Yaritza Rendon

BUS 311-1801

Professor Buckler

Assignment 1

On the Basis of Sex

            On the Basis of Sex is a biographical drama based on the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She was a lifelong advocate for gender equality, a civil servant who served as a justice on the Supreme Court for 27 years and a trailblazer for women’s rights. Ginsberg became the first female professor at Columbia Law School and co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). As ACLU’s general counsel, she presented six gender discrimination cases in the Supreme Court and won five of them. While she is remembered as a feminist icon, it is important to remember she also passionately advocated for the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, undocumented people, and disabled people. She also fought to expand voting rights.

Ginsberg stated that the court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety. Up until the mid-70s, financial institutions denied married women in the U.S credit cards or loans in their own name and single women also had trouble getting credit. If it were not for Ginsberg, as a female, I would not be able to have my own bank account or credit card. Enter the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. Without it, women would not have been able to access of the most basic tools of financial independence. In 1996, Ginsberg opined that it was unconstitutional for state-sponsored schools to exclude women on the basis of sex. If it were not Ginsberg, I would not have been able to attend school. Ginsberg had a crucial vote in the case of Roe vs Wade. Because of Ginsberg, I now have the right to choose and have autonomy over my own body. As a litigator and on the Supreme Court, Ginsberg changed what was possible for women in the U.S.

“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.”

-Ruth Bader Ginsberg