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Confessions of a Bookaholic: Women of the Supreme Court

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Book ReviewsWomen of theSupreme Court (1)

Over the last month or three I have managed to read at least one book (usually more) by or about every one of the women who have sat on the bench for the United States Supreme Court. It has been so fascinating to see how their stories intersect, how they are each unique to themselves, and how they worked together and with their fellow Justices to maintain the Supreme law of the land. In case you’re not up on your Lady Justices: Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a former Arizona Senator and the first woman on the Supreme Court, she sat on the bench from 1981 – 2006; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a law professor at both Rutgers and Columbia, and ACLU advocate who has sat on the court since 1993; and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina from The Bronx who was nominated to the bench in 2009 and is the first Hispanic Justice; Justice Elena Kagan was nominated in 2010 and sworn in later that year, however 5+ years later, there is still only one biography on her, and it’s not very good. Without further ado, the reviews, grouped by Justice, who are listed by seniority on the Court.

Sandra Day O’Connor:

Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice, by Joan Biskupic (4 stars). Of the ones I’ve read, this is definitely the best biography on O’Connor. She served as a Supreme Court Justice for 25 years (nominated by Reagan in 1981), often as the swing vote between the four conservative and four liberal Justices (at least, until Clinton was able to nominate a few more liberals, ahem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg). For the youngest and first woman on the Court, her vote counted as the decider in many major cases, starting her very first term. However, what was most interesting to me was to see her opinions and voting change throughout her tenure on the Court. She began as super conservative, but her final two or three years on the court she was a lot more liberal and her reasoning more expansive to protect minorities, women, and other disenfranchised people (including criminals and those being held in military prisons without charge or trial for terrorist activities). I know my own journey towards “woke-ness” has taken some time, starting small and moving outward from there. It’s somehow helpful for me to realize that without being taught from the beginning to, you know, view all people as equal no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or economic class, that it truly is a process for us to understand the ramifications to groups of people who are dissimilar to ourselves. O’Connor retired in 2006 to care for her ailing husband, John, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. I often wonder what would have happened to her voting patterns and her voice had she continued on the Court as a liberal jurist.

The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice, by Sandra Day O’Connor (4 stars). I had initially thought this was some kind of autobiography, it is not, well, not entirely. There are a few personal stories and anecdotes, but primarily this book is Justice O’Connor detailing the history of the court, the major decisions and docket trends under different Chief Justices, and how the court has maintained and shifted over the last 170 years. Some of the history bits were super fascinating, some were a little dry, however there is a section on women, women’s suffrage, early feminists, and the twisting and frustrating road towards gender equality. I would award that section 8 gold stars if I could! As it was, that section bumped this from 3 stars to 4 stars. I wish Sandra Day O’Connor would write a whole book about feminism and her unique role within gender equality law (from a conservative SCOTUS nominee, to a centrist Justice), I’d be all over that.

Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest, by Sandra Day O’Connor (2 stars). This memoir about growing up on a large ranch in the dry, dry country of Arizona and New Mexico. This is primarily about ranch life, the cowboys and ranch hands, their backgrounds, talking care of the animals and the land, the struggle of O’Connor’s parents thru their lives to survive and become financially independent. The Day patriarch was tough, stubborn,  and unmoving, and there are no apologies for him in this book, just a nodding of heads that “that’s just his way.” Honestly, it’s pretty dry and O’Connor doesn’t give much insight into her future life as a Supreme Court Justice. But, you will learn about life on a massive ranch. So, there’s that.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by Irin Carmen and Shanna Knizhnik (5 stars). The last few years I have become increasingly interested in RBG, this biography was an excellent introduction and overview of her career, her personal life, and some of the monumental decisions over the last 25 years she has been a Supreme Court justice, both ones she agreed with and–most interestingly–the ones where she dissented. I loved reading more about how she fought for gender equality, and how she continues to address sexism and gender discrimination in the United States. Fascinating book!

