Justice, Justice, Does She Pursue

There was applause as the final credits rolled at the local screening of On the Basis of Sex.

But 24 hours later, I am still unsure whether it was for actress Felicity Jones’s powerful court room peroration on behalf  of her beleaguered client  and gender equality or for the famed US jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom she was portraying.

Actors, lawyers and ministers of religion are all costumed players on their various stages; hold their audiences in thrall and many are egregiously vain. 

The real Bader Ginsburg has learned to dress expertly for her role as a US Supreme Court  justice and like an English judge of yore who donned a black cap to pronounce a death sentence,  she wears a black  and gold embroidered jabot to issue dissenting opinions. Oh, my!

I’ve been asked which scene I most liked. It would  be facile to describe only the ‘made-for-television courtroom drama‘ finale, so instead I will opt for an episode from the early days of her marvelous union with fellow lawyer, Martin Ginsburg when they discover that he, a devoted young husband and doting dad, has developed testicular cancer  Here Ruth assumes, not only all the domestic responsibilities they have hitherto shared but attends Martin’s college classes along with her own and so somehow studies for them both.

This is the spirit of deepest love and genuine egalitarianism and  should be cherished - not only in Bader  Ginsburg’s lifetime - but in our own.

© Natalie Wood (13 March 2019)