This week, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg weighed in on the #MeToo movement, and her ruling was definite: the movement isn’t going away anytime soon.
“I don’t think there will be a serious backlash [to the #MeToo movement],” Ginsburg said, while speaking on a panel at Columbia University. “It’s too widespread.”
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“Yes, there will be adjustments,” she added, “but on the whole it’s amazing to me that for the first time women are really listened to.”
Ginsburg cautioned that the movement should not be merely relegated to “prominent people,” and should also include, for example, “the maid at the hotel.”
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The movement, which was popularized in October after actress Alyssa Milano asked survivors of sexual assault and harassment to post the words “me, too” on social media platforms, has grown from a simple hashtag to an actionable movement that in January raised $20 million to pay for the legal fees of assault and harassment victims under the name of the “Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.”
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Throughout her career, Ginsburg has furthered the cause of women’s empowerment through her legal work.
Before becoming the second-ever female Supreme Court Justice, she worked as the director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she litigated cases such as Reed vs. Reed, which, according to the ACLU, had given men preference over women to appoint an estate administrator after the owner of a property died.
She has also spoken out against gender discrimination, saying: “Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.”
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In her Columbia interview, Ginsburg also spoke out about the “macho atmosphere” and “sexism” that she believed was directed toward Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
But she stopped herself short, however, of making a political comment (something she got in trouble for before the election), adding: “We should be careful about not getting me too much into the political arena.”