She graduated top of her law school class in 1959. Not a single law firm would hire her—because she was a woman, a mother, and Jewish. So she changed the law itself. Her name was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And gender equality wasn't just an opinion for her. It was a mission. The Mother Who Never Got Her Chance Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to a working-class Jewish family. Her mother, Celia, was brilliant—but never had the chance to attend college. The family could only afford to send her brother. Celia worked in a garment factory and saved every penny she could for Ruth's education. She died of cancer the day before Ruth's high school graduation. Ruth never forgot that her mother's intelligence had been wasted because she was born female. That women like her mother never got chances simply because of their gender. That memory would fuel everything that came after. The Man Who Saw Her as an Equal Ruth attended Cornell University, where she met Martin Ginsburg—Marty—a chemistry major who would become her husband and the love of her life. Marty did something unusual for men in the 1950s: He saw Ruth as his intellectual equal. He encouraged her ambitions. He believed in her brilliance. They married in 1954. Ruth was 21 years old. When Marty was drafted into the Army, they moved to Oklahoma. Ruth took a job at the Social Security Administration. When her supervisors discovered she was pregnant, they demoted her—standard practice in the 1950s. Pregnant women were assumed to be unreliable, incapable of working, better off at home. Ruth was furious. But there was no law protecting her. Pregnancy discrimination was perfectly legal. She filed the injustice away in her memory. Harvard: Justify Your Existence Ruth enrolled at Harvard Law School—one of only nine women in a class of over 500 men. The Dean of Harvard Law School held a dinner for the female students and asked each of them to justify taking a spot that could have gone to a man. Ruth