In Remembrance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“When I'm sometimes asked, 'When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?' and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that." ~Justice Ginsburg
by Betsy Tong, HiPower Ring 7
In the days since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, I have talked to many mothers of daughters. All of us understand that their freedom to make decisions about their health, pay, and other rights recently won now may shift for generations with Justice Ginsburg’s death. There are too few women in the room when policy decisions are happening. For that there is undeniable, palpable grief and yes, anger. Before I sink too far, wanted to share some of the best quotations a Google search could find from the great leader herself.
On change and leadership
“Fight for the things you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."
“It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way.’ The greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time, their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”
On men and women
"My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent."
“Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.”
“It is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.”
On women’s power
“The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.”
“We are at last beginning to relegate to the history books the idea of the token woman.”
“When I'm sometimes asked, 'When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?' and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."
And finally, how Justice Ginsburg wanted to be remembered
"Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. ‘Cause I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid."
Betsy Tong is a business architect who has spent much of her career transforming organizations for scale.
