What Equality Is About

School children visiting Justice Ginsburg often asked her: Did you always want to be a judge? A Supreme Court Justice? She was a role model for all children, but especially girls.

When Ginsburg was at Harvard Law, the Dean asked her and the few other women in her class why they were taking up the place of a man. She had difficulty finding a job after finishing tied for top at Columbia Law (where she had moved after marriage). That is the type of societal pressure Ginsburg had to overcome to reach the heights she did. Her role in the landmark VMI (Virginia Military Institute) decision on admitting women cadets established a new foundation for equality. Justice Ginsburg was a role model in more ways than one. Role models are important because they can shape our thinking.

For a time, school children in India grew up watching a woman as their Prime Minister as Indira Gandhi was the nation’s leader for over 15 years between 1966 and 1984. Mrs. Gandhi (no relation to the Mahatma, but the daughter of a previous Prime Minister Nehru) had her successes and failures like any other leader. During her long tenure, children in my state wondered if “Prathama Manthri” (the term for Prime Minister in the local language) was synonymous with a woman! This is in part because the vowel ending as in Manthri in that language often signified a woman, though this was just a coincidence.

When young girls see the images of successful women in all different roles, they can imagine the possibilities of who and what they can be. When adults see women as leaders, perhaps stereotypes on women’s place in the society come into question. Perception of children and adults may be altered similarly when individuals from oppressed peoples in their societies succeed. Such successes while make an important point on the capacities of all peoples, by themselves they do not make the underlying problems go away. More on this topic in my writing on the historic nomination of Ms. Kamala Harris.

Many women have neither become justices on the U. S. Supreme Court nor Prime Ministers of India, because women still face stiff challenges everywhere and do not yet have equality. Those who succeed do so not because they are women, but in spite of being women. And that needs to change. A woman should not have to be extraordinary in their abilities like Justice Ginsburg or exceptional in their familial connection like Mrs. Gandhi to succeed. An average woman needs as good a chance as the average man to pursue her ambitions successfully. And that is the kind of equality Justice Ginsburg envisioned.

A bit about me

Just like Justice Ginsburg, a dear relation of mine was asked why she entered graduate school in Science in the fifties in India. She persisted. She earned a PhD at Toronto and had a successful academic career.