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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bridget and this is Annie, and you're

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Speaker 1: listening the stuff Mom never told you. On May four,

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Speaker 1: RBG a new documentary about the life of Ruth bader

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Speaker 1: Ginsburg Pitt Theaters, and today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the notorious RBG as she is sometimes known, and the

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Speaker 1: social media frenzy surrounding her. Um, and I'm part of

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Speaker 1: that social media frenzy. I'm a big fan. I can

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Speaker 1: tell by the shirts that you're wearing. But in fact,

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Speaker 1: about Annie, when she is doing an episode about something specific,

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Speaker 1: she will dress dress apart. She dresses apart, but only

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Speaker 1: I get to enjoy it, I know. But you can

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Speaker 1: imagine throwing her episode about action figures. We talked heavily

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Speaker 1: about the Avengers and she you wore your special Avenger

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Speaker 1: shirt and now I'm wearing my RVG shirt. Always always

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Speaker 1: a good day when I get to wear it. Um

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Speaker 1: and uh, we're we'll do like a very brief background

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Speaker 1: here because we um Kristen and Caroline did do a

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Speaker 1: pretty in depth episode on RBG, but just to just

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Speaker 1: to set the scene a little bit right Bridge, just

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Speaker 1: to set the scene exactly so Ruth bader Ginsburg wasn't

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Speaker 1: always s notorious RBG that we know and love. She

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Speaker 1: was born on March fifteenth, nineteen thirty three. A pisces

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Speaker 1: like myself, so she's probably super creative and very flighty

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Speaker 1: and fight. She's a justice. I'm not gonna put that

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Speaker 1: on her. That's on me. Um. She was born Joan

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Speaker 1: Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, New York. Uh fun fact, she

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Speaker 1: had the family nickname of Kiki because she was a

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Speaker 1: kicky baby, so that was her nickname Um. When she

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Speaker 1: started school, her mom discovered that her class had several

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Speaker 1: little girls named Joan and so she should go by

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Speaker 1: Ruth instead to avoid confusion, and she put up with

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Speaker 1: sexist crap a lot. During the early days of her career.

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Speaker 1: She was doctor being pregnant from mental floss um. As newlyweds,

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Speaker 1: Ginsburg and her husband, Marty relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: where Marty was expected to fulfill his Army Reserve duties

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Speaker 1: for the next two years. Ruth took the Civil Service

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Speaker 1: exam and qualified to be a claim to adjuster, but

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Speaker 1: then made the mistake of mentioning that she was three

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Speaker 1: months pregnant with her daughter Jane. Suddenly RBGS civil service

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Speaker 1: ranking was reduced and with it her title and pay.

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Speaker 1: That's terrible. But also even in looking at her biography

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Speaker 1: a little bit, you can sort of see where all

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Speaker 1: of these sort of stings of sexism not only were

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Speaker 1: they harmful for her career, but it's almost like she

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Speaker 1: was like, Okay, well I can remember this or later, right,

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Speaker 1: and she it seems like she really they really sort

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Speaker 1: of like lit a feminist fire in her in a

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Speaker 1: kind of way. Motivators for sure, exactly exactly, Honestly, the

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Speaker 1: dean of her law school sounds like kind of a jerk.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, Ginsburgh was one of only nine

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Speaker 1: female students matriculating into Harvard Law. Now her dean, it's

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Speaker 1: been reported Aaron Griswold hosted a dinner for the women

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Speaker 1: and at the end of the meal, he went through

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Speaker 1: the women one by one and said, how do you

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Speaker 1: justify taking a spot away from a qualified man? Ah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty bad. Later it was recorded that he was

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Speaker 1: joking and it was just it was all in good fun.

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Speaker 1: But you know, part of me is like, oh, I'm sure, well, sure,

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Speaker 1: the backlash happened. It's a joke. Yeah, yeah, But I

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Speaker 1: also feel like it's you're talking about people who had

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Speaker 1: just become law school students. If the dean of your

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Speaker 1: law school, even if he thought this was a funny

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Speaker 1: prank or like, oh, this is where they're gonna get

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Speaker 1: their go exam, that would be really demoralizing. And it

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Speaker 1: would that would if that happened to me as a

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Speaker 1: young student, that would stick with me for life. Guess

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Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And so, either even if he thought

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Speaker 1: that this as a joke, it was all in good

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Speaker 1: fun because of the power and balance is there, I

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Speaker 1: can imagine that that was not in good fun for

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Speaker 1: the women who were participating in that dinner. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it would kind of overshadow because in your head, you're

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Speaker 1: probably thinking, how am I gonna what jobs am I

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Speaker 1: going to get? And then you hear this joke and

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Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, well, maybe I have gotten I've succeeded

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Speaker 1: in this one step, but I have all these other

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Speaker 1: hurdles now of finding a job when I'm competing with

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Speaker 1: men and they're probably just going to go with men

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Speaker 1: a lot of the time. Exactly. That's probably exactly how

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Speaker 1: I felt. Yeah, not a good feeling. It's not a

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Speaker 1: good feeling, and Furthermore, even though she graduated at the

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Speaker 1: top of her class, she found that very few law

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Speaker 1: firms would open their doors to women. Despite being you know,

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Speaker 1: really talented and having glowing recommendations from her professor's, Ginsburg

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Speaker 1: was actually only able to get her foot in the

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Speaker 1: door with a lower ranking district court judge, Edmund Palmary,

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Speaker 1: and this was only after one of her mentors threatened

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Speaker 1: stop sending other clerks his way if he turned her down.

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Speaker 1: And so again, she was someone who was super talented,

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Speaker 1: yet she had to go through all of these means

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Speaker 1: just to get her foot in the door, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that they should have been knocking down her door

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Speaker 1: her right. But when she found her group, she really

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Speaker 1: really found it. She was notable for really understanding that

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Speaker 1: the way that you create social change is a long game. Right.

