A Love Letter to Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Ted Eytan — Creative Commons

Ruth Bader Ginsberg and I were born the same year. 1933. It was a good year for music (Willie Nelson, James Brown . . ,) the arts (Tim Conway, Carol Burnett . . ,) literature (David McCullough, Reynolds Price . . .) Unfortunately, our birth year is about the only thing I have in common with the Notorious RBG. I would happily have given her six or eight of however many remaining months I have, if life only worked that way.

Since life doesn’t work that way, here is a post-mortem thank-you note.

Thank you for opening doors for women’s education. I spent some happy weekends at the Virginia Military Institute in the early 1950s, when I could visit for dates but could not have even gotten an application for admission. Your persuasive argument in United States v. Virginia’s 7–1 ruling (1996) changed all that. In the words of historian Richard Morris, “VMI’s story continued as our comprehension of ‘We the People’ expanded.” We the female people are grateful.

Thanks also to you (and Marty!) for demonstrating how real romance and marriage can thrive and endure. It took a lot of pioneering to get past the unwritten rule that running the home and family were strictly woman’s work, even if she also worked fulltime outside the home. I don’t recall my husband ever changing a diaper in the upbringing years of three children. And doing all the cooking? Sheesh. But that…