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A review by kathywadolowski
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Shana Knizhnik, Irin Carmon
5.0
Kathy's political run continues! Miss me with any notion that the Supreme Court lies outside of politics.
Though this was a pretty short read, I was pleasantly surprised by how much ground was covered and how much insight about RBG's life and legal record I came away with. I'm sure you could get a LOT more detail from other accounts, but this biography really effectively brought the justice to life in an engaging manner. It contained the perfect combination of the tiny gems and insights that showed her true personality—the collars! the sass! the opera! the pushups!—and sweeping analyses and overviews of her judicial priorities.
It helps that I didn't start with much knowledge about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; I only knew vaguely of the difficulty she had in moving through school and the legal profession as a trailblazing woman, and of her legendary status as a feminist champion. But here, we got a much deeper look at the "how" behind her fight for equal rights. I was actually surprised to learn her approach to the issue early on in her career—by taking on cases in which *men* were discriminated against due to outdated legal notions of traditional gender roles in addition the women's cases she fought, she was able to subvert expectations of what counted as "women's issues" and thus generate change in a subtle but effective way. And that exemplified her view on feminism: freeing women from the barriers and harms of a patriarchal system necessarily also involved freeing men from their siloes (while also expecting more from them as allies). It was also really helpful to hear pieces of her legal writing, especially her Supreme Court dissents, presented in context throughout the book to get a real sense of her power. This woman was putting in the work, which legitimized her in a field more than ready to see her fail.
Ginsburg's insight into Roe v. Wade is especially prescient given that we're now living in a world after it's been overturned; her style was to dismantle systems of oppression one case and one law at a time, (perhaps) slowly but surely convincing the legal world that these decisions were the right ones and were backed by sound law. She criticized Roe as a too-major decision that, because it was so sweeping and non-incremental, would open the door to dangerous precedents and invite the kind of backlash that, because of its fragility and shaky legal stature, could actually move things backward. And HERE WE ARE. Not that she'd be happy to be proven right.
I'm certainly not the first to note this, but we can learn so so much from RBG about the most effective methods for sparking and SUSTAINING systemic change. You put in the effort, speak your mind, know your facts, and find smart ways to work with the system you're in—even if it's that very system you're trying to improve—and with time and patience you'll build the kind of change that's meant to last.
Though this was a pretty short read, I was pleasantly surprised by how much ground was covered and how much insight about RBG's life and legal record I came away with. I'm sure you could get a LOT more detail from other accounts, but this biography really effectively brought the justice to life in an engaging manner. It contained the perfect combination of the tiny gems and insights that showed her true personality—the collars! the sass! the opera! the pushups!—and sweeping analyses and overviews of her judicial priorities.
It helps that I didn't start with much knowledge about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; I only knew vaguely of the difficulty she had in moving through school and the legal profession as a trailblazing woman, and of her legendary status as a feminist champion. But here, we got a much deeper look at the "how" behind her fight for equal rights. I was actually surprised to learn her approach to the issue early on in her career—by taking on cases in which *men* were discriminated against due to outdated legal notions of traditional gender roles in addition the women's cases she fought, she was able to subvert expectations of what counted as "women's issues" and thus generate change in a subtle but effective way. And that exemplified her view on feminism: freeing women from the barriers and harms of a patriarchal system necessarily also involved freeing men from their siloes (while also expecting more from them as allies). It was also really helpful to hear pieces of her legal writing, especially her Supreme Court dissents, presented in context throughout the book to get a real sense of her power. This woman was putting in the work, which legitimized her in a field more than ready to see her fail.
Ginsburg's insight into Roe v. Wade is especially prescient given that we're now living in a world after it's been overturned; her style was to dismantle systems of oppression one case and one law at a time, (perhaps) slowly but surely convincing the legal world that these decisions were the right ones and were backed by sound law. She criticized Roe as a too-major decision that, because it was so sweeping and non-incremental, would open the door to dangerous precedents and invite the kind of backlash that, because of its fragility and shaky legal stature, could actually move things backward. And HERE WE ARE. Not that she'd be happy to be proven right.
I'm certainly not the first to note this, but we can learn so so much from RBG about the most effective methods for sparking and SUSTAINING systemic change. You put in the effort, speak your mind, know your facts, and find smart ways to work with the system you're in—even if it's that very system you're trying to improve—and with time and patience you'll build the kind of change that's meant to last.