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Speaker 1: She was playing chess, not checkers, and her work focused

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Speaker 1: on winnable, achievable fights and chipping away at gender inequality

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Speaker 1: that way, And so it was thinking about things of like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: how could I win this small thing that's going to

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Speaker 1: have incremental change down the line, which I think is

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Speaker 1: so savvy and so smart. Yeah, she was like slowly

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Speaker 1: moving as forward in ways that she she felt she

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Speaker 1: could succeed um. In nineteen seventy two, Gainsberg co founded

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Speaker 1: the Women's Rights Projects at the American Civil Liberties Union

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Speaker 1: the a c l U, and in nineteen and three

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Speaker 1: she became the a c l USED General Counsel. The

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Speaker 1: Women's Rights Project and related to a c l U projects,

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Speaker 1: participated in three hundred gender discrimination cases by nineteen seventy four.

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Speaker 1: As the director of the a c l USE Women's

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Speaker 1: Rights Projects, she argued six gender discrimination cases before the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court between nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: winning five. Rather than asking the Court to end all

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Speaker 1: gender discrimination at once, Ginsburg charted a strategic course, taking

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Speaker 1: aim at specific discriminatory statutes and building on each successive victory.

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Speaker 1: She chose plaintiffs carefully, at times picking male plaintiffs to

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Speaker 1: demonstrate that gender discrimination was harmful to both men and women.

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Speaker 1: The laws Ginsburg targeted included those that, on the surface

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Speaker 1: appeared beneficial to women, but in fact reinforced the notion

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Speaker 1: that women needed to be dependent on men. I think

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Speaker 1: that's so smart, because, let's face it, if people feel like,

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Speaker 1: you know, oh, this is something women are asked, were

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Speaker 1: something special? You know when you want this focusing on

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Speaker 1: you know men, I think is so smart because people

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Speaker 1: will look at that and think, oh, this isn't just

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Speaker 1: women wanting to quote something special. It's this is about equality.

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Speaker 1: And this seems to permeate through her career. I had

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Speaker 1: that when dealing with cases like this, she decided to

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Speaker 1: use the word gender and not sex because she thought

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Speaker 1: the word sex would distract or sort of confuse people.

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Speaker 1: And so you can really get a sense of how

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Speaker 1: smart she was that sort of packaging and marketing and

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Speaker 1: being strategic about these cases. Yeah, um, just knowing kind

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Speaker 1: of how to how to sell it, how to get it,

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Speaker 1: get it the support behind it, and how to get

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Speaker 1: it past or how to win these arguments of very

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Speaker 1: impressive and eventually it led to her nomination to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court of the United States. UM President Bill Clinton

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Speaker 1: nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: on June fourteenth, to fill the seat vacated by retiring

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Speaker 1: Justice Byron White. Ginsburg was recommended to Clinton by then

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Speaker 1: U S. Attorney General Janet Reno after a suggestion by

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Speaker 1: Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch At the time of her nomination,

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Speaker 1: Ginsburg was viewed as a moderate, which might surprise some

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Speaker 1: of you. Um Clinton was reportedly looking to increase the

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Speaker 1: court's diversity, which Ginsburgh did as the first Jewish justice

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Speaker 1: since the nineteen sixty nine resignation of Justice A. Fortis,

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Speaker 1: and as only the second female. I'm appointee. Wow, that's

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Speaker 1: I mean, awesome, but also I know that's always when

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Speaker 1: you hear those first and you're like yeay, but also

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Speaker 1: really yeah, that's generally my reaction to first. So, Annie,

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Speaker 1: what are some of your favorite things about rbg Oh?

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Speaker 1: I love that picture of her nodding off during the

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Speaker 1: State of the Union of jess And according to her,

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Speaker 1: it was because she'd had a little too much why

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Speaker 1: I can identify. And also when she was going undergoing

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Speaker 1: treatments for calling cancer and pancreatic cancer in two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: she didn't miss one oral argument. And her workout is

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Speaker 1: intense to this day, intense, and as someone who works

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Speaker 1: out a lot, I she's a role model in that way.

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Speaker 1: And recently Stephen Colbert um he did the work out

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Speaker 1: with her and it was hilarious and of course he

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Speaker 1: could not keep up, and who could I know, right,

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Speaker 1: I love that about her. What about you? Do you

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Speaker 1: have a favorite? Yeah? My favorite thing about her, this

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Speaker 1: is a bit strange, is that, even though she's this

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Speaker 1: amazing figure, this icon, you can just tell that she

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Speaker 1: is deep down a grandma, right Like she comes off,

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Speaker 1: she just gives me such grandma vibes. Our guest Arend,

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Speaker 1: will be talking to a bit later in today's episode.

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Speaker 1: There's this great MSNBC exclusive interview that Arin did with RBG,

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Speaker 1: and in this interview, Rin shows her on her phone

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Speaker 1: a picture of people who have gotten RBG inspired tattoos,

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Speaker 1: and Rbg's reaction is such a great grandmother reaction. Here's

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Speaker 1: what she says. I saw that, and I thought it

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Speaker 1: was I thought it was a joke. I thought it

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Speaker 1: was something you pasted onto your own. But I am

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Speaker 1: a little distressed that people are really doing that. Distressed

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Speaker 1: why because why would you make something that can't be

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Speaker 1: removed on yourself? Now that's some classic grandma reaction. So

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Speaker 1: I just love that, you know, even though she's this amazing,

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Speaker 1: amazing badass, you know, Supreme Court Justice, that she also

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Speaker 1: you can just tell that she's a grandma. And I

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Speaker 1: love that. I love that she you know, it just

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Speaker 1: seems so normal despite being so important and influential. So

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Speaker 1: that's what I love the most about her. I think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: she's very relatable. And actually here from the Washington Post

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Speaker 1: or in Carmone in just a side get Rin actually

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Speaker 1: wrote the book on RBG. Literally, we'll hear from her

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Speaker 1: after this quick break and we're back today. We're joined

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Speaker 1: by Rin Carmone. UM a brief by on her. She's

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Speaker 1: a journalist, author, speaker. She is a contributing writer to

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Speaker 1: the Washington Post Outlook section and the co author of

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Speaker 1: Notorious rb G, The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

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Speaker 1: which spent three months on the Times best seller list.

