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As of today, June 24, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion in the United States has been eliminated. Fuck anti-abortionists. Raise your voice, educate yourself. This book is as good a place to start as any.

"'The law is reason free from passion.' Well, no offence to Aristotle but [...] I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law." - Elle Woods, Legally Blonde (2001)

I could be wrong but reading this book gave me the impression that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have liked Elle Woods and maybe even agreed with this statement.

My Own Words is a biography unlike any other I've read. When RBG died in 2020 it was a shock to many of us. Though still young, and not American, I had heard and knew of the icon that was the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. However, I came to this book knowing only that RBG was hailed by everyone as a champion of women's rights as well as being understood as the Supreme Court's "standard bearer" of democracy and justice; well, that, and the fact that I had watched and enjoyed Mimi Leder's "". Given my poor knowledge of Bader Ginsburg's life and her work on the Bench, this book provided a wealth of information yet unbeknownst to me.

While many biographies published nowadays choose the traditional way of telling their subject's story, and even though the book does start off telling the story of young Ruth "Kiki" from her childhood on through her Harvard years, the reader is presented with a unique narrative that is a selection of RGB's own writings and texts published throughout the years. The first text gives a taste of what's to come.

The interesting thing about this book is that we get to know RBG not only through her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams' account of her life story (they introduce each chapter, giving biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews) but through the Supreme Justice's own writings as well: student newspaper articles, public dissents, bench announcements, writings on being Jewish, on the value of understanding the workings of international law, bench announcements...
And herein lies the beauty of the audiobook version. Many of RBG's speeches are original live recordings that make the audiobook just so much more lively. How many biographies have you read (listened to) in which you were presented with actual recordings of the event in question?

While the audio recordings made me feel as if I was in the room with her, listening to the archive footage also meant that especially the older audiotapes weren't of the best quality. Judging by the crackle and background noise, one tape might even have been a phone recording which was quite painful to listen to at times (you know, similar to when you're listening back to to a recording of that concert you went to and the only thing it does is make you appreciate the quality of your CDs, even more). Another problem that arose because of those tapes is that I, as a non-native speaker of English, had trouble understanding some of the footage of lesser quality, simply because I couldn't catch every single word.

However, despite these slight hindrances, I found myself really enjoying the book. There is simply a difference in reading (listening to) a book in which we are told what a certain person was like and getting to know a person by what they themselves think about certain issues. I certainly feel as if I understood the Notorious RBG better than I did before. I might not remember when she graduated from Harvard or when she wrote her first public decent, but it was infinitely more interesting to get to know her arguments regarding specific abortion cases the SC decided on or why she dissented this but not that.

I don't study law, I'm not particularly interested in the law but I realise how important it is to uphold democracy and a functioning society. This book was truly a worthwhile read and an interesting account of a trailblazing feminist's life.

When she was asked when there would be enough women of the Supreme Court, she said: When there are nine.