Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t buying the “boys will be boys” argument anymore.
After an address to first-year law students at Georgetown University on Wednesday, Ginsburg was asked for her thoughts on the current women’s movement.
“I am really cheered on by this #MeToo [movement],” she said. “Every woman of my vintage has not just one story but many stories but we thought that there was nothing you could do about it—boys will be boys—so just find a way to get out of it.”
But now the movement is encouraging women to come together “in numbers.” Complaints are mounting “one after another” and now women “are not silent about bad behavior,” she said.
Ginsburg’s comments came on the eve of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his first accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s scheduled hearing, in which they will both testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While Ginsburg did not mention the hearing or either of the individuals by name, she did discuss the problem of “unconscious bias” in her Wednesday address, explaining that it leads to gender discrimination.
This is not the first time Ginsburg approached the subject of sexual harassment or #MeToo. In January, Ginsburg told attendees of the Sundance Film Festival that “for so long women were silent, thinking there was nothing you could do about it. But now the law is on the side of women or men who encounter harassment, and that’s a big thing.”
