“The Notorious R.B.G” deserves more fame outside America

Credit: Simmie Knox, under commission of the United States Supreme Court

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. RBG. She was the second woman to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the only female Justice from 2006 to 2009. Justice Ginsburg has become something of a pop icon for many Americans.

I may not be one, but I admire her work nonetheless; her brilliant career in the United States justice system, the high-profile court cases she fought, many of them revolving around gender issues like abortion rights.

Despite not being a household name abroad, the spotlight on the 85-year-old Justice has never been stronger, with a movie about her, titled On the Basis of Sex, out in cinemas now, starring Felicity Jones. The movie follows (spoiler alert) RBG’s work in a landmark gender discrimination case as a young attorney in the 70’s. Using the case of a man refused a tax deduction on the basis that he had never married, Mrs. Ginsburg showed that laws applied differently on the basis of sex were discriminatory and affected men just as badly as women. Her side won the case, marking one of her first steps in tackling legal gender discrimination.

Rather than trying to change everything at once, she preferred to tackle specific cases that could then be used as precedents to bring about greater changes. Nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Justice Ginsburg has since distinguished herself with fiery liberal dissenting opinions, earning her the internet nickname “The Notorious R.B.G”.

Joking aside, she has recently returned to work, after recovering from both a lobectomy and a fall that fractured three of her ribs. She refuses to give up the work she deems as important as ever, and I for one couldn’t be happier.