The Way Women Are: Transformative Opinions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will surely appear in history books as the most significant Supreme Court Justice since Thurgood Marshall (or even Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) She’s already been the subject of numerous profiles, including a hit documentary film (Notorious RBG), with one lengthy and highly detailed biography. Fortunately, though, we can get to know this amazing woman best through her own writings, from the bench, no less!The Way Women Are is eminently readable, like fine philosophical prose rather than legal documents (the writings of Learned Hand come to mind, in the same way). How do you legislate women’s rights to enter the all-male bastion, Virginia Military Institute? Watch RBG in action. Can you hammer away in favor of voting rights, even through dissents? Of course you can, with lasting impact, if you’re RBG. (Read “Shelby County, Alabama, vs. Holder, attorney general, et. al). Does the First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause allow Hobby Lobby to deny for religious reasons its employees’ access to birth control? Here, you’ll get RBG’s full-throated objections. Reading this collection is a revelation. Who knew that legal writing could inspire outrage as well as hope?

Ruth was such an amazing woman!! Having her thoughts in writing is comforting in these tremulous times.

This Book is for my granddaughter gift. Someone for her to aspire to.

Delightful book, like sitting and listening to RBG.

Anything pretty much about RBG is good!!!!

I knew that the pencil-thin justice Ginsburg had somehow shaped our law, but now reading how she has put her pencil to use, I can see how sharp she really is!The editor provides clear introductions to the book and to each separate section that highlight RBG's talents and give context to her strategies and decisions. Why did she choose that case? How did it affect the next one? The editor's outstanding case summaries woven throughout the book carry you along, and allow you to focus on RBG's own special voice, from excerpts from her 1971 brief for Reed v. Reed that let the Supreme Court rule in favor of equal protection for women for the first time, all the way to RBG's vigorous dissents from the bench that roadmapped Congressional overhauls of the law. A guide to all those who think about our rights, while keeping a strong sense of the way women (and workers, and immigrants, and families) are.