The
girl
came
home
delighted,
her
mother
said,
that so
many
people
recognized
her
costume.
“She
still
talks
about
that
day,”
said
Burger.
Asked
what Adi
understands
about
Ginsburg,
the
mother
replied:
“She
knows
that RBG
made
girls
equal to
boys.”
___
Associated
Press
writers
Jennifer
Peltz in
New
York,
Jessica
Gresko
in
Washington
and
Bryan
Anderson
in
Fayetteville,
North
Carolina,
contributed
to this
report.
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