Raising the Bar: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, by Amy Leigh Campbell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (4 stars). Not exactly a biography, but also much more than a list of cases and briefs, this short book details the theory and careful strategy of RBG and she layered case upon case to define sexual discrimination and also to outlaw it through policy and statute at the highest court in the United States. Campbell goes through her time at the ACLU and the details of each case, including commentary from RBG’s private papers (housed in the Library of Congress) to show how long-seeing and calculated RBG’s legal arguments were in order to sway an overly conservative court. I knew the basics of most of the cases mentioned in this book, however this is the first place I’ve read so many of the details from correspondence to/from RBG regarding the statue and law, as well as her opinions re: the political climate for women during the 1970’s. Excellent read (and also, a lot of court law and procedure, I had to look up a couple of terms to make sure I was understanding what was going on).

My Own Words, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (3 stars). I waffled between 3 and 4 stars, this is not the memoir I was hoping for. It is, instead, a collection of writings, briefs, official SCOTUS opinions, and transcripts of speeches from RBG throughout her professional life, with a little biographical information in the chapter headings and a few pages of photos. Some of the writing is fairly dense, official opinions and briefs from the Supreme Court are not exactly light reading. The span of RBG’s career is covered, her work at the ACLU and her methodical and carefully planned assault on gender discrimination laws in the United States. It’s all there, but it is there in very official and professional terms and writing. A few of the speeches and addresses are a little less formal, especially the few excerpts from people who worked with and for RBG, notably her husband who contributes a few fabulous remarks, and President Clinton, who nominated RBG to SCOTUS in 1993.

O’Connor & Ginsburg:

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, by Linda Hirshman (3 stars). The first half of this dual biography keeps O’Connor and Ginsburg’s lives fairly separate, which makes sense. RBG was a professor, then judge, in Washington DC and SOC was a legislator and judge in Arizona. There wasn’t much cross-over of their personal lives, and frankly, their political backgrounds are far from similar. Hirshman clearly likes RBG more than SOC, and that bias shows throughout the book, which is annoying. Hirshman also takes the time to comment on RBGs size (diminutive, petite, tiny, pocket-sized, etc) in almost every chapter, and that got REAL old real fast. Stop it. My favorite chapters in this book were towards the end when RBG and SOC are actually both on the bench, debating over cases and, oftentimes, taking opposing sides. Near the end of SOC’s career as a Justice she started to take her swing vote to the liberal side in several key cases for women’s rights and gender equality, but Hirshman doesn’t spend much time discussing the background of WHY SOC’s swing vote started to swing left.

Sonia Sotomayor:

My Beloved World, by Sonia Sotomayor (4 stars). I really loved this book, learning more about Sotomayor and the pathways and steps she took towards her dream of becoming a federal judge. I love the stylistic differences between a biography and an autobiography, and while a biography may give a wider and more complete picture, the autobiography is the memories of a lived experience, and that is so fascinating to me!

Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice, by Joan Biskupic (3.5 stars). Minus one full star for quoting so much of Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World, during the first half of the book. However, the last third of the book, detailing Sotomayor’s cases and time in the Supreme Court, was fascinating. I doubt a first-person account would go into the kind of back-and-forth and arguments that happened during various cases, and being able to read about those details as well as reactions from other politicians and society at large brought to life some of the race-related cases of the Supreme Court for me. Sotomayor is a proponent of affirmative action and increasing access and opportunity for students of color, and she is not afraid to stand by those opinions even if she is the only dissenting Justice. I loved reading that fire and grit in her personality. I also loved reading about other Latino/as who made advances in politics and through the Judicial system, and the support or not for them and why. Justice Clarence Thomas (SCOTUS) says that the only way to stop discriminating by race is to stop discriminating by race. Sotomayor argues that the only way to stop racial discrimination is to talk widely and openly about the issues, to bring them up constantly and, with enough reminding, the policy makers and the citizens can recognize their own biases and make conscious steps to remove them. After watching so much racial tension over the last few years, I tend to think Sotomayor is correct. Excellent read.

