Originally Posted by
bundabergdevil
There's a story resurfacing about how RBG, as one of 9 women in a 500 person Harvard Law School that had only recently begun admitting any women, was brought before the Dean who asked her how she could justify taking up a place that should go to a man. As icons of civil rights like John Lewis and gender equality like RBG pass, I do my best to reflect on the America they came up in and helped change for the better. The level of discrimination codified in our legal system and practiced in our culture was immense and stupefying for most of our nation's history and RBG, on the issue of gender equality (as a man, she made the law more equitable for me, too), changed a system that didn't want to see her educated, didn't want to pay her the same wages for the same work, and in many meeting rooms didn't think she as a women even belonged.
That ability to navigate a world that mostly thinks of you as unequal and bend it to your will to make it more equal through shear effing smarts and willpower deserves our reflection, even if you find yourself on the other side of the political aisle. She was a towering figure that led an epic American life filled with tragedy and triumph and did it all with more grace and goodwill than I can muster on most trips to the grocery store. RIP, RBG.