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Speaker 1: And I believe you worked with her. I did be

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Speaker 1: worked together at MSNBC. She's actually she's one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why I wanted to work there at the time.

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Speaker 1: She was one of the figures who was doing the

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Speaker 1: most like fearless feminist journalism out there. And I was

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Speaker 1: a big reader of Rin's work before I ever worked

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Speaker 1: at MSNBC. And when I first got to work with her,

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, it's a wren basically basically,

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Speaker 1: but I was never cool. But um, That's why I'm

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Speaker 1: so happy that she's joining us today. So my first

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Speaker 1: question for you is probably one that you get kind

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Speaker 1: of a lot. So I know that the concept of

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Speaker 1: this book was popularized by Shanna kness next Tumbler account

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Speaker 1: in support of Ginsburg's descent of the Shelby County the

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Speaker 1: Holder decision, which struck down a portion of the Voting

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Speaker 1: Rights Act. But how did this book come to be? Like?

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Speaker 1: Is it? Is it typical for a book to be

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Speaker 1: based on a Tumbler account? Is that unusual? Um? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's not typical for it to be

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Speaker 1: a book that anybody wants to read. To be honest.

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Speaker 1: We so Shanna Uh never really was trying to create

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Speaker 1: some kind of social phenomenon. She was just upset that

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Courts had struck down this really important voting

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Speaker 1: rights protection that would have the impact of disenfranchising people's color.

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Speaker 1: And so when she wanted to celebrate justice Ginsburg's discent,

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Speaker 1: she just decided, Uh to take to the Internet and

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Speaker 1: make a play on words on Biggie Smalls and this

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Speaker 1: than eighty year old jewish Uh, tiny little lady with

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Speaker 1: a very very powerful voice. Um, but you know, obviously

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Speaker 1: it's struck a chord at our editor at HarperCollins, Julia

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Speaker 1: chafit through the real visionary and she looked at all

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Speaker 1: of these spontaneous celebrations, not just Shauna's, also our friend Amina,

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Speaker 1: so you know, she did a meme. This is also

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Speaker 1: its featured in this upcoming documentary you Can't spell truth

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Speaker 1: without Ruth. She plastered she in her Franks Frank. She

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Speaker 1: plastered posters all around DC with it. Um. There there

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Speaker 1: was something happening, and Julia recognized it and said that

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Speaker 1: there needed to be a new kind of biography that

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Speaker 1: would capture the spirit of the Tumbler, which was in

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Speaker 1: fact really substantive. I mean again it really started because

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Speaker 1: of a voting rights descent, but also have as kind

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Speaker 1: of playful as you say spirit, uh you know, juxtaposed

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Speaker 1: this serious high court judge with a gangster rapper but

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Speaker 1: as Justice skips like Justice Kisburgh likes to say, they're

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Speaker 1: both from Brooklyn's um. So so Julia, Julia came up

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Speaker 1: with the idea for the book went to Shanna. Shanna

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Speaker 1: was as she's a baby at that point, she was

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Speaker 1: in her uh third year of law school, and I

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Speaker 1: believe had just begun. She started to tumble in her

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Speaker 1: second year of law school, and Shanna just said, sure,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I want to write with somebody because

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Speaker 1: I don't know how to write a book. Um and

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Speaker 1: so uh, through the great Anna Homes, my former boss

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Speaker 1: at Jezebel, who was first to Bridge about this project,

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Speaker 1: I ended up teaming up with Shanna and Julia and

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Speaker 1: at a break next pace writing the book together. Conceptualizing

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Speaker 1: the book. Um, I did the words, Shanna was in

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Speaker 1: charge of the images. We came up with all the

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Speaker 1: ideas together. We both did interviews. Shawna fact checked it

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Speaker 1: as it was the labor of love that we juggled with.

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Speaker 1: At that point. You know, Bridget and I used to

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Speaker 1: work together at MSNBC. I had a full time job

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Speaker 1: at MSNBC. Shanna was in law school. Uh, it was

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Speaker 1: sort of a crazy pay. But what we realized is

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Speaker 1: that no matter how many hours we were working, nothing

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Speaker 1: could compare to Justice Ginsburgh's own stamina. She can get

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Speaker 1: by on two hours of sleep at night and you

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Speaker 1: see her high quality output. So that was our real inspiration. Wow,

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Speaker 1: So what's it like do? Is that of curiosity? What's

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Speaker 1: it like to write a book with another person. I

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Speaker 1: asked to say that I really enjoyed the collaborative process

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Speaker 1: of working in pairs. You know. Ultimately, the actual words

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Speaker 1: of the book I wrote by myself in a room,

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Speaker 1: but that was only one part of it. Um. From

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Speaker 1: the beginning, you know, we sat down and we figured out, like,

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Speaker 1: what's each chapter. We had really really strict deadlines because

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Speaker 1: the book had to come about in a breakneck pace

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Speaker 1: by book standards. UM. I think let's see, it was

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Speaker 1: about six months until the entire book was due. Um.

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Speaker 1: So we sat down Sean and I in my living

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Speaker 1: room and we figured out, you know, how do we

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Speaker 1: organize this, What parts of her life are in it?

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Speaker 1: What aren't? Um? What does the book look like? What

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Speaker 1: does it feel like? You know when you ask, uh,

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Speaker 1: what's what is turning a tumbler into a book? We

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Speaker 1: thought about how we wanted us to feel like more

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Speaker 1: than just kind of like a meme that somebody printed

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Speaker 1: that and took between the covers of a book. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know. And that's what I mean when I say,

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Speaker 1: did anybody turn and blog into a book that people

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Speaker 1: wanted to read? Well, it's it's taking the spirit of

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Speaker 1: it but it's also thinking, this is a story that

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Speaker 1: people are going to want to read, This is a

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Speaker 1: beautiful object that people are going to want to hold.

