I don’t go to many movies, mainly because I get tired of shallow characters and plots driven by alternating scenes of shooting, car-chases, explosions, and sex. But I just saw one I highly recommend–On the Basis of Sex. It doesn’t try to cover a whole bunch of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s life, as the TV documentaries do. Instead, it focuses on her as a young woman, long before she became a Supreme Court Justice. It depicts her experiences at Harvard, including discrimination against her, a woman, despite the fact that she was well into the top 10% of her class. And how she used those experiences and revelations as a lawyer just starting out–much more timid than the RBG we know today. That period in her life explains this current Justice’s motivations, ideals, drive, and determination to work for justice and equality for all people.
She personifies the line that sticks with me most from the movie (paraphrased here): Talking about an issue is a support group, not a movement; doing something about it is a movement.
