Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week discussed her experience as a woman trying to break into the law profession during a speech at Georgetown University, where she determined just how many women she thinks should sit on the Supreme Court.
“People ask me sometimes, ‘When do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?'” Ginsburg said, according to a video published by “PBS NewsHour.” “And my answer is when there are nine.”
Ginsburg also spoke about the beginning of her law career, when she struggled to attain certain jobs as a woman.
“In those days, in the Southern District, most judges wouldn’t hire women. In the U.S. attorney’s office, women were strictly forbidden in the Criminal Division. There was one woman in the Civil Division,” she said. “And the excuse for not hiring women in the Criminal Division was they have to deal with all these tough types, and women aren’t up to that. And I was amazed. I said, have you seen the lawyers at legal aid who are representing these tough types? They are women.”
And she revealed that things may have worked out a little differently for her if she had “talent.”
“If I had any talent in the world, any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva,” she said.
Watch the video via PBS:
H/t Huffington Post
Love the Notorious RBG!
I’m 65. I would “settle” for five female SCOTUS in my lifetime. Hurry up!
Chief Justice Ginsburg has such a nice ring to it.
Scalia and Thomas being replaced by liberal women would make for some pretty good Fox News segments.
I really don’t think she means it in the way everyone is taking it. She’s not saying there should definitely be nine women on the Court, although she is indicating (correctly) that no one should have any problem with that.
I think what RBG is specifically doing is deftly eviscerating the premise of the question. The question poses an absurd double-standard threshold in the concept of “enough.” Enough women? Why would there ever be an accepted limitation on the presence of females, in any profession, association, or institution? So she answers it logically: the only possible way the condition of “enough women” can be satisfied is when all the seats are filled with women. In addition, she is silently underscoring the fact that, for 85% of its existence, the Supreme Court was 100% male. And no man ever asked publicly if that was more than enough.