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Speaker 1: This is going to have visual components and charts and

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Speaker 1: annotated dissents, you know, with handwritten in the margins by

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Speaker 1: Justice Ginsburg's former clerks, so all along. You know, the

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Speaker 1: story was a really important part of it, and the

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Speaker 1: reporting that we did. You know, we interviewed her clerks

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Speaker 1: and her children and people she worked with and so long. Um,

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Speaker 1: that was a big part of it. But it was

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Speaker 1: also about the entire experience of having kind of different

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Speaker 1: entry points into her story. And so for some people

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Speaker 1: that would be sitting down and reading the words of

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Speaker 1: the books from beginning to end, and for other people

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Speaker 1: it might be like, wow, she was such a babe

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Speaker 1: when she was young, and we have photos of that too.

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Speaker 1: And for some people it might be I would never

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Speaker 1: read a legal brief, but now the key portions of

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Speaker 1: it are excerpted in the book, and some of the

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Speaker 1: most brilliant legal minds, uh like uh jan A Nelson

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Speaker 1: from the Legal Defense on the end of the LCP

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Speaker 1: Legal Defense fun who was actually arguing these voting rights

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Speaker 1: cases writing in the margins on Justice ginsbrook Shelby County descent,

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Speaker 1: and explaining it to you in her voice and in

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Speaker 1: a kind of conversational way, like your friend would break

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Speaker 1: it down for you. So all of those different entry points,

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Speaker 1: we thought we're going to be the way that the

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Speaker 1: reader is going to experience the story of her life

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Speaker 1: in a way that they might not in any other books. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That's something that I love about the book so much

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Speaker 1: is that I'm not someone who would ever maybe read

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Speaker 1: a legal brief, but I have this book on my

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Speaker 1: coffee table, and people who come to my apartment, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're like, oh, RBG. You know it's there are so

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Speaker 1: many different entry points. No matter what your what your

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Speaker 1: connection to RBG is so so out of curiosity. So

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Speaker 1: what is your like, what personally draws you to to Ginsburg?

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Speaker 1: What is it about her as a figure that you feel, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, drawn to. Well. The one of the essential

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Speaker 1: mysteries of the book was that the book sought to

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Speaker 1: solve is how did she become the notorious RBG? Because

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Speaker 1: when you read about her when she was first confirmed

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Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, everybody says that she's this moderate

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Speaker 1: consensus seeker, she shy, she's reserved. UM. But that's not

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Speaker 1: really the whole story, because before she ever was a judge,

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Speaker 1: she was UM the co founder of the A f

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Speaker 1: o U Women's Rights Project and one of the most important,

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Speaker 1: is not the most important, litigators fighting on behalf of

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Speaker 1: constitutional equality for women. And so in order to do that,

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Speaker 1: she wasn't such a go along and get a long

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Speaker 1: kind of person. She wasn't so sort of a you know,

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Speaker 1: handmaiden of the status quo. In fact, she was going

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Speaker 1: in front of these all male courts and arguing that

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Speaker 1: women were people, which at the time no Supreme court

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Speaker 1: had ever recognized. So that was pretty radical. But but

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Speaker 1: there's a paradox in that her style was not so radical. UM.

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Speaker 1: And what we understood in writing the book is that

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Speaker 1: the way that she became that person is by suffering

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Speaker 1: enormous adversity in her life. UM. She lost her sister

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Speaker 1: and her mother are very young. UM. While she was

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Speaker 1: UM in law school, she was she was married and

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Speaker 1: a young mother, and while juggling all of that, her

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Speaker 1: husband became pregnant. Because me, her husband became ill with cancer. UM.

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Speaker 1: She was a victim of pregnancy discrimination. Um twice over um.

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Speaker 1: She was repeatedly passed over for jobs being incredibly brilliant.

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Speaker 1: And what she took from all of this was a

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Speaker 1: kind of steely determination, but it was also very self contained.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she was not the person, you know, with

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Speaker 1: her fist up in the air. Um. She was the

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Speaker 1: person writing the radical brief and somehow convincing the world

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Speaker 1: that she was being conciliatory and consensus seeking. And so

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Speaker 1: for me, what was really fascinating was how did she

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Speaker 1: become this person? And what's what's incredible is that, I

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Speaker 1: mean history also forced trying to become a person that

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Speaker 1: she hadn't been to before, which is a fire starter.

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Speaker 1: You know, the person who is going head to head

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Speaker 1: with Donald Trump and who is writing fierce dissense and

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Speaker 1: who's out on the road being in public in a

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Speaker 1: way that very few Supreme Court justices have ever been.

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Speaker 1: That person has been created by this historical moment wherein

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Speaker 1: where the Court has lurched to the right um, where

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Speaker 1: obviously the presidency is what it is. And she's the

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Speaker 1: person for this historical moment, whether anyone could have predicted

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Speaker 1: it or not. She's the person who has the kind

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Speaker 1: of stamina and steely determination to see it through to

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Speaker 1: the end. Yeah. Kind of going off of that. When

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Speaker 1: RBG was first appointed to the Supreme Court, Clinton thought

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Speaker 1: she was a moderate, but we think of her today

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Speaker 1: as this badass progressive. What do you make of this paradox? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think part of it is as she has genuinely

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Speaker 1: become more comfortable using her voice in a fiercer way,

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Speaker 1: and I think she there are some issues in fact

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Speaker 1: in which I think she has moved to the left,

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Speaker 1: so to speak. And so even though that's not what

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Speaker 1: legal scholars would like to perceive it as. For example,

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Speaker 1: I think there were some early decisions. I mean, she's

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Speaker 1: always been fiercely approachoic, she has always fought for racial

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Speaker 1: justice and to uphold legal remedies to try to um

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Speaker 1: remain his dooric racial inequality. Um. But you know, there were,

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Speaker 1: for example, there were some criminal justice decisions that might

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Speaker 1: be considered more moderate that she joined in the past.

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Speaker 1: But in the past couple of years there's been a

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Speaker 1: dissenting block that it's just her and justice, so to Mayor,

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Speaker 1: oftentimes she's joining, she's the only justice joining justice, so

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Speaker 1: to Mayor's opinions. In various cases that have to do

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Speaker 1: with Fourth Amendment rights and other issues that it's the

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Speaker 1: and the death penalty. Um. It does seem like to

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Speaker 1: some extent her views have changed, but was also changed

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Speaker 1: that she's become more comfortable, um being a public voice.