Elena Kagan:

Elena Kagan: A Biography, by Meg Greene (2 stars). In my quest to read a biography or autobiography on each of the women on the Supreme Court this is the *only* book I could find on Elena Kagan. The author repeatedly states that there is very little public information on Kagan, she doesn’t do interviews, and her private papers are still private. With that, this biography does have quite a bit of background information on Kagan, with lots of interviews or statements from people who worked with her in her various positions prior to being a Supreme Court Justice. However, there are also a NUMBER of typos, a couple of instances where Greene gets her facts mixed up a little (stating Kagan graduated from Harvard for her undergrad, despite an entire chapter about her time at Princeton as an undergrad), and in order to fill some pages Greene spends a lot of time discussing New York City real estate, or the career of Justice Thurgood Marshall, or the history of Harvard Law School. Kagan has been a Justice for several years, I am surprised that, to date, this is still the only biography of her.

History of SCOTUS:

Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court, by Sandra Day O’Connor (2 stars).  I really wanted to love this, but what I hoped would be a dishy book of anecdotes and stories was actually a textbook-like history of the Supreme Court, including personal but not entirely interesting details of almost every Justice who has served on the bench. It was drrryyyyy. Sandra Day O’Connor’s rational, logical, linear brain is on fine display, and I can see how she was an excellent addition to the Court with her super analytical and precise thinking and explaining. However, even in the chapter that began with her talking about how so many people asked her how it was to be the first woman in SCOTUS, she spent less than 5 sentences on herself and instead detailed the “firsts” of all the other Justices, all of them men. Yawn. Unless you are a legal fiend, and/or a SCOTUS history freak, you could probably skip this book entirely.

Other Recommendations:

Madam Secretary: A Memoir, by Madeleine Albright (I love Madeleine Albright SO MUCH! Her story to rise from local political fundraising to Secretary of State is so inspiring!)

Iran Awakening: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country, by Shirin Ebadi (The first woman to serve as a judge in Iran prior to the Revolution, this tells her story of becoming a judge, and how her life changed–politically and personally–after the takeover by the anti-judge, anti-woman Islamic Republic.)

For more SCOTUS goodness, here’s my Goodreads shelf on the topic. But, honestly, you’ve just read every review on there, I have not read anything about the male Justices, nor do I intend to do so anytime soon Hashtag: Feminism.

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Confessions of a Bookaholic: Feminism, volume 1

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The more I read and hear about the war on women, the more I actively seek out additional information. The more I seek, the more I find, and the more I realize that once seen I cannot unsee the vast tentacles of patriarchy that are underlying so much of the society in which we live.

Now, there are a LOT of things I could talk about when I talk about feminism, but I want to specifically discuss the idea that “boys will be boys” and “men can’t help themselves”…particularly when it comes to degrading, assaulting, harassing, or otherwise abusing women. Men can help it. Their “animal” nature can be “trained” and curbed. You can train a dog to drop a juicy steak and leave it, untouched. You can train a dog to sit still and stay put while an in-heat dog is nearby. The dog may not like that command or that training, but they will do it. AND, if those dogs do not response properly to that training, they are castrated and kept in a cage, away from other dogs. So, don’t tell me that men cannot keep their thoughts and hands to themselves. Don’t tell me that it’s impossible for them to overcome their base instincts. Don’t tell me that they “can’t help it.” If a German Shepherd can “leave it alone”, any dude can. And frankly, men who are unable to keep their ego and penis in check should be castrated and kept far from society, to reduce their opportunities for harm. Oh, that doesn’t seem fair? THEN STOP COMPARING YOURSELVES TO ANIMALS! I know, I am preaching to a mostly female choir of fellow feminists here, the two or three men who read my blog are–from what I can tell–already feminists in their own right. Or at least they are well on their way.

