Ms. Ginsburg gently suggested to us that men can take care our children as well.
“There are several states,” she said, “that have exemptions for persons primarily responsible for the care of young children.”
The chief justice seemed to realize the truth. “So that’d be husbands or wives then,” he said.
Speaking slowly, as if to a dim student, she replied: “It could be husband or wife, yes.”
She reflected years later on the approach she used in six cases before the Supreme Court.
“I did see myself as kind of a kindergarten teacher in those days, because the judges didn’t think sex discrimination existed,” she said in the documentary “R.B.G.” “One of the things I tried to plant in their minds was, Think about how you would like the world to be for your daughters and granddaughters.”
Forty-eight years later, there has been little progress, according to Michael R. Dreeben. He was a former deputy solicitor General and has argued over 100 cases before Supreme Court. He also examined Duren’s case in an article published in Criminal Justice by the American Bar Association.
“She accomplished this enormous legal victory, and she really transformed the way gender and the law are perceived, and she broke molds,” he said. “Yet the underlying stereotypical patterns have a much longer persistence in both law and practice.”
Dreeben stated that the most striking gap is between the elite lawyers who argue in front of the court.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of progress with one-third of the court being female,” he said. “But it’s not having nearly as great an effect on advocates.”
Source: NY Times