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Speaker 1: You know, Justice Ginsburg, I think never saw herself as

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Speaker 1: being in spending her life in the minority. You know,

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Speaker 1: only recently did she have her first chance since she

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Speaker 1: joined the Supreme Court to assign a majority opinion, meaning

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Speaker 1: that she was the most senior justice in the majority.

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Speaker 1: She has always been the senior justice in the minority

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Speaker 1: of the five four maths that happens on some of

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Speaker 1: these controversial decisions. And so uh, history has made her

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Speaker 1: into it was a great dissenter and she embraced that

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Speaker 1: role with gusto. Yeah, nobody can dissent like RB. I

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Speaker 1: love a good blistering man. I like that woman can

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Speaker 1: go the collar. A good question, is it is it

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Speaker 1: true that she so she's known for her collars. Is

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Speaker 1: it true that she wears them specifically when she's going

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Speaker 1: to dissent. She does indeed have a special dissenting collar,

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Speaker 1: which interestingly is made by Banana Republic. She got it

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Speaker 1: in a gift bag when she was Glamor a Woman

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Speaker 1: of the Year, and now you know she wears it

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Speaker 1: every time she descents a woe betide you. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I even got a chance when I stack checked the

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Speaker 1: book to show her a court sketch, because you know,

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Speaker 1: there are no cameras glad in the courtroom, and so

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Speaker 1: I showed her a sketch that we were going to

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Speaker 1: use in the book, and I said, I just need

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Speaker 1: to verify that this is your dissenting collar in this

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Speaker 1: little scribble, and she said, yes. I wonder if she

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Speaker 1: wears it when she's going to go argue with the

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Speaker 1: dry cleaner, if she's like, how do you put on

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Speaker 1: my special arguing collar. Well, you know, fun fact, last

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Speaker 1: um September she officiated at my wedding and she and

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Speaker 1: everybody asked, you know, what is she going to wear?

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Speaker 1: And my husband kept saying, well, I hope she doesn't

427
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: wear her dissension color. Yeah, that's amazing, that's amazing. I

428
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 1: hope she wore her a gree collar. Like, yes, I'm

429
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: okay with this. Yes, she did wear her judicial robes,

430
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: and I think you know some of the listen, some

431
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,679
Speaker 1: of those she just wears her oral arguments to be

432
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: out in a bad I don't know if she has

433
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: like a special wedding color or not. I think she

434
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:37,120
Speaker 1: told me that the color that she had was sent

435
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 1: to her by a fan, so she does wear fan crafts.

436
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: If anyone out there has a descend collar that they're

437
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: dying to make for her or sorry and a Greek color,

438
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: I see crafty Annie's eyesight here. I've got to go

439
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: right now, podcast over project, so I gotta hit up

440
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: those nearing needles. So well, what was it so you mention?

441
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: And I mean she officiated your wedding, which I saw

442
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: on Instagram and I couldn't believe it. What was that? Like?

443
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: Jetfis Ginsburg loves weddings. I mean, obviously she does not

444
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: have time to officiate every single wedding that she's asked for.

445
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: So was this great honor that she came to Brooklyn Um,

446
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: place of her childhood, uh to to affreciate our wedding

447
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:24,479
Speaker 1: in September. Um. She you know, she was funny and

448
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: gracious and amazing, and she stayed her dinner and the

449
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: toast during the toast, uh my brother said that in

450
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: lieu of toasting us he was just going to read

451
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: the entigraphy of JOSEPHS. Ginsburg's descend in Shelby County, and

452
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: she burst out laughing, And so that was definitely a highlight. Oh,

453
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. I mean one of

454
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: the reasons that it was so special, I mean, she

455
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: had met my husband before in the course of writing

456
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: the book, and he was a great support to me

457
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 1: to read the insane process of writing the book. Um.

458
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: But she had the kind of marriage that any any

459
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: person looking to partnership with dream of having. UM. Her

460
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: husband was a successful lawyer in his own right, but

461
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: energetically defended her, uh far for her, advocated for her,

462
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: supported her through difficult times in her life. I mean,

463
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: they supported each other. But unfortunately, we really don't have

464
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: so many models of marriage that are true partnership where

465
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: people take turns supporting each other. And so, you know,

466
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 1: one of the things that we told her when we

467
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 1: asked about it was that we really sought to emulate

468
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: the kind of partnership that they had. That's beautiful. Yeah,

469
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something that I loved about her, is that,

470
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's when we talk about public

471
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: figures through are women oftentimes it's like, oh, what's their marriage, Like,

472
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: are they married? But I think that because her marriage

473
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: really was this egalitarian model for how you can be

474
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 1: a feminist and how you can be this like badass

475
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 1: professional woman but also have your marriage kind of exist

476
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: as a way to sustain that word and not something

477
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: that gets in the way in that word. I think

478
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: is is really unusual and something we don't often see

479
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: that we should definitely be celebrating it. Yeah, I mean,

480
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,720
Speaker 1: I think, you know, traditional injustices are not so open

481
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: about their lives, and I do think that there's a service.

482
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: One of the reviewers of our book said this, and

483
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it a lot. She was talking

484
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: about the justice's willingness to think with a lynch Waldo

485
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: in The New Republic writing about the justice is willingness

486
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: to allow herself to be photographed and to talk about

487
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: elements of her personal life and not really kind of,

488
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: I mean she kind she is very private, but compared

489
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: to how other Supreme Court justices have been in the

490
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: public eye, she's open and generous and talking about the

491
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: challenges that she's faced and also how she's made at work,

492
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: and given that we have so few women and positions

493
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: of power, let alone women women in positions of power

494
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: who were committed to feminists and anti risist ideas. Um.