I think there is a lot of fear and misinformation about what it means to be a feminist. I do not hate men. I do not think women are better than men. I do not think one must put men down in order to champion women. If you think feminism means any of those things, you don’t understand the point of feminism. Feminism as a social movement benefits women as much as it benefits men. The super-macho manliness that is advocated for across the media, advertising, and throughout society would be eliminated if feminism was more prominent. That “macho-man” bullshit is actually misogyny, relabeled, most of the time, and it is dangerous for men and women.

We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (4 stars). “Gender matters everywhere in the world…we should begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how we start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.” This is a very quick read, or you can listen to the Ted Talk, and I think every American should hear what Adichie has to say.

The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir (4 stars). This book took me forever to read, it is super dense and the sentences and paragraphs are all packed with information and psychology and history and science. I’d read a little, think a lot, read some more, think some more. I kept a pen and highlighter with me and will probably go back and review some of my notes on the regular. de Beauvoir has so much insight and history and thought on key issues to being human, man or woman, and to being a feminist, fighting for equal rights for all humans.

My Life On The Road, by Gloria Steinem (3 stars). More than a feminist treatise, this book reads as an autobiographical travelogue. Granted, Steinem’s travels were mostly centered around politics and rallies for equality for women and equal rights, so it does have a lot of typical Steinem in it, but I didn’t really feel hit over the head with her particular brand of feminism. I do appreciate that she covered feminist issues for more than a middle-class or upper-middle-class white American woman; she focuses a lot of women of color, tribal women, poor women, lesbian and transgender women and the particular issues they face are all covered. Steinem highlights other groups with little vignettes and chapters that almost read like independent essays or short stories. You can read the New York Times review here.

Bad Feminist, by Roxanne Gay (3 stars). An essay collection, a few of these absolutely hit home for me, and a large chunk (mostly in the first half) were a lot harder for me to get in to. When Gay is writing what feels like a blog-post response to a piece of media she read or watched I lost interest pretty quickly, I want to read the original thing she read first, I felt like she didn’t explain enough about it for her critique or review of it to be successful for me as a reader. When she writes as a response to a major event covered by the news it was a lot easier for me to get through the piece because I had enough background to understand her jumps and lines of thought. The last half of this book is FAR better than the first (for me, except for the introduction, the first half was maybe 2.5 stars, the second half was easily 4, hence a 3-star rating).

Other feminist titles I would recommend, in no particular order:

A Vindication of the Rights of Women, by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan

Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks

Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

This year I decided to write my book reviews a little differently instead of focusing on what I read chronologically, I want to group similar books together by topic and write about them that way. I have a hefty shelf on Goodreads devoted to feminist writings, you should check it out.

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Harriet the Bookaholic: November 2015

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I’m a bit late posting this, I kept thinking I’d finish up one more book to add…but I didn’t. Between boxing up my whole life and moving it 700 miles south and then coming BACK north for the holidays and to finish up some stuff at my office…I just, well, I’m swamped. Blergh.

Feminism

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood (4 stars). The world is limping along after a massive nuclear holocaust, pockets of humanity survive and depend on subjugating women with viable ovaries, impregnating them, and confiscating any babies who are not deformed or “shredders.” In hyper-conservative religious Gilead, Offred tells her story. I loved this.I was not terribly horrified by the premise that women were used for their ovaries and classified and ranked in society. I mean, civilizations around the world have done that for thousands of years. Take Henry VIII, he wanted a son so badly he kept killing his wives until one produced an heir. Marie Antoinette and Catherine The Great’s places as queen/empress were not assured until they produced an heir to the throne. I guess I expected to be horrified, and in many ways I was intrigued and sometimes disgusted, but it wasn’t ever truly shocking. Controlling women and their bodies has been part of our history forever, it only makes sense that in a post-apocalyptic world that would continue. Excellent read, so many things to think about.

Dance of the Dissident Daughter, by Sue Monk Kidd (3 stars). I have very mixed opinions about this book. Overall, I really didn’t like it. BUT, I also underlined and starred a number of passages. So, there’s that. I appreciate some of Monk Kidd’s revelations as she becomes a feminist-thinking woman, but I also was super frustrated by her process and actions. Written in 1992 some of those pieces are–at least for me and the women I associate with–just before my time and I have difficulty relating. But some of her opinions just came across as way extreme to me, and I consider myself a liberal-thinking feminist. Some great one-liners and small paragraphs, but overall, meh.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan; Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks.

