Columnist Views Justice Ginsburg as the Ultimate Mama Grizzly
The debate over whether Sarah Palin is a real feminist has one columnist acknowledging the ultimate Mama Grizzly: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Before she earned a seat on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg worked for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, winning five out of six Supreme Court cases in which she used the 14th Amendment to strike down gender distinctions in the law, a Slate column says.
Slate notes a New York Times column that argues Palin succeeded as a basket-ball playing teen because of Title IX, and as Alaska’s elected governor because of extra work at home by her husband.
Slate adds to the list, saying “Palin and the Mama Grizzlies also owe a debt of thanks directly to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” It was Ginsburg who convinced the courts and legislatures to eliminate gender classifications that, among other things, sometimes barred a woman from being executor of her son’s estate and prevented a female military officer from securing housing allowances and medical benefits for her husband.
“Those who like to believe they have picked themselves up by the bootstraps sometimes forget that they wouldn’t even have boots were it not for the women who came before,” Slate says. “I don’t have an easy answer to the question of whether real feminists are about prominent lipsticky displays of ‘girl-power,’ but I do know that Ginsburg’s lifetime dedication to achieving quiet, dignified equality made such displays possible.”