495
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,159
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to figure out, like how

496
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: what does that life look like? You know, what is

497
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 1: how do you how do you make it work? How

498
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: do you have a happy life? You know? And how

499
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: she had a happy life there has been died in

500
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, but they were together for nearly

501
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: sixty years and had a remarkable, if not perfect, I

502
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: mean nothing perfect partnership. And you know, the documentary RBG

503
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 1: that's coming out has really exceptional never before seen footage

504
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: of RBG and her husband Marty interacting where you just

505
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 1: see what a love Affharaoh was. I mean, it was

506
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: a great intellectual and personal and familial partnership, but they

507
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: were just in love with each other. It's just incredible

508
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: to see it. And so to know that she could

509
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: both contribute so much to the cause of equality and

510
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: to the law and also be a human being. I

511
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: think that that it does a service for people trying

512
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: to understand, like how do you be in the world

513
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: totally so so K don't coming off that point. I

514
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: know that relationships and friends ships are very very important

515
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: to RBG. She's written quite a bit about her friendship

516
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: with Sandra Day O'Connor, you know, both these awesome women

517
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: who were on the Supreme Court. Um. But something that

518
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: comes up a lot and people talk about her as

519
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: her sort of I guess strange bedfellow friendships with people

520
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: that you might not think that she would be super

521
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: close with, people like that like Antem Scalia. Right, do

522
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: you do you see that as something that is I

523
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: mean I always wonder like, are they really friends? Are

524
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: they It's just one of those things where it's like, oh,

525
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: we get along super well, like we have no problems,

526
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: but really they're not, you know, are these relationships are

527
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,959
Speaker 1: a key part of what makes her her? Yes. I mean,

528
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: I think in particular her friendship with Scalia, and you know,

529
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: with Santrade O'Connor was somebody who she didn't always agree with,

530
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,479
Speaker 1: a close appointed by wrong with break and as well

531
00:29:54,080 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: there friendships across different views of the world old I

532
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: think for her were really important and showing um that

533
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: that human beings can talk to each other and work

534
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: together productively despite all their differences. And I think she's

535
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: really committed to the Supreme courts functioning as it should.

536
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: She talks a lot about collegiality. I mean, these these

537
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: are very quaint notions in Washington d C. Of Trump

538
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: um or even you know, the Washington DC of Mitch McConnell.

539
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: She told me when I interviewed her UM in two

540
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, Justice Ginsburgh said, yeah, maybe someday we'll

541
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: have a Congress that works again. And you know it's

542
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: not it's not just it's not just about friendship. Although

543
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: her friendship with Justice Scalia was real. I mean they

544
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: would spend New Year's together, and they would go to

545
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: the opera together, and she liked that he made her laugh.

546
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: I mean, she's a great sense of humor. People think

547
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 1: that she's very serious, but in fact she's the devilish

548
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: sense of humanity. Was very witty, but beyond that, it

549
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: was also about Stolengthending, the work of the chord Sandrade

550
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: O'Connor are frequently crossed the aisle, and she's a woman's right.

551
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: She helped save Rovie wade In and my parenthood versus

552
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: Casey and Scalia. Also, even though a lot of the

553
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: times they disagreed, they would join together on Fourth Amendment decisions,

554
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: and even when he was descending like he did in

555
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: US versus Virginia, which was one of her most important

556
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: majority cases, where she um she essentially enshrined into law

557
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: some of the work that she had been doing of

558
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: a litigator, UM saying that the Virginia Military Institute could

559
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: not bar women from entry. Even when Justice Scalia dissented

560
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: in that case, she felt like he made it made

561
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: her work stronger because he gave her a copy of

562
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: his descent on a Friday, and she said, he destroyed

563
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: my weekend, but he made my opinion so much better.

564
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: Just thinking about the spirit of debate and truly engaging

565
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: with each other and not in an ad comin UM

566
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: way has always been something that's very important to her.

567
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and we're back. Yeah, you

568
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: touched on UM too of her kind of big cases

569
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: decisions that we we were going to ask about. So UM,

570
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: we were wondering, what are some of the decisions in

571
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: cases that you think define RBG professionally, one that she

572
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: did as a judge or as a lawyer, either all

573
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: of the above. Um, Well, you know, one of her

574
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: one of her favorite cases that she did as a lawyer. Uh,

575
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: this was Stephen Wise and Felds. It's a case that

576
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: she started and took all the way to the Supreme Court,

577
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: believe nineteen seventy six. This was a case of a

578
00:32:54,880 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: widowed father who um was not given the same kind

579
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: of parental benefits because he was a widower and his wife,

580
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: who had died in childbirth was a woman. The way

581
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: that the tax code was construed, they're really only worth

582
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: these kinds of benefits available to women from male wage

583
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: and or earners. So she got each of the members

584
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court enough for a majority to agree

585
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: that this violated his rights as a man as a

586
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: father to equal protection. It violated the dead woman's rights

587
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: because her work was being treated as lesser than that

588
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: of a man. And it also violated the rights of

589
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: the child UM who wasn't getting the same access to

590
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: caregiver benefits UM, just because the caregiver who was taking

591
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 1: care of him as a man as the counter Intuitively,

592
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people at the time that

593
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: while bringing all these cases on behalf of men, it's

594
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: the women's rights project, not the men's rights project. But

595
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 1: her long game was that if you drew attention to

596
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 1: ways in which gender constricted everybody and also in limited

597
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: the rights of men. More people would understand that what

598
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: was at stake, you know, was much bigger than whether

599
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: women could do just what men could do. It was

600
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,959
Speaker 1: about rebuilding a society in which everybody could participate equally. Yeah,

601
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: you touched on something that I love about her career.

602
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: RBG really kind of focused on the long game, right,

603
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,280
Speaker 1: So she thought about what are some achievable, winnable ways

604
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: that I can ship away at gender imbalance. And she often,

605
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 1: and this is like strategically very interesting, she often shows

606
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: cases that involved men and so you know, like the

607
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: case you just described where it's a it's clearly a

608
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,919
Speaker 1: gender imbalance, but you it's not one of the people

609
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at it and say, oh, it's the women

610
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: wanting something special, right, That's not how someone would look

611
00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: at it. And I think it's really this. It really

612
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: shows a lot of savvy right where a lot of

613
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:06,959
Speaker 1: people will be playing checkers and she's playing chess, where

614
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: she's thinking about it in a long term way, in

615
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: a way that I think is often difficult to like.

