--- description: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been on a media tear recently, making headlines on everything from feminism to her workout. title: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Upends the Notion of the Silent Justice image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt01dc7ccb0fe279fb/69877fdce20a878452a852da/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-justice-young-photo-11.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) ## Politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Supreme Court](/tag/supreme-court/) ## Supreme Court Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Ruth Bader Ginsburg Upends the Notion of the Silent Justice  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Feb 18, 2015 10:27 PM CUT  Official portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Official portrait of Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgSteve Petteway—Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Feb 18, 2015 10:27 PM CUT Ruth Bader Ginsburg appears to be on a book tour with no book. The oldest Supreme Court Justice has been on a media tear recently, making headlines with interviews about everything from feminism to her workout routine, even slyly revealing that she was [“not 100 percent sober”](http://time.com/3708792/rbg-sober-sotu/ "undefined") during the State of the Union. In the last year, Ginsburg has given interviews to [_Elle_,](http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/interviews/a14788/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg/ "undefined") the [Associated Press](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/31/ginsburg-gay-marriage%5Fn%5F5639408.html "undefined"), the [_National Journal_](http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/ruth-bader-ginsburg-male-justices-can-live-and-learn-20140801 "undefined"), [_The New Republic_](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119578/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-retirement-feminists-jazzercise "undefined"), [Yahoo! News](http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-interviews-ruth-bader-ginsburg-185027624.html "undefined"), [Bloomberg](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-12/ginsburg-says-u-s-ready-to-accept-ruling-approving-gay-marriage-i61z6gq2 "undefined") and [MSNBC.](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/meet-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-400410691740 "undefined") She’s done a live event at the [92nd Street Y,](http://92yondemand.org/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dorit-beinisch-nina-totenberg/ "undefined") [performed a monologue](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/27/ruth-bader-ginsburg-was-in-a-play "undefined") in a D.C. play about the Civil War and given her blessing to the[ Notorious RBG Tumblr page](http://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/ "undefined"), a fan website in her honor. Only Ginsburg’s opera-buddy Antonin Scalia, who gave a much-discussed [2013 interview to _New York_ magazine](http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/ "undefined"), and [Sonia Sotomayor](http://www.npr.org/2014/01/13/262067546/as-a-latina-sonia-sotomayor-says-you-have-to-work-harder "undefined"), who [made the rounds](http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/hjb44w/exclusive---sonia-sotomayor-extended-interview-pt--1 "undefined") promoting her memoir, come close to rivaling Ginsburg’s recent publicity tour. Some longtime court watchers think Ginsburg and her colleagues may be reshaping the way the traditionally cloistered justices interact with the public. “That is a lot, and the frequency of it breaks the pattern,” says Lyle Denniston, a contributor to SCOTUSblog who has been covering the courts for 57 years. “This is a much more open age, with the Internet, and the justices are simply players in the modern drama of greater public exposure. It is pattern-setting, and it is unusual.” ### See Ruth Bader Ginsburg Grow from Toddler to Supreme Court Justice  August 2, 1935 Childhood photograph of Ruth Bader taken when she was two years old. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  1948 Ruth Bader delivers a sermon as camp Rabbi at the age of 15, at Che-Na-Wah camp in Minerva, N.Y. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  December, 1953 Studio photograph of Ruth Bader, taken in Dec. 1953 when she was a Senior at Cornell University. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  Fall, 1954 Martin D. Ginsburg and Ruth Bader Ginsburg taken in the fall while Martin Ginsburg served in the Army, before being drafted, stationed at Artillery Village in Fort Sill, Okla. Martin Ginsburg was drafted into the Army in 1954. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  Summer 1958 Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Martin Ginsburg play with their three-year old daughter, Jane, in her bedroom at Martin's parents' home in Rockville Centre, N.Y Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  Fall 1980 Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her first term as a United States Circuit Judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  December, 1980 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her husband Martin Ginsburg, and their children James and Jane in a boat off the shore of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  1972 Ruth Bader Ginsburg with her husband Martin at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.V. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  Oct. 1, 1993 Informal portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg standing before the mantle in the Justices' Dining Room in Washington. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  August 10, 1993 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. From left to right stand President Bill Clinton, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Martin Ginsburg, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States  Official portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Steve Petteway—Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States Like many things at the Supreme Court, there may be an unspoken political angle too. Leading up to the 2012 and 2014 elections, some liberals had argued that Ginsburg should retire, given her age (at 81, she’s the oldest sitting Justice), her history with pancreatic cancer and the possibility that Republicans could retake the White House and/or the Senate. “If Ginsburg and Breyer abjure retirement and Obama wins, the justices’ subsequent departures will be relatively harmless,” wrote Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy in the [New Republic](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/87543/ginsburg-breyer-resign-supereme-court "undefined") in 2011\. “On the other hand, if Obama loses, they will have contributed to a disaster.” A [brief visit to the hospital](http://time.com/3608940/ruth-bader-ginsburg-released-hospital-thanksgiving/ "undefined") over Thanksgiving renewed those fears for liberal court-watchers, giving Ginsburg all the more reason to dispel any concerns about her health. In all her interviews, she’s noted that she’s not going anywhere anytime soon. “I’ve said many times: once I sense that I am slipping, I will step down,” she told [MSNBC](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/meet-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-400410691740 "undefined") earlier this week. “This is a very intense job. It’s the best and the hardest job I’ve ever had. It takes a lot of energy and staying power to do it right. I will step down when I feel I can no longer do the job full steam.” Ginsburg’s interviews have touched on some other common themes. She discusses what it was like to be one of few women in law school, to have no job offers after graduating at the top of her class at Columbia Law and how her egalitarian relationship with her husband Martin Ginsburg shaped her career. She recalls her time working for the ACLU, fighting laws that discriminated against women. She notes that while Roe v. Wade is unlikely to be overturned, restrictions on abortion rights affect poor women far more than affluent ones. And, inevitably, she calls on the generation of young American women to avoid complacency. “One thing that concerns me is that today’s young women don’t seem to care that we have a fundamental instrument of government that makes no express statement about the equal citizenship stature of men and women,” she told [_The New Republic_](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119578/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-retirement-feminists-jazzercise "undefined") last year. “They know there are no closed doors anymore, and they may take for granted the rights that they have.” Not everyone agrees that Ginsburg’s increased public exposure is a good thing, especially when Ginsburg [discussed the upcoming gay marriage case](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-12/ginsburg-says-u-s-ready-to-accept-ruling-approving-gay-marriage-i61z6gq2 "undefined"), sparking [calls from some conservatives](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/calls-increase-ginsburg-recuse-herself-same-sex-marriage-case "undefined") for her to recuse herself. “Justices are generally more cautious than Justice Ginsburg has been lately in discussing pending issues,” says Denniston. “If they were discussing a tax case or a labor case, nobody would notice, but if you’re discussing the most controversial issues, people do pay very close attention. And they do take offense when a member of the court seems to be forecasting where the court’s going to go.” But Ginsburg seems secure in her decision to speak out about her opinions, whether in a written dissent or not. She told MSNBC that she’d like to be remembered as “someone who used whatever talents she had to do her work to the very best of her ability and to help repair tears in her society.” For this Supreme Court Justice, that means more than just writing opinions in a quiet legal chamber. It also means getting out there before the public. And that decision may end up as much a part of her legacy as any of her legal ones. _Read next:_ [_Oregon’s Kate Brown Becomes First Openly Bisexual U.S. Governor_](http://time.com/3709837/oregon-kate-brown-governor/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") ### See Washington D.C. as a Winter Wonderland  Snow falls at dusk by the White House in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015, Jacquelyn Martin—AP  A snow-plough cleans the snow in front of the US Capitol building in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images  Snow covers the Tidal Basin in front of Jefferson Memorial in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images  Snow covers the Tidal Basin in front of the Washington Memorial in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images  A man takes a photo of the snow covered Iwo Jima memorial in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images  Snow covers "The Breadline" sculpture at the Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images  A snow-plough cleans the snow on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington on Feb. 16, 2015. Mladen Antonov—AFP/Getty Images [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") **Correction:** An earlier version of this story misstated the number of years that Lyle Denniston has covered courts. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3713302/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interviews/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3713302/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interviews/"},"headline":"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Upends the Notion of the Silent Justice","datePublished":"2015-02-18T22:27:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:42:39.775Z","description":"Supreme Court Justice isn't just writing opinions, she's sharing them in interviews.","url":"https://time.com/3713302/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interviews/","keywords":["Supreme Court","Living","Gay Marriage","Opinion topic","Ruth Bader Ginsburg","Law","court","hobby lobby","Antonin Scalia topic","roe v wade","dissent"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt01dc7ccb0fe279fb/69877fdce20a878452a852da/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-justice-young-photo-11.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt01dc7ccb0fe279fb/69877fdce20a878452a852da/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-justice-young-photo-11.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Justice Young Photos","caption":"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Justice Young Photos","creditText":"Steve Petteway—Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/supreme-court/","name":"Supreme Court"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3713302/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interviews/","name":"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Upends the Notion of the Silent Justice"}}]}] ```