Ruth Bader Ginsburg - On Working Mothers

"It wasn’t as hard to go to law school, being married and with a child, as people think. I thought it would be an overwhelming burden and when I became pregnant I began to think I would never earn a law degree. Early on, my father-in-law said to me that if I decided not to go to law school because of this baby, that would be fine. No one would think the less of me for making that decision. But if I really wanted to be a lawyer, having a baby wouldn’t stand in my way. I realized he was absolutely right and I think he gave me sound advice for most things in life. If you want to do something badly enough you find a way, somehow you manage."

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times, by Lynn Gilbert.

Enjoy the oral interview of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the later 1970s; one of 42 oral interviews captured in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times

The oral biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who continues to contribute to civil and women’s rights as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Available at Apple and Amazon.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg - On Equality and the Law

"We believe in racial equality, we believe in free speech. We have recorded those beliefs in the Constitution, our fundamental instrument of government. We are advancing toward the belief that men and women should be seen as equal before the law. We should record that basic principle in the Constitution. We should do that in preference to reading the principle into Constitutional provisions drafted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We know the founding fathers in the eighteenth century did not think men and women were or should be equal before the law. During the nineteenth century, after the Civil War, there were still tremendous differences in the law’s treatment of men and women. It was accepted that men should vote and women shouldn’t vote. It’s hard to read into provisions written over a century ago our modern concept that men and women should have equal opportunities, so far as government action is concerned. Yet the Supreme Court Justices have been doing just that. They have done so because our Constitution is meant to survive through the ages; there must be some adaptation to changing times and conditions."

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped Our Times.

Enjoy the oral interview of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the later 1970s; one of 42 oral interviews captured in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times

The oral biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who continues to contribute to civil and women’s rights as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Available at Apple and Amazon.

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Image by Norman Rockwell

"That a lawyer could do something that was personally satisfying and at the same time work to preserve the values that made this country great was an exciting prospect for me." — Ruth Bader Ginsburg,  Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped our Times.

A brief chapter, the oral biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose contributions to civil and women’s rights continue today in the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Available for nook / kindle / ipad at Amazon and Apple for $0.99.

"Tantalizing glimpses into the lives of women who have not only made a living at their own “particular passion,” but have become well known, even world renowned,  for doing work they love." — Christian Science Monitor.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG - A CHAMPION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS

“When I graduated from law school in 1959, it was not possible to move legislators or judges toward recognition of a sex-equality principle.” — From the brief chapter and oral biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice, in 'Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped our Times.'

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7grtcd6     A great read - only $0.99

The book, Particular Passions, profiles forty-six pioneering American women of the 20th Century from the arts and sciences, athletics and law, mathematics and politics, among other disciplines and is available now for all e-reading devices. The first of its kind, Particular Passions identifies the women who had an historic impact on women's rights from the 1920s to the late 1970s. These oral biographies recorded in the 1970s, capture the experience and wisdom of the women who opened doors for all of us.

The progression of the stories echoes the evolution of life for women in America. Published to critical acclaim in 1981, Particular Passions is included in more than 800 academic institutions and government libraries worldwide.

Gerda Lerner was the first person to put “women’s studies” on the map, establishing women’s history as an important part of a university’s curriculum.  I was honored to have her use my book as the core of one of her classes.

An excerpt from the many stellar reviews: "This is a wonderful book... The book is recommended reading for anyone — no matter what political or sociological background—who wants to know more about living history." — Santa Cruz Sentinel

For the complete Particular Passions: Amazon Apple

WOMEN AND THE LAW

Thetis (personification of divine justice) Rhamnous. 300 BC

Raphael's workshop - Fresco completed from sketches after his death 1520

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Perception of women in the law has taken centuries to evolve. Thetis, (personification of divine justice), was sculpted by Rhamnous in 300 BC.

Justice, again was represented as a woman in Raphael’s fresco in 1520. It took another 2,300 years for a real woman, Sandra Day O’Connor to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981, since its’ inception in 1790, followed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993, Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, and Elena Kagan in 2010.

Read a brief chapter of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in "Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped our Times,"  whose contributions to civil and women’s rights continue today in the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, Amazon or  Apple for only $.99.

Ginsburg looked back on women and the law in Particular Passions and said, “ I started law school in 1956, one of nine women in an entering class of over five hundred.  We wondered why there were only nine, and asked a faculty member. “Is it discrimination?” we inquired. “Certainly not,” he said. “From the large gray middle of the applicant pile we try to take people who have something unusual, something different about them. If you are a bull fiddle player, for example, you would get a plus, and if you’re a woman you would get a plus.”

As one reviewer said of Particular Passions, “One of  those rare, rare books that pick your life up, turn it around and point it in the right direction." — K.T. Maclay.

Available on Amazon  and Apple.

In his auspicious inaugural address today, Obama said  "When times change, so must we." Real action, and the opportunity for equality for all, will follow these inspired words... hopefully.