Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday that the challenges facing young women today are “more daunting” than what she experienced in the middle of the last century.
In response to a question from a female Georgetown University undergraduate at the school’s Washington campus, Ginsburg talked about the “unconscious bias” against women that she believes “remains a problem.” Ginsburg spoke of the bias as not explicit discrimination, but the consequence of ill-conceived attitudes.
“For you, the challenge is more daunting than the one that we faced,” Ginsburg said at Georgetown on Thursday. “My advice is find allies among men as well as women who want to change things. And think of yourself … as a teacher. So don’t react in anger because that’s going to be counter-productive.”
Ginsburg said she often felt like a “kindergarten teacher” when arguing before the Supreme Court in the 1970s because, unlike the male Supreme Court justices, she possessed a “knowledge that I had that they didn’t have.”
The 84-year-old justice spoke of how the departure of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor caused the biggest change for her during her time on the high court because she was left surrounded by “well-fed” men. She said the addition of two other women to the Supreme Court since then has served as a welcome development.
