Notorious RBG

How does a shy, soft-spoken woman in a man’s world become the most widely celebrated justice in internet history? In Notorious RBG, journalists Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik tell the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s extraordinary transformation—from a brilliant, overlooked lawyer fighting systemic sexism to a Supreme Court icon whose fierce dissents inspired a new generation. Their central argument is that Ginsburg changed the world not through loud rebellion but through deliberate persistence, intellect, and strategic empathy. Her power came from her precision, her patience, and her partnerships—especially with her husband, Marty, and unlikely allies such as Antonin Scalia.

The book argues that RBG’s life is a blueprint for achieving lasting change within rigid institutions. She never sought to burn them down; she sought to reform them from within by mastering their language and principles. The “Notorious RBG” phenomenon—rooted in a playful juxtaposition of this gentle lawyer with rapper Notorious B.I.G.—amplified her quiet strength to a digital generation hungry for principled feminism.

A Life of Strategic Defiance

Carmon and Knizhnik reveal that Ginsburg’s signature approach was to fight big battles through small cases. As a young lawyer, she built the foundation for gender equality piece by piece, focusing on men denied benefits or families treated unequally under the law. By carefully choosing her cases, she taught the all-male Supreme Court that gender stereotypes harmed everyone. This incremental approach, modeled on Thurgood Marshall’s civil rights litigation, reflected her belief that enduring change required persuasion, not provocation.

Her breakthrough moment came in Reed v. Reed (1971), where she convinced the Court for the first time that discrimination on the basis of sex violated the Constitution. She then argued landmark cases such as Frontiero v. Richardson (1973) and Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975), each chipping away at laws that assumed women were dependents and men breadwinners. Though her voice trembled before nine male justices, her ideas reshaped American law.

The Rise of a Cultural Icon

By the 2000s, RBG had become not only a powerful jurist but a symbol. Her fiery dissents in cases like Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (2007) and Shelby County v. Holder (2013) turned her into a voice of conscience at a right-leaning Court. Younger Americans, particularly women, saw her as proof that intellect and resilience could challenge patriarchal power. Viral memes, tattoos, and the Tumblr that inspired this book made her an internet folk hero—equal parts feminist elder and meme-worthy dissenter. Yet beneath the pop-culture adoration lay serious respect for the woman who had spent half a century ensuring equal citizenship for all.

Why Her Story Matters

RBG’s journey matters because it models a different kind of progress: grounded in law, reason, and empathy rather than outrage. Her approach offers lessons for anyone confronting entrenched injustice today. Change doesn’t always require shouting; sometimes it requires showing up day after day, armed with facts, patience, and principle. For readers navigating systems that weren’t built with them in mind, Ginsburg’s story demonstrates how transformation happens—quietly, methodically, and one dissent at a time.

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s origins in working-class Brooklyn shaped both her moral compass and her determination. Carmon and Knizhnik describe “Kiki” Bader as a studious girl raised by a mother, Celia, who insisted she be both a lady and independent. Losing her mother the day before her high school graduation taught her that emotional control and discipline could be survival skills in an unequal world. That early loss instilled a lifelong sense of purpose—to honor Celia’s admonition never to waste time on anger but always to pursue justice.

The Education of a Rebel in Pearls

At Cornell, RBG absorbed the influence of Vladimir Nabokov, who taught her precision with words—later evident in her meticulous legal prose. She also met her academic equal and lifelong partner, Marty Ginsburg, who admired her intellect and later became her greatest champion. When they enrolled at Harvard Law School, she was one of nine women among 500 men. The dean famously asked her to justify taking a man’s place. Rather than confront him directly, Ruth learned to navigate sexism strategically—a habit that would define her legal career.

RBG’s time at Harvard was a crucible. She topped her class while raising a toddler and caring for Marty during his cancer treatment. She attended his classes, typed his papers, and still made Law Review. Yet when he recovered and took a job in New York, Harvard refused to let her finish her degree there. She transferred to Columbia, graduated first in her class, and still faced near-total exclusion from law firms because she was a woman, a mother, and Jewish. This triple discrimination forged her quiet radicalism: she would beat the system with excellence.

Sweden and a Shifted Vision

A research trip to Sweden in the early 1960s was a revelation. Observing Swedish women’s participation in the workforce and open discussions about reproductive rights, RBG saw that social roles could change. She returned home convinced that equality required new laws and new imaginations. That experience birthed the worldview that would shape her subsequent work: the belief that both men and women would benefit from the dismantling of gender roles.

