Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Lace Collar Wasn’t an Accessory, It Was a Gauntlet…
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the pioneering legal mind and advocate for equal treatment of the sexes… “The Notorious R.B.G.,” which came to symbolize Justice Ginsburg’s status as a pop culture hero in her later years, the collars served as both semiology and semaphore: They signaled her positions before she even opened her mouth, and they represented her unique role as the second woman on the country’s highest court. Shining like a beacon amid the dark sea of denaturing judicial robes, Justice Ginsburg’s collars were unmistakable in photographs and from the court floor. She and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Justice on the court, “thought it would be appropriate if we included as part of our robe something typical of a woman.” They weren’t going to obscure their sex, or pretend it was beside the point. It was part of the point. A gauntlet may once have been a metal glove, but sometimes it can also be a lace collar. That doesn’t make it any less effective at challenging an antiquated status quo.
Source: The New York Times. By Vanessa Friedman. Published Sept. 20, 2020.
