International Women’s Day Tribute: Honoring the Life and Legacy of RBG

Marked annually on March 8th, International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women’s achievements or rally for women’s equality. The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Choose To Challenge’. A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change. So, let’s all #ChooseToChallenge.

On March 8^th  from 6 – 7pm on Zoom, the Zonta Club of Quaboag Valley will celebrate women’s achievement by learning more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg—a woman who raised awareness against bias and took action for equality.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Reading List (https://libguides.wlu.edu/law/RBG) highlights texts written by and about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Additionally, it provides users with information and video on the nomination and confirmation of Justice Ginsburg, some of her most notable opinions and dissents authored as a justice, and several of the cases she argued before the Supreme Court as an attorney.

If you would like to learn more about the legendary RBG and how she might approach some of the events unfolding before us, request an invitation for Zonta’s March 8^th zoom meeting and submit your discussion questions to info@ZontaQV.org.

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a true trailblazer in the male dominated legal field, Ginsburg was one of only nine women in her Harvard Law School class and the first woman to earn a position on the prestigious Harvard Law Review. When her husband graduated from Harvard, Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School where she graduated at the top of her class. Despite these achievements, law firms were still unwilling to hire a woman and Ginsburg received no employment offers from any of the firms she interviewed with after graduation. Still, she persevered, becoming one of America’s first female law professors and later the first woman tenured at Columbia Law School.
Ginsburg devoted her legal career to challenging laws that barred women from jobs or denied them their rights, working to extend equal protection under the law to include gender and strategically using male plaintiffs to challenge laws that discriminated on the basis of sex. She co-founded The ACLU Women’s Rights Project; and, as general counsel for the ACLU, Ginsburg argued six landmark gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, successfully winning five. She was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993, only the second woman to sit on the court, where she served until her death. In her almost three decades on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was an unwavering champion for gender equality and equal rights.

“Justice Ginsburg worked tirelessly to ensure women’s equal rights under the law,” said Zonta International President Sharon Langenbeck. “As advocates for gender equality and human rights, our members in the United States and around the world share Justice Ginsburg’s commitment to ensuring equal opportunities for women and girls. We will continue to fight for equal rights for all as we remember Justice Ginsburg and celebrate her legacy.”

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The Zonta Club of Quaboag Valley (www.zontaqv.org), based in Western MA, is part of Zonta International – a global community that has empowered women and girls through service and advocacy for 101 years. It was founded November 8, 1919, in Buffalo, New York, by a group of forward-thinking women who envisioned a women’s service organization that would advocate for laws and policies that ensure gender equality and help every woman and girl realize her full potential. Through continuous engagement for 10 decades, Zonta International has become a respected and reliable agent of civil society. As a non-governmental organization with general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, the organization promotes and strives to protect the human rights of all women and girls and reduce the incidences of violence against them. Since 1923, Zonta has provided more than US$40.9 million to empower women and expand their access to education, health care, economic opportunities, and safe living conditions. Zonta’s nearly 1,200 clubs support local and regional initiatives in 63 countries worldwide.