R.B.G. Hated Cooking, Loved Making History
Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, via Associated Press
As you doubtlessly know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, passed away earlier this month. She spent her legal career campaigning for equal rights for women and minorities, and to remember her legacy, I cued up Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s 2018 documentary, RBG. One of the shining moments they captured was the revelation that Justice Ginsberg was so hopeless a chef that her own children banned her from the kitchen, because, as her husband explained, “They have taste.”
The contrast between such a forceful advocate for equal rights and the presumed inability (or perhaps, unwillingness?) to pull together even a simple meal is a wonderfully human juxtaposition. I can think of no better missing skill for a woman who fought to keep women out of those very cages defined by kitchens, housework, and the conformity of 20th-century gender roles.
Despite the pop-culture allusions to The Notorious B.I.G., Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nothing if not decorous. In the documentary, she recalls her mother telling her to “be independent” and to “be a lady” -- to not “be distracted by emotions like anger, envy, resentment. These just zap energy and waste time.” The latter proved to be a powerful strategy throughout her legal career and during her tenure on the Supreme Court, where she built relationships with conservative and liberal justices alike.
In her quiet campaign for equal rights, which went on largely unseen behind closed courtroom doors, Justice Ginsburg was one of the single most successful advocates for equal rights in United States history.
I won’t summarize here Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s decades-long chess match to build a foundation of protection from discrimination and equal rights under the United States Constitution for all of us who weren’t born straight, white men. For that, you should really watch the documentary.
Since RBG’s passing, many of my friends have expressed shock or desperation, like the floor just fell out from underneath them.
As Dahlia Lithwick wrote in The Atlantic, “Today, more than ever, women starved for models of female influence, authenticity, dignity, and voice hold up an octogenarian justice as the embodiment of hope for an empowered future.”
Our political climate is defined by overt racism, discrimination, and intolerance, and that is compounded by a pandemic that is very much still out of control. In Justice Ginsburg, we had a powerful force in the fight for equal rights and acceptance, one who had been fighting long before many of us were born.
It’s painful to mourn the loss of such a great champion for decency and equality. It also means that, collectively, we have a very small, but powerful, pair of shoes to fill.