(Continued from the previous part)
Ruth Bud Ginsburg's father was a first-generation immigrant in the United States, and his mother was a second-generation immigrant. She grew up in a warm but also educated Jewish family, her parents did not go to college, but they were strict with Ruth and made her fall in love with learning from an early age. She originally had an older sister, but she died prematurely, and she later became an only daughter. As a child, Ruth was also a playful child, but her mother would ask her to complete her homework and piano practice before she could go out and play. Her mother was very close to her and had a great influence on her. She recalls that her mother repeatedly instilled in her two things, one was to be a lady and not to be overcome by negative emotions such as senseless anger, and the other was to remain independent. Her iron will had nothing to do with her mother. Ruth's mother had cancer in her early years and had struggled to spend some years with her family, but she died on the eve of Ruth's high school graduation ceremony. Ruth won the full prize with honors and entered Cornell University, the world's leading university.
In those days, the ratio of men to women in university admission was limited, and the ratio of men to women was four to one. Ruth humorously said in an interview that it is wise for parents to send their daughters here to study, and if they can't find anyone here, it will be really not saved. On college campuses with a significantly small number of women, the beautiful and intelligent Ruth is very popular, and soon after entering the school, he met her first term, and later joined hands with the true love of her life - Marty. Ruth is introverted and shy, and does not join the girls in whispering, but Marty is the protagonist of the party, confident and funny, and always in the focus of the crowd. It is such a magical chemical reaction, two people with a cold and a hot one come together after graduation, appreciate each other, and work together for a lifetime.
In the United States, it was not until the early 1950s that women began attending Harvard Law School, and the proportion of girls was about 2%. In graduate school, Ruth was one of only nine women in her class of 500. At that time, sexism was so widespread in society that Because she was a woman, Ruth was forbidden to enter the school's reading room to consult materials. At the first-year girls' welcome dinner, each girl was called up by the head of the department to answer what they were doing, occupying the enrollment quota that should belong to the boys.
Ruth's grades at Harvard Law School remain outstanding. Students with an average academic score of 25/530 (or 540) can only submit the Harvard Law Review, and she successfully submits in the second year. How good her time management and talent really is, the following event can fully illustrate. When she entered Harvard, she was a 14-month-old mother, and she had to take care of her daughter while going to school, and after the nanny left work at 4 p.m., she had to complete her schoolwork and accompany her daughter until bed. Soon after, Marty fell ill with cancer and was treated with radiation. She also shouldered the heavy responsibility of taking care of her husband, and after completing her homework, she borrowed the notes of her husband's classmates to copy and print them, helping her husband not to leave his studies during his illness. She slept about 2 hours a day during her husband's illness days. The tempering of such a high-intensity life allows her to better adapt to high-intensity work in the future and put diligence throughout her life. Her child said that she had a case and could not sleep much for a week, often working until midnight or even dawn, taking a nap, appearing in court at 9 a.m., and then sleeping for 2 days on weekends to make up for sleep. She also has a special function, that is, when she is too sleepy, she can temporarily take a nap anywhere to recharge. Similar to mobile phone fast charge mode.
Fortunately, her husband later recovered. After graduating, Marty worked at a law firm in New York, and considering that he was recovering from a serious illness, Ruth transferred from Harvard Law School in Boston to Columbia Law School in New York to continue his studies. A year later, Ruth graduated in 1959. At that time, there was not a single law firm in New York that hired female lawyers. Even if many of his classmates asked their partners to explain Ruth's talent, they failed to get Ruth hired. It was all kinds of blatant and habitual sexism in society that later became Ruth's lifelong goal.
(To be continued)