The RBG Way Excerpt: What Would Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Do?

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November 13 2019
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of the most
influential political leaders not only of our time, but in all of U.S. history.
In her book The RBG Way, Rebecca Gibian dispenses some of the powerful
pieces of wisdom she’s gleaned from comments by Justice Ginsburg. From women’s
rights to the importance of bravery to how to inspire impactful societal
change, The RBG Way sheds light on the important beliefs Justice
Ginsburg holds.

Could you use some life coaching from the great RBG? Get in
line—or check out this special excerpt from The RBG Way! Read about how
Justice Ginsburg met her husband (on a not-so-blind date!) and why “Find
yourself a partner like Marty” makes a good dating mantra.


It was supposed to be a blind date, but Marty Ginsburg
cheated. He saw Ruth Bader on Cornell’s campus and convinced his friend to
arrange the meeting because he thought she was cute. The two were both seeing
other people (Marty had a girlfriend at Smith College, while Ruth had
maintained a relationship with a boy she had met at summer camp who attended
Columbia University), so the date was only meant to introduce the two as “safe”
company for each other. But the two soon realized they shared
an intense connection, intellectually and emotionally. As
Ruth always says, Marty was the first boy who cared that she had a brain.

As for Marty, he realized the
extent of her intelligence on their second date. It was then that he understood
she was not only really smart, but she wasn’t “glib,” Marty once said of his
wife. He once told the authors of My Own Words that more than anyone
else he’d ever met, Ruth is not afraid of “dead air time.” If you ask her
something, she will stop and think through her answer before responding. At the
time, he said that she had done this for the more than five decades he has
known her, and still did it at dinner.

Their love story proceeded
quickly and soon became legendary. Marty said he knew that he wanted to spend
his life with Ruth before she decided the same, but he said it
was clear to him early on that he was going to have a happier life if she was
in it. They became a couple her junior year
(he was a year older than she) and were inseparable.

His marriage proposal, asked
while they were in the car, elicited a loud yes from Ruth. They were married in
1954, in the backyard of Marty’s parents’ Long Island home. After
the ceremony, Ruth’s new mother-in-law took her aside to tell her, “In every
good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf.” At the same time, she
handed Ruth wax earplugs. To this day, Ruth says she used that
advice in both her marriage and on the court.

In a world of dating apps and
crowded bars, of rom-coms and high expectations, it can sometimes be hard to
imagine a partnership like that found between Ruth Bader and Marty Ginsburg.
But it is an important reminder to all of us that this level of intimacy and
support can exist in a relationship. Your idea of a family might not look like
RBG’s. Maybe you don’t believe in marriage, maybe you have more than one life
partner, or maybe you see yourself building a family in a non-traditional way.
No matter what your definition of a partner is, I still think the lesson is
still there: Find yourself a partner like Marty. Someone who empowers and
uplifts you, who makes you laugh, and who not only sees your career goals as
being as important as theirs but goes above and beyond to help you achieve
them.

Excerpted from The RBG Way by Rebecca GibianCopyright ©
2019 by author. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.

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