Ruth Bader Ginsburg Was a Fighter, But I Feel Defeated
RBG’s death is about more than her slipping away. It feels like American women are losing our grip as well.
When my 10-year-old daughter asked why I was crying, I couldn’t do much else but put my face in my hands — a weak attempt to hide my hurt from a kid who has already seen her parents at their most stressed and bereft these past few months. I left it to her father to explain who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, why she was so important to women, and why the loss was so great that her usually-verbose mother couldn’t seem to get a word out without sobbing.
In the coming days we’ll read about Justice Ginsburg’s remarkable life, how she forever changed the United States and how its legal system treats women, and what her death means for a country less than two months away from its presidential election.
But all that dominates my mind right now is the image of a woman hanging on who just couldn’t anymore. Someone who knew what the stakes were and gripped on to life tightly, unwilling to give an inch till the very end.
That’s why Justice Ginsburg was more than an icon or a judge, more than a feminist luminary. She was, to so many American women, us: Fighting like hell to build our strength and protect our hard-won…
