Ruth Bader Ginsburg currently serves as a justice on the United States Supreme Court. photo courtesy of Unsplash
As the hit movie On the Basis of Sex is viewed by millions, Americans reflect on the history of sexism in the United States, along with the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself.
Supreme court justices are not often viewed as the most entertaining figures in the United States, and don’t seem to be likely candidates for the subject matter of a successful biopic. Even so, politically-centered entertainment has surfaced more and more within recent years, likely due to the rise in political interest among the youth of America. With this surge in governmental entertainment, one movie stands out among the rest. On the Basis of Sex, which came out in theatres on Christmas of 2018 (celebrating the 25th anniversary of Justice Ginsburg’s appointment to the Supreme Court), has accumulated over $23.5 million in box office sales as of February 5th. So far, the movie has been generally well-liked, earning a 72% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Most of its criticism revolves around the fact that such a prominent, complex individual can hardly be properly represented in a 120 minute arthouse film. Most feedback has been positive, however, since critics view both the subject matter and the cast as extraordinary, and find the writing and plot to be likeable enough.
Though the film may not be seen as groundbreaking, the woman who inspired it certainly is, as is the story behind it. The biopic follows a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she earns her law degree (while simultaneously caring for her infant daughter and ill husband), struggles to earn respect in a male-dominated industry and a sexist world, and works on a case (Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue) which ultimately set one of the first precedents banning sex-based discrimination in the United States. This story depicts, of course, only a small portion of Ginsburg’s career and life, as she continued to rise in her political power and fame following this court case.
Born in 1933, Ginsburg (born Ruth Bader) was raised to be forward thinking and independent. Neither of her parents were politicians nor academics, but her mother instilled a love of education within her, before unfortunately passing away a day prior to Ginsburg’s high school graduation. Following high school, Ginsburg attended Cornell University where she graduated top of her class and met Martin Ginsburg who she soon married. Her education was briefly put on hold when she had her first child and her husband was drafted to serve in the military for two years. Upon his return, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law. It was at this point in her life that On the Basis of Sex begins to take place, in her first year of law school when her husband developed testicular cancer. Ginsburg took on the burden of not only working towards her own law degree, but also keeping her husband up to date on his school work, often typing out papers for him at midnight before doing her own coursework. Despite this challenge, she became the first female member of the Harvard Law Review and maintained a position at the top of her class.
Once her husband recovered and earned his degree, the couple moved to New York City for Mr. Ginsburg’s job. Ginsburg was forced to finish her degree at Columbia instead of earning a degree from Harvard, despite only her final year of law school being through Columbia (where she became the first woman to be on both the Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review.) She graduated at the top of her class from Columbia in 1959, but this did not ensure her ability to work, as gender-based discrimination made it hard for women to get jobs (especially in the legal field.) Though the movie does highlight this struggle, they gloss over many of the jobs Ginsburg had over the next few years. Unshown in the biopic is Ginsburg’s position as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri. After doing this for two years, Ginsburg chose to join the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure, which lead to her living in Sweden and publishing a book on Swedish Civil Procedure. The movie instead jumps to Ginsburg becoming a professor at Rutgers University Law school, where she taught for nine years. It is during her time working there that she and her husband took on the Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue case, though this was only a small portion of her overall legal work. Ginsburg accepted a job to teach at Columbia in 1972, where she became the first female professor at Columbia to earn tenure. During the seventies while she was teaching, Ginsburg also directed the Civil Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. In this project, she argued six cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
She later was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by Jimmy Carter in 1980, on which she served for thirteen years until finally being nominated to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton in 1993. It is in the Supreme Court that Ginsburg continues to fight for women’s rights and the rights of all people of the United States, even today. She is an incredibly strong and intelligent woman whose experiences of the past will lead the nation and world into the future, and though On the Basis of Sex may not be beloved by all, Ginsburg will undoubtedly be the subject of many more movies to come.