616
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: If you're someone who wants to make progressive change. Or

617
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: social change. It's difficult to think of it as this

618
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: will have a lasting impact down the line, because you

619
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: want something that's going to be like I can see

620
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: the results now, this is going to happen, you know,

621
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: right away, very quickly. And she really just I don't know,

622
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,479
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate her strategic acumen when it comes

623
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: to the cases that she took on and the ways

624
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: that she went about them. She was your stategic because

625
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: when she began in the early nineteen seventies, UH, no

626
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision had ever said yet discriminating against women

627
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: was unconstitutional because all of the ways that the law

628
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: treated men and women differently were construed as favors to women.

629
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: So exempting women from jury service, UM, treating them differently

630
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: in the legal or political context, uh a fewer benefits,

631
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 1: and so on, preferring men over women in administrative cases. UM.

632
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: All of that was seen as women being put on

633
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: a pedestal. It was seen as UH doing women a favor,

634
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: making women take mandatory unpaid maternity ly when they became pregnant,

635
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: basically forcing a moment off the job. All of that

636
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,840
Speaker 1: was saying, we're doing you a favor. Go back to

637
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: the home and you'll be taken care of by a man,

638
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: even though that was not a reality. Uh. That was

639
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: that did not reflect every woman's reality, that they had

640
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,720
Speaker 1: a male salary to rely on, particularly women of color.

641
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: And so by the end of her time going up

642
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: against that barrier, Uh, the court had come around to

643
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,479
Speaker 1: the idea that women also deserve equal protection under the law.

644
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: But she did so by picking cases that were not sweeping.

645
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: They were definitely step by step incremental. I think that

646
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: that's one reason why she's become so radicalized in the

647
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: last few years, why she had become such a fierce dissenter,

648
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: because um cases like Shelby County were activists. They I mean,

649
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Actor, which had just

650
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: been reauthorized just a few years earlier and signed by

651
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: George W. Bush by bipartisan majority of Congress, was signed

652
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,839
Speaker 1: by Republican President. And here was this George Shelby Bush

653
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: appoint to John Roberts saying that racism is dead and

654
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: we don't need the Voting Rights Act anymore. I wonder

655
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: what he thinks about racism being dead now. And she,

656
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 1: you know, did so on the sweeping theory that didn't

657
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: really have ground. I mean, the entire point of the

658
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: way that the Supreme Court works is step by step cases,

659
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: building on cases. But the protest has always been that

660
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: it's liberal toward judicial activists. I And in a series

661
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: of cases, including this one, the Court did act in

662
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: a kind of sweeping way, and I think that helped

663
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: create Justice Ginsburg ins notorious RBG out of outrage for

664
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: the fact that the rules are not being followed. And

665
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: her notion was that if we did act in an

666
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: incremental way to try to create a more equal country

667
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: and to try to um make good on the promise

668
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: of we the people to meet all the people, that

669
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: we had to do it in a step by step

670
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 1: away to avoid backlash. Of course, the backlash has come anyway.

671
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,360
Speaker 1: The times have forced her to be you know what

672
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: she is now, which is whenever possible, she crashed a compromise,

673
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: and there have been a few surprising times in the

674
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 1: last couple of years where she hasn't offended and where

675
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: she's convinced Justice Kennedy the Keys swing vote to join

676
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: her in really important cases, including cases involving abortion rights

677
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 1: and immigration, and you know, recently also a case with

678
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: with judge justice corsage. But when the time comes, she's

679
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:18,280
Speaker 1: ready with that hot dissenting pen intercol. Yeah. So something

680
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: this is a just to switch gears a little bit.

681
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: Something that I spend a lot of time thinking about.

682
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: Is this sort of progressive tradition that is president in

683
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: the Jewish community. Do you feel like she is a

684
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: like is this part of her legacy, like as a

685
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: Jewish woman? You know, Um, there are so many great

686
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 1: examples of radical progressive fighters for social change who are

687
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: Jewish and their you know, their religion really informs why

688
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: they come, you know, why they are involved in social

689
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: change work, which I think is really beautiful and something

690
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: that we don't talk enough about. Is this something that

691
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,879
Speaker 1: you see in her legacy? I know that she has

692
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: talked about being inspired by the Jewish tradition that is

693
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: very much based in law and justice and in seeking justice.

694
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: And she actually has uh a quote displayed in her office,

695
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: Frank displayed in her office about seeking justice and all things.

696
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: But I also know that, um, her early stirring the

697
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,799
Speaker 1: feminism actually happened because as much as there is the

698
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:21,439
Speaker 1: social justice tradition in Judaism, like many religions, there's also

699
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 1: a patriarchal tradition, and so when her mother died, she

700
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: was not counted and gathering in sort of the quorum

701
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: for prayer um because she was a woman. And it

702
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:36,919
Speaker 1: was one of the first moments. She was eighteen, maybe

703
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: seventeen at the time and immediately realized that she did

704
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,240
Speaker 1: not count as a mourner because she was a woman.

705
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,279
Speaker 1: And I think that that actually laid the groundward for

706
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: her feminism. So yes, definitely, she draws on the tradition

707
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 1: of Jewish commitment to the text, which is very much

708
00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: a part of Judaism. Legal um textualism, close reading of

709
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: laws in the Constitution. Certainly um is something that's co

710
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: current with the way that the Judaism is practice in

711
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: the United States and commitment to equality. But also I

712
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: think questioning the role of women in Judaism also helped

713
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: make her who she is. Yeah, I wanted to go

714
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 1: back to something you've mentioned a couple of times, which

715
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: is abortion um. Anti choice folks like to point out

716
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: sometimes that RBG has an issue with Roe v Wade,

717
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: But what's the reality of her thoughts on Roe v Wade. Well,

718
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: we talked about justice Ginsburgh's commitment to incremental change. When

719
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: she has talked about her problems with Roe v. Wade,

720
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: it has not been because she doesn't support a woman's

721
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: access to abortion, because she vociferously supports reproductive freedom, whether

722
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: that's the decision to a youth contraception have an abortion,

723
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: or she represented women who were being forced to have

724
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: abortions by the government. Uh and women in North Carolina

