When I started my PhD four years ago, I was a first-time mom with a six-month old baby in my arms. It became clear to me from the beginning that I was about to embark on an exciting yet challenging journey, unlike any I’ve experienced in my life.
In the months to follow, as I went through the ups and downs of graduate school and motherhood, I’d wondered what the next few years would look like. Was it possible to combine parenting and school, and to not just survive, but actually thrive and enjoy the ride? I avidly searched for role models to guide me through this new and unknown terrain.
One day, I came across a video of a woman addressing an audience, and coincidentally, my mother mentioned the same video a few days later too. The woman talked about how she became an excellent student, not despite being a mother, but because of it: each part of her life gave her a break from the other. I was awestruck, and I remained glued to the rest of the video as she talked about what her days looked like. I remember the burden of uncertainty lifting off my chest as I listened to her words. Who was this woman?
The title of my post gives it away. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That short video was long enough to captivate me. I searched for everything I could find about her, and I wondered how it was possible that I hadn’t known about her before. Everything I learned drew me in, and so it was with great happiness that I landed a copy of her biography when it came out in 2018. I found refuge in its pages and in the similarities in our stories. We both became mothers at a similar age, and went back to school with young kids. She was left-handed too- a minor detail that nevertheless excited me. Hers was the story I’ve been searching for, the one that had the benefit of hindsight from a remarkable person who’d made it to the other side.
My PhD journey wasn’t solitary by any means. There were many pieces to this puzzle, and one day I hope to sit down and write about them all. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a piece of that puzzle. Her life story continued to inspire me throughout my PhD- everything from her personality, her career and fight for women’s rights, her navigation of the work-life balance and her relationship with her husband Marty. Her words from the first video I saw served as a beacon of light when things were difficult.
RIP RBG. Thank you for inspiring generations of women and little girls, and for being a part of my PhD/motherhood journey.