By the time she joined the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, RBG had already decided that change must happen courtroom by courtroom—small rulings building to constitutional principles. Her quiet ferocity came from having lived the injustices she later argued against. From Brooklyn’s sidewalks to the marble halls of justice, her story affirmed that intellectual rigor and persistence could overcome even the most gilded barriers.

Before becoming the Notorious RBG, Ginsburg was the “Thurgood Marshall of the women’s rights movement.” The book chronicles how she reshaped constitutional law by showing that sex discrimination harms both men and women. At the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, she strategically built precedent, arguing six landmark cases before the Supreme Court and winning five.

RBG’s Grand Strategy

Her approach in the 1970s was methodical rather than militant. She selected cases that forced male justices to see discrimination through men’s experiences. In Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, she represented a widowed father denied survivor benefits because the law assumed only women were caretakers. By championing a man’s case, she proved that gender stereotypes trapped everyone. This tactic disarmed the court’s paternalism and established that equal protection applied regardless of sex.

Precedents That Changed Everything

Reed v. Reed (1971) was her first major victory, invalidating a law preferring men over women as estate administrators. In Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), she asserted that sex, like race, should be subject to “strict scrutiny”—a legal standard demanding government justification for discrimination. Though the Court stopped short of granting that status, her arguments laid the groundwork for future rulings, culminating in United States v. Virginia (1996), where, as a justice, she finally wrote the opinion requiring the Virginia Military Institute to admit women.

Equality Rooted in Real Lives

RBG’s advocacy was deeply human. She connected each legal argument to lived experience—women fired for pregnancy, girls denied education, and men barred from caregiving. Her line “the pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often been revealed as a cage” summarized how so-called protection became subjugation. By blending empathy with precision, she transformed abstract law into a tool for liberation.

Her patient, step-by-step legal revolution shows that profound social shifts begin with logic and courage—not rage. (Similarly, in Quiet, Susan Cain highlights how introverts often change the world through thoughtfulness rather than volume.) RBG turned the Constitution’s promise of equality into lived reality, proving that the law could be both shield and sword for justice.

On a June morning in 2013, Ruth Bader Ginsburg donned her beaded dissent collar and delivered one of the most famous rebukes in Supreme Court history. Her dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, which dismantled the Voting Rights Act’s central protections, crystallized her belief that progress is never permanent. “Throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” she warned, became shorthand for the perils of complacency.

Becoming the Voice of Conscience

From Ledbetter v. Goodyear to Gonzales v. Carhart (which upheld abortion restrictions), her dissents spoke beyond the legal community to the public. Her words educated ordinary Americans about pay equity, reproductive freedom, and voting rights. She described discrimination’s “insidious” nature and called for congressional correction—an invitation that led directly to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. This ability to turn dissent into legislation made her unique among justices.

Why She Dissented

For Ginsburg, dissent was not defeat but dialogue across time. She saw each opinion as a seed for future change, much like Justice Harlan’s lone dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson later inspired civil rights rulings. “Some of my favorite opinions I have written when I was not in the majority,” she said, “but I know the pendulum will swing.” By reading her dissents from the bench—a rare act—she turned judicial decorum into moral statement.

Her dissents fused passion with precision. In Gonzales, she accused male justices of treating women as fragile dependents rather than fully autonomous citizens. In Ledbetter, she highlighted how discrimination accrues invisibly. These weren’t fiery rants but lessons in empathy and logic—a professor teaching democracy itself. The book shows how her measured fury inspired the nickname “Notorious RBG,” capturing the unlikely mix of grandmotherly poise and rebellious justice.

The Power of Saying No

RBG’s legacy of dissent reminds you that disagreement can be patriotic. In workplaces or movements, you may not always change things immediately, but your principled stance can shape the narrative for those who follow. Every dissent is an act of hope—the belief that tomorrow’s America will finally listen. Her robes and collars became armor for that ongoing struggle.

Behind the legend was a partnership as groundbreaking as her jurisprudence. The Ginsburg marriage embodied the equality Ruth fought for in court. Marty Ginsburg, a top tax attorney and gifted cook, shattered masculine stereotypes long before it was fashionable. When his wife became a federal judge and later a justice, he moved cities to support her career, cheerfully calling himself the “first gentleman” of the Supreme Court.

