You can thank Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg...

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Transcript:

Women, if you have a credit card in your own name and your own credit history, if you have leased an apartment or bought property in your name, if you have consented to your own medical treatment, if you played a sport in school, you can thank Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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This meme is preposterous on its face. There is no possible way Ginsburg single-handedly liberated women from the status of chattel to full personhood. To the contrary, most, if not all of these things have been achieved through decades of activism by many people. Some of these things were achieved before Ginsburg arrived on the scene. Even going back to the 1800s.  

Not to diminish Ginsberg or whatever accomplishments she may have legitimately achieved, we nevertheless need to consider how she got to her position on the Supreme court.

Ginsbug gained her initial position as a law clerk in 1960:

Columbia law professor Gerald Gunther also pushed for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to hire Ginsburg as a law clerk, threatening to never recommend another Columbia student to Palmieri if he did not give Ginsburg the opportunity and guaranteeing to provide the judge with a replacement clerk should Ginsburg not succeed. Later that year, Ginsburg began her clerkship for Judge Palmieri, and she held the position for two years.

So Ginsburg started her career due to the help of a man.

Ginsburg was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1993 for the Supreme court, again gaining her position due to a man.

Again we concede that her credentials brought her to the place of being considered for these positions. But again we assert that she didn't do these things in a vacuum. It is clear that many more people than just Ginsburg labored to create the scenarios described in the meme. In fact, much of what is named here is not to the credit of Ginsburg at all. For example, Ginsburg wasn't even born, let alone having started her career, when the 19th amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Title IX became law on June 23, 1972. Women owning property has a very long history.

Ginsberg had little to do with any of this, but rather simply used other peoples' hard fought victories as a platform. She had a hand in advancing the causes, but was not a formative force in their origins.