Russian History & the Romanov Family

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie (4 stars). Catherine I–Catherine the Great–is seen as both a terrible tyrant and a benevolent empress. The truth is probably a little of both. This incredibly strong woman came to Russia as a young teenager, married the weak and indecisive heir to the Russian throne (Peter III), but still had to contend with the jealous and terrible Elizabeth, Russian Empress, for almost 2 decades before her husband became Tsar. At that point, Catherine decided to rule the country in her own right instead of leave the vast resources of the Russian empire to her completely inept husband. She ruled for decades, keeping hold of Russia through numerous wars and skirmishes with Prussia and the Turks, internal rebellion, and continued to expand the Russian empire while Great Britain lost the American colonies and the French monarchy and aristocracy were put to death via the guillotine. She introduced the smallpox vaccine, introduced religious tolerance, and nourished friendships and political alliances around Europe. She was such an incredible woman…and also an autocrat monarch of a vast empire she could only hope to vaguely understand. She maintained the status quo for the millions of peasants (um, it wasn’t a good status, btw), was unable to free the serf, although she did introduce serf reform that was quickly quashed by the land-owning noble-classes, and had little concept of how her autocratic rule was viewed in the provinces. Fascinating woman. Fascinating biography.

Additional Recommended Reading: Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie; Maria Theresa, by Edward Crankshaw; Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, by Sena Jeter Naslund

The Amber Room, by Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy (2 stars). This is such a fascinating subject: a room made entirely of panels of amber from the Baltic sea, more precious than gold and much more fragile. This room was part of the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg (yep, that Catherine), locations of millions of pieces of art collected for centuries. When the Nazi’s stormed the city during World War II the museum curators feverishly packed, stored, and hid as much art as they could…but the Amber Room proved too difficult to move and was left behind. The Nazi’s pried the amber panels from the walls and packed them off to a castle in Germany…and that is where the trail dies out. Did the panels arrive? Were they sent elsewhere? Did the Russians reclaim them and hide them again? Was the room destroyed by fire or carelessness? If you’re a White Collar fan, the contents of the Amber Room are a continuing theme and obsession for Neal Caffrey and take up the bulk of seasons one and two; the music box is from the Amber Room. So…fascinating subject, but the authors were SUUUUPER boring, and I like research-heavy books non-fiction books! Skip this, watch White Collar instead.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Lost Painting, by Jonathan Harr.

Russian Literature

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol (4 stars). There is a lot to digest here, and if you aren’t paying close attention and at least nominally familiar with Russian aristocracy in the 1800’s you may get a little lost. Chichikov is a young man trying to make it big in a society where landowners with serfs are the only true way to wealth. The more serfs you have, the wealthier you are. Chichikov devises a plan where he collects serfs on paper–people who have died but are still considered alive by the state due to a once-a-decade census.  As Chichikov collects these dead souls through not-entirely-ethical means, his status rises and he is viewed more and more as a prominent member of society. And then, of course, his plan falls to pieces: all that glitters is not gold.

Additional Recommended Reading: The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain.

The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy (3 stars). This is a short book, Tolstoy explores the hurt, anxiety, frustration, and despair surrounding Ivan Ilych as he lays dying. There is some gorgeous imagery and tone, and you can’t help but want to hang out with Ivan Ilych (always called by his full name) and talk to him for the afternoon, hoping to give him a little hope and happiness.

Additional Recommended Reading: Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande.

Civil War History

Ulysses S. Grant, by Owen Wister (3 stars). This is a pretty short biography of Grant, too short. I wanted a lot more detail on every part of his life. Thanks to Melanie‘s recommendation, have added a proper Grant biography to The List.

Additional Recommended Reading: Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara; Grant and Twain, by Mark Perry.

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