-
Birth
RBG is born in Beth Moses Hospital in Brooklyn, New York City, via vaginal birth. -
Period: to
Kiki
RBG was nicknamed “Kiki” as an infant because she engaged vigorously in the gross motor skill of kicking her legs. -
Sister Dies = Confident & Anal Retentive?
RBG elder sister dies of meningitis at age six, when Ruth was 14 months old. Did it impact her? From Erikson’s perspective RBG as a confident and independent child, which shows she was supported at this stage and achieved autonomy. However as an adult she could be stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive, was this the result of this trauma during Freud's Psychosexual Anal Stage? -
Period: to
Learning A Second Language
RBG gains familiarity with the Hebrew language at synagogue and begins attending Hebrew School. Learning a second language may bestow on her a cognitive advantage. She cognitively sharp until her death. -
Securely attached: Off to Summer Camp at 4 yrs old.
Ruth demonstrates her initiative and secure attachments and relationship to her parents when she begins attending a Jewish Summer Camp at age four. -
Period: to
An Industrious Middle Childhood
RBG develops a sense of competence by mastering new skills, like playing the piano, and becoming a voracious reader. -
No Bat Mitzvah for RBG
RBG is not allowed to have a bat mitzvah because of Orthodox restrictions on women reading from the Torah. This upsets her. The gender inequality in Orthodox Judaism upsets her and causes her to question her identity as an observant Orthodox Jew. -
Period: to
RBG's Authoritative Tiger Mom
With the constant encouragement and help of her mother, Ginsburg excels as a student at James Madison High School. Her Mother utilizes an Authoritative parenting style that is supportive while expecting her to achieve perfect grades. Her parents who value intellect over all else. -
RBG's Mother Dies
RBG’s Mother dies the day before her graduation, prayers cannot be performed because there are not 10 men present despite the many women. This causes RBG to distance herself from Jewish ritual and eventually establish a more secular Jewish identity. -
Period: to
Cornell, Harvard Law and Columbia Law
Formal learning is valued by RBG’s family and Jewish immigrant culture as a means to facilitate a successful career path. After High School, she earns her bachelor's degree in 1954 from Cornell University at the top of her class. RBG attended Harvard Law School for two years. While there, she was one of only nine women in a class of hundreds—and was told to defend why she deserved a place in the class when a man could've had it. She graduates from Columbia Law School in 1959. -
Love, Marriage, and Marty
RBG marries Marty Ginsburg who she says is the only man she ever dated who appreciated her brain. RBG and Marty have been dating since they met when she was 17 at college and she has achieved the goal of finding a lifelong partner. This is an age of possibilities they feel that they will someday get to where they want to be in life. -
RBG gives birth and becomes a Tiger Mom
A year after RBG and Marty marry, RBG gives birth to her first of two children. She is 22 yrs. old. RBG follows in the footstep of her mother as an Authoritative (high demand, high responsiveness) mother to their boisterous daughter, while her husband is the gentler, less demanding Permissive parent (low demand, high responsiveness). -
"Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?"
RBG enrolls at Harvard Law School, where she was one of only 9 women in a class of about 500 men. The dean of Harvard Law asked the female law students, "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?" -
Ready to begin her career, but lacking the right equipment . . .
At the start of her legal career, Ginsburg encountered difficulty in finding employment. Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter rejected Ginsburg for a clerkship position because she is female. -
First Professor Position and NOT equal pay for equal work
RBG first position as a professor was at Rutgers Law School in 1963. Ginsburg was informed she would be paid less than her male colleagues because she had a husband with a well-paid job. -
Productive and Creative: RBG becomes a leader in the legal fight for gender equality
In the '70s, RBG is productive and creative and helps establish the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, under which she argued six gender-equality cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. -
“Almost every discrimination that operates against males, operates against females as well.”
RBG uses her creativity to expose the values of the Exosystem and flip the social schemas that said men were the breadwinners and therefore ineligible for Social Security benefits after a wife passed. By taking this cultural judgement that assumed women were secondary providers with unimportant incomes (Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 1975). -
RBG Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals
President Jimmy Carter appointed RBG to the U.S. Court of Appeals. She has settled into Stage 4 of career development and it is a rocket to the top. -
RBG Reigns Supreme
President Bill Clinton nominates RBG a Justice of the Supreme Court (60 yrs. old). RBG has reached the peak or culmination of the continuity and forward motion of her legal career. She is a bit older at 60 yrs. for this stage, but career-wise she still has 27 years ahead of her on the bench. -
"You are the only person I have loved in my life, . ."
RBG's husband passes away from cancer. Before he died, he left her a note that read: "My dearest Ruth—You are the only person I have loved in my life, . . . This demonstrates Companionate Love: Intimacy and commitment, they love and respect one another and they are committed to staying together. -
Old-Old RBG has shrunk 2.25 inches
RBG official height is listed at 5’1” but by 85, she has likely lost 2.25 inches (.25 inches every 5 years after 40 yrs.). RBG joins the Oldest-old (85-99 years old). Weight-lifting, walking, swimming, or engaging in other cardiovascular exercises can help strengthen the muscles and prevent the loss of muscle tissue or Sarcopenia. -
Death: the most common for the most extraordinary
RBG dies from complications of pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2020, at age 87. Cancer is the most common cause of death in late adulthood. -
The Nation Mourns a Meaningful Life
RBG became the first woman to lie in repose at the Supreme Court Building, then she lay in state at the Capitol, becoming the first woman and first Jewish person to do so. These rituals gave the nation an opportunity to mourn. Ginsburg echoed Integrity saying wants to be remembered as "someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better . . ." That she lived a meaningful life. -