725
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: women of color were sterilized against their will were also

726
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: some of her clients. So the full panoply of reproductive

727
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: freedom has long been a really core part of the

728
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: work that she's done. But her problem with Roevie Wig

729
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: was twofold. One is that she thought that it went

730
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: too far, too fast, so it struck down all of

731
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,879
Speaker 1: the criminal abortion bands in a single decision, and she

732
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: thought that if the court had moved more slowly, then

733
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: potentially there would have been less of a backlash, which

734
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: a lot of scholars disagree with, but this is her

735
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: well earned opinion. Um a lot of people think that

736
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: there would have been a backlash no matter what. The

737
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: other problem that she has is that the reasoning of

738
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: the opinion, she wanted it to be grounded in women's equality,

739
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: not in the right to privacy. Now, there were equality

740
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: arguments made to the justices that they weren't ready to

741
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 1: hear them at that point. Subsequently, there's been a lot

742
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: more of understanding about how both liberty and equality are

743
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: important to reproductive freedom. But if you read Rovie Wade,

744
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: as Justice Ginsburgh has often pointed out, it talks about

745
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 1: the doctor's right to practice, it hardly at all considers

746
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: what this means in a woman's life. It was written

747
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: by Justice Harry Blackman, who was had been a general

748
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 1: counsel of the Mayo Clinic and was really sympathetic to

749
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: doctor's arguments. And this notion of privacy, as you know,

750
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 1: doesn't get you very far in a reproductive justice context.

751
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: Right is, if it's your right to privacy, then do

752
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: you have a right to, for example, get medicaid coverage

753
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: of abortion? While the Court has found no, but you

754
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: do not UM. And that's certainly an equality issue that

755
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: has a very different impact on low income people and

756
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: people of color and the country. So it's a limited

757
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: doctrine UM that doesn't take into account all of the

758
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: Court's other cases that are about equality of women UM.

759
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 1: And and so I think if she were rewriting history.

760
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: She's often said that she wishes that her case about

761
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: an Air Force nurse to the Air Force is actually

762
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: saying that she had to either get an abortion on

763
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: base because abortion was actually legal in on military basis

764
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: despite being illegal in the United States, or quit. And

765
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 1: so she wanted it to focus on the full option

766
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: of reproductive choice in it being about a woman's right

767
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: to chart her own course and the government not being

768
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: able to tell her what to do. But this is

769
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: the history that we have totally, totally. So my last question,

770
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: what is something about RBG that would surprise people? What

771
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:55,879
Speaker 1: is something about her that you're that you're like, Oh,

772
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: people don't know this about her. People don't know necessarily

773
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: that she can do to they push up. I don't.

774
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. Actually, she worked out with Stephen Colber

775
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: recently and I believe you can also in the forthcoming

776
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: documentary RBG, her trainer is interviewed and you can see

777
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: Justice Ginsburg workout and she there she is doing push

778
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: ups and squats and pull up maybe not pull ups,

779
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: but she is an eighty five year old two time

780
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,080
Speaker 1: cancer survivor who has never missed a day on the

781
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: bench and part of what accounts for her stamina is

782
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: her fierce workout routine and her amazing trainer Bryant, who

783
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: has his own book called The RBG Workout, which is

784
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: an awesome book. There's a entire bookshelf of RBG books

785
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 1: out there right now, and I love him and his book.

786
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: We also have an illustrated version of the workout in

787
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,839
Speaker 1: our book and an interview with him. Um. He's part

788
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: of the reason that Justice Ginsburg, whose life is very

789
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: important to the few true of democracy, is able to

790
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 1: keep her breakneck schedule because she worked out every day

791
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: and twice a week with him. I am so glad

792
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: you mentioned that because that's one of my favorite facts

793
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: about her. She could probably kick our asses. Yeah. We

794
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: did her workout for the Melissa Harris Parry Show r

795
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: I P M HP Show, which was a great show

796
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: that show. Yeah, and uh and definitely by the end

797
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: when we're like you win work, I love it. That's

798
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite I don't know if it's

799
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: a mean but one of my favorite RBG sayings is

800
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 1: what is it? I'm going to butcher it? But it's like,

801
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: RBG didn't survive cancer twice for you to stay in

802
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: bed and watch Law in Order of the runs, Right,

803
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: It's like this idea that if she can be cancer twice,

804
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: work out every day, be this badass contributor to the

805
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, you can get out of bed, you know,

806
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: turn off Law and Order and like, go are you?

807
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: I think about that? Almost? I think about it too.

808
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I had to Fish is exactly fifty years

809
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: older than me, and I'm exhausted just reading about her schedule.

810
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: But it's definitely something to aspire to. Absolutely could not

811
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: have put it better myself. Arian, Thank you so much

812
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: for being here today. Where can folks find out more

813
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: about what you're up to? Uh? Usually Twitter is the

814
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 1: best way. Um, I'm just I R I N on

815
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: Twitter or Eran Carmelon on Instagram. Also, we we recently

816
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: came out with a young reader's edition of Notorious RBG,

817
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: which is available in bookstores and online. Um, it's for

818
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: the eight ten year old reader in your life, or

819
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 1: really anyone who likes a shorter, clearer, more explained version

820
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: of Notorious RBG. So you've heard it here first. If

821
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: you've got a little one in your life who is

822
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: maybe a future Supreme Court justice in the making, go

823
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: out and pick up this edition for her because it's

824
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: gonna probably change your life, yes, or for him? For him, yeah, exactly,

825
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: we should read about RBG. Absolutely awesome. Thank you so

826
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: much for being here a minute. I really really appreciate it.

827
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 1: It's fun to be with you guys. Thank you well.

828
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: Smithy listeners. What are your thoughts on RBG? Do you

829
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: have the T shirt and the book and the dolls

830
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: and the Halloween costumes? If you addressed your child up

831
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: as RBG for havelween, please let us know tag us

832
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: and all those Instagram photos. You can find us on

833
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: Instagram at stuff but I've never told you on Twitter,

834
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast, and as always, send us your

835
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: favorite RBG descent via email at mom stuff at how

836
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com