Why the blunder on Fox and Friends was a good thing after all
When describing media slip-ups, the levels of embarrassment can range from accidentally slipping a curse word to showing an obituary for a Supreme Court Justice who is still very much alive.
This is what happened when “Fox and Friends,” a popular TV news program aired an obituary graphic for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or ‘The Notorious RBG.’
This was a gargantuan blunder for the TV program. Not only was this just an embarrassing incident, but it sadly reflected the current state of the incredibly influential Justice’s current health.
Even though the slip up with the obituary graphic was in poor taste, it does underscore Ginsberg’s importance.
Ginsburg is a member of the United States Supreme Court and she is the second woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court after Sandra Day O’Connor. Ginsburg is known as The Great Dissenter for how often she represents the opposing final opinion within the court.
Ginsburg is not only a member of our country’s highest court. She wholly encompasses every fundamental value of feminism and has worked tirelessly all throughout her career to fight for gender equality through landmark Supreme Court cases like “Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld” and “Califano v. Goldfarb.”
Both of these cases involved widowers trying to obtain social security benefits due to their being single fathers. RBG fought to make sure that both women and men got the right to widow benefits.
RBG is also a trendsetter and fervently outspoken when it comes to women getting equal pay for equal work. In the 5-4 decision for the Ledbetter v. Goodyear case in 2007, Ginsburg said in her dissent that the court’s majority decision was out of touch and didn’t take into account the circumstances surrounding wage discrimination.
She has not only fought for others when it comes to equality, but for herself as well. As an Ivy League educated lawyer, she assumed that getting a job out of graduate school would be an easy thing for her to achieve. She was very wrong.
Almost every law firm in the city of New York declined her an opportunity to work for them. With limited option she began her job working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to fight for women’s rights and equality.
Every woman has Ginsburg to thank for being able to go to college anywhere they desire. Even schools like Virginia Military Institute now accept women due to the famous case “United States v. Virginia” in which the Supreme Court struck down the law of allowing private schools to exempt women from being allowed to attend military schools.
Ginsberg also helped to eliminate pregnancy discrimination from the workplace. Before any of Ginsberg’s legal efforts, women could be fired just for being pregnant because it was seen as a hassle on behalf of the employer.
Looking at the whole picture, Ginsburg is an iconic person in not just American politics and law, but in American history.
Ginsburg is the perfect example of what being a feminist is all about: fighting for the equality of every person, no matter their gender.
The fact that she has become a pop culture icon in society in the past few years is not just amazing, but it is something we all need to see more of.
Good role models are essential to a progressing society. We need people like Ginsburg to set trends of equality and fighting for justice. And not just justice for the few, but for the many, which is what Ginsburg has emphasized throughout not just her career but most of her life.
So maybe in the end having the media blunder on “Fox and Friends” was a good thing. This way, people who previously had no clue who Ginsburg is can now recognize how she is important enough to have an obituary on a popular TV show and consider all she has done for this country.
Now we all know that even though morbid graphic was aired on “Fox and Friends,” the notorious RBG continues to live.