It is time for RBG to rest in peace. And time for others to carry on her fight. She is irreplaceable.
Our friends took a yartzheit candle down to the Supreme Court building today where many were gathered to pay respects. And At our synagogue service today, Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the Prayer for our Country (via Zoom).
Please tell Justice Breyer to take good care of himself, please!
Saddened at the passing of such an amazing woman. May her memory be a blessing.
@abasket - yes, I got a terribly sad text from my (adult and very “woke”) D about RBG. She feels despondent, and like there’s nowhere to go but further down. Young women especially have had the good fortune of growing up with protections thanks to brave and unwavering women like RBG. I absolutely worry about the future for all women, and especially the younger generations.
I wish I could just be sad, as well as grateful for her service to our country, but I am also deeply concerned.
So heart-breaking. She fought for so long.
It is a strong reminder of how far we have come for women’s rights during our lifetimes. I was telling my 23 yo son about things that women couldn’t do up to the 1970s including attending certain colleges, getting their own credit cards, not to mention discrimination in employment and housing. I also recounted how when I was young girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. Even on the coldest days we had to wear “snow pants” to walk to school and take them off in the coat room.
We take much of this for granted, but it was a long fight and RBG was a pivotal player.
May her memory be a blessing.
I think it’s very telling that both of my girls immediately contacted me to tell me that RBG had passed away. My son also came downstairs to ask me if I had heard the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away.
They all took it as though a death in the family had occurred, and I also had the same reaction as many of the posters-like a punch in the gut.
I had told all my three of my kids one way in which RBG and her creation of the Women’s Rights Project in the ACLU, had personally affected my life:
That a little more than 30 years ago, right after I had married my husband, he and I were merging bank accounts. We went to his local bank to add my name to his account. (Because my maiden name is very “ethnic“, my graduate professors suggested that I retain my maiden name for my profession. They didn’t need to encourage this because I had already planned on it.)
The people at the bank told me that I couldn’t put my maiden name on the account because they didn’t do that, and that if I wanted an account there, I would have to change my name to my husband’s name. We left California First bank .
We were in a section of town called “bank row”.
We were talking while walking-about it, and entered a new bank, (Great Western) and thought we would ask about an account. My husband asked the “new accounts” representative if I could have my own name and his name on the same bank account. He stressed that my maiden name was different than his but that we were married. The female account representative said, “That’s not an issue; we can put whatever name you want. It’s new legislation.”
My husband and I walked back to his original bank. He told them that he was withdrawing his full funds, via cashiers check, because the bank a block away was allowing me to use my maiden name on my checks.
Rest In Peace-RBG -a giant among women.
So much has changed and RBG was such a major player in that change. When I got married in the 1970’s I went in to change the name on my accounts. All were fine except Sears. They said I could not and I would have to open a new account with my husband’s signature. We never shopped again at Sears.
I remember as a very young girl my mother writing what she called a polite nasty letter to JcPenney’s as they would not issue her a credit card in her own name. I realize now this had to have been after the RBG decision allowing women to have to same credit rating as their husband.
My grandmother always had to make me little shorts to go under my dresses until I got to 6th grade and could finally start wearing pants to school and was not worried about little boys trying to take peaks when I was on the swing sets.
When DD2 heard of her death she texted me and was home within minute crying like I had not seen since her father passed away two years ago. Afraid for what RBG’s death would mean for her generation. Literally scared for her future.
Rest in Power RBG you meant the world to three generations of my family!.
Wow!–another Sears story: Shortly after my father died in 1973, my mom went to Sears to pay the credit card bill. She’d been the only one working most of the previous few years, as he’d been sick, out of work, or both, for much of them. Finding out he had died, the clerk took out scissors in front of mom and cut the card up. After that, Mom signed Mrs in front of his name on the other cards and didn’t let on he was dead. Until she was allowed to take them out in her own name. Thank you, RBG, for changing the world for her and all of us.
Just a nit to pick. It was the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), an act of congress, that required creditors to allow married women to get credit in their own names. RBG was working at the ACLU in the equal rights division, and I’m sure they had a lot of input in drafting the act, but it wasn’t a ‘RBG decision’ that allowed it. She wasn’t a judge until 1980.
@“Youdon’tsay” check out my profile pic! I wear my “dissent pin” everyday since 2016. That year every person on my gift list got one. The men wear theirs as tie tacks or lapel pins. My D wears hers on her purse. ?
Let’s move on from the credit card stories. and any story not related to RBG, please.
Thanks for posting that. Great article and befitting of a great woman!
RIP, RBG. We fight on.
@twoinanddone – I believe that many of the specific gains facilitated by RBG were not just from her judge days, but from her litigation time. She presented many important cases, especially concerning women’s rights, before the courts up to the SC.
MSNBC reported that RBG’s legal legacy, among so many examples, gave women the right to:
Sign a mortgage without a man (imagine!)
The right to have a bank account without a male co-signer )and imagine!)
The right to have a job without being discriminated based on gender
The right to be pregnant / have kids and work
Equal pay for women
To join the military
All of the above occurred in MY lifetime!!!
Just a point of clarification, as a woman born in 1954. Women could get bank accounts and credit cards in their own names – I moved to California in 1970 to attend college and had no trouble at all walking into a bank to open an account. I also applied for a department store card at Macy’s to build up credit, and I know I had my first Mastercard in 1972.
The problem was for MARRIED women – marriage meant the loss of one’s independent status, with everything then subsumed on the husband’s record. That is one reason I did get credit cards early on in my own name – the financial advice was that it was very important for women to establish an independent record early on.
If things hadn’t changed, it might have impacted my decision to get married down the line. (I got married in the early 1980’s, divorced mid 1990’s).
And that history probably did impact my decision to retain my maiden name.
The basic problem was the concept of women as being subservient to their husbands.
That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t other types of banking discrimination – that I can’t speak to because wasn’t in a position to seek out a business loan or a mortgage.
That concept or doctrine was called coverture or couverture.