Heroines of the Women's Movement

 

On the eve of Rosh Haschana 5781 (18.09.2020) Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of cancer at the age of 87. American women owe much to this tireless and intrepid fighter for justice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or RBG, as she was known, served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for 27 years until her death.

Here in Europe this powerful woman was not so well known, but for many young women in the USA she was a guiding star who showed them the way. As the daughter of Jewish immigrants, her way from humble circumstances to the Supreme Court was amazing. RBG stood up for the rights of women to live self-determined lives. At a time when many paths were closed to women even in the USA, she stood up as a lawyer for equal treatment of men and women.  But in the end she was always concerned that both sexes should be treated equally. She demanded no special status for women, only justice. No one should be discriminated against on the basis of old role concepts.

According to an old Jewish tradition, those who die just before the Jewish New Year are called "tzaddik" (the just). The fact that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died when the holiday Rosh Hashanah began at sunset gives her life yet another meaning. God kept her alive until the last moment because she was used as a fair-minded justice.

In Germany we also have an icon in the fight for women's rights, who unfortunately is not any more very  well known. Elisabeth Selbert, née Martha Elisabeth Rohde (* September 22, 1896; † June 9, 1986), was a German politician and lawyer. As a member of the Parliamentary Council in 1948/49, she was one of the four "Mothers of the Constitution. We have her to thank for the inclusion of equal rights in the Federal German Constitution.

Elisabeth Selbert was a woman far ahead of her time. In 1920 she married Adam Selbert and soon had two children. Despite the double burden, she continued to work in the telegraph office, cared for the upbringing of their children and took time for her political activities. She found, however, that she often lacked the theoretical foundations for this and hoped that studying law would help her to be more efficient in politics. In 1925, she prepared by herself