Love as Mutual Respect

Their relationship was a study in intellectual synergy. Marty boasted that Ruth had made Law Review at Harvard when he hadn’t; she credited his humor for keeping her grounded. They shared everything from opera tickets to late-night editing sessions. Unlike many marriages of their generation, theirs was truly egalitarian. When reporters pressed her for the “secret,” Ruth quoted her mother-in-law’s advice: “It helps sometimes to be a little deaf.” That philosophy helped her survive not only marriage but decades of institutional sexism.

When Marty died in 2010 after nearly sixty years together, he left a note: “You are the only person I have loved in my life.” The next day, she returned to the bench; duty and love had always been intertwined for her. Their story, Carmon and Knizhnik argue, wasn’t sentimental—it was radical proof that shared ambition and affection can coexist.

The Personal as Political

RBG’s home life informed her worldview. As a young mother denied promotion for pregnancy and balancing two children with relentless work, she experienced firsthand the “built-in headwinds” she later fought against legally. Her push for paternity leave and gender-neutral benefits reflected what she and Marty had lived. Even her clerks recall the warmth of their domestic partnership—the smell of Marty’s cooking filling chambers, the sight of him quietly fixing her collar. Through them, equality looked not theoretical but deliciously lived.

Their mutual devotion modeled a new social contract: one where love doesn’t demand sacrifice of one’s identity. (Psychologist John Gottman’s research on “marital friendship” echoes this: successful couples share admiration and respect as equals.) RBG’s own marriage demonstrated that feminism’s goal isn’t supremacy, but reciprocity.

One of the most surprising dimensions of RBG’s life is her friendship with ideological opposites—especially Justice Antonin Scalia. Carmon and Knizhnik emphasize that their mutual respect transcended politics. They dined, vacationed, and even shared an opera stage together, arguing fiercely by day and laughing by night. To RBG, this was not inconsistency but principle: democracy thrives on disagreement coupled with respect.

Civility as Strategy

RBG believed that persuasion required listening. Her “judicial temperament”—cool, deliberate, and unflappable—enabled alliances that served her causes. As a Court of Appeals judge, she was known as a consensus builder who could find common ground with conservatives like Roberts and Rehnquist. Even when she publicly dissented, she never demeaned opponents. Her motto: “You can disagree without being disagreeable.”

This decency carried into mentorship. Clerks describe a boss who demanded precision but modeled humility. She corrected typos with the same care she applied to constitutional doctrine, insisting that language shapes justice. Yet she also celebrated clerks’ weddings, sent baby gifts, and hosted dinners with Marty’s famous dishes. Her chambers became both war room and family.

Lessons for a Polarized Era

RBG’s bond with Scalia symbolized mutual love of the law over partisan identity. When asked how she could befriend someone so opposite, she quipped, “He made me laugh.” Their relationship reminds you that integrity doesn’t require isolation; it thrives on understanding opposing minds. In an era when public debate rewards outrage, her model of respectful dissent offers a blueprint for bridging divides without diluting conviction.

At eighty, RBG could still perform twenty push-ups and write landmark opinions late into the night. Her physical discipline mirrored her intellectual stamina. Guided by trainer Bryant Johnson, she approached fitness like jurisprudence—methodically, with form and consistency. The authors present her routine as metaphor: even icons require maintenance. Her physical resilience after multiple cancer diagnoses became a public testament to perseverance.

Symbols of Identity

Carmon and Knizhnik linger on her sartorial choices: the jabots (decorative collars) she wore as coded messages—gold-trimmed lace for majority opinions, spiky beaded ones for dissents. These feminine details turned institutional uniformity into self-expression, a reminder that power need not erase personality. Her humorous embrace of pop culture, from “Saturday Night Live” parodies to Notorious RBG merchandise, showed her awareness that symbols influence as much as speeches.

Even her musical passions—especially opera—reflected her duality: discipline meets drama. She found transcendence in music’s structure, just as she did in law’s logic. The woman the media once called “schoolmarmish” became, in later years, glamorous and unapologetically herself.

The Longevity of Purpose

RBG’s continued service illustrated her conviction that purpose sustains vitality. She rejected pressure to retire during the Obama years, insisting she still had work to do. Her presence on the Court symbolized defiance against ageism and sexism alike. In her words, she hoped to be remembered as “someone who used whatever talent she had to make things a little better.” The book closes on this note of endurance—a call for readers to pursue justice with as much grace, humor, and discipline as she did push-ups.