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The definitive account of an icon who shaped gender equality for all women. In this comprehensive, revelatory biography - fifteen years of interviews and research in the making - historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg's passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs was her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to 'repair the world', with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II. Ruth's journey began with her mother, who died tragically young but whose intellect inspired her daughter's feminism. It stretches from Ruth's days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn's James Madison High School to Cornell University to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming one of the first female law professors in the country and having to fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her job; to becoming the director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project and arguing momentous anti-sex-discrimination cases before the US Supreme Court. All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman on the Court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose profound impact will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and beyond.
About the author
Jane Sherron De Hart has written on twentieth-century US history and US women’s history. She was professor of history and director of women’s studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. De Hart lives with her husband in Santa Barbara, California.
Summary
The definitive account of an icon who shaped gender equality for all women.
In this comprehensive, revelatory biography — fifteen years of
interviews and research in the making — historian Jane Sherron De Hart
explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s
passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her
meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs
was her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the
Hebrew injunction to ‘repair the world’, with its profound meaning for a
young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II.
Ruth’s journey began with her mother, who died tragically young but
whose intellect inspired her daughter’s feminism. It stretches from
Ruth’s days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School
to Cornell University to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming
one of the first female law professors in the country and having to
fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her
job; to becoming the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and
arguing momentous anti-sex-discrimination cases before the US Supreme
Court.
All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman
on the Court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making
history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers
unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose
profound impact will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and
beyond.
Additional text
Praise for Women's America: refocusing the past:
‘Women's America is exceptional at providing a variety of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge about women's economic, social, cultural, political, and sexual lives throughout a broad expanse of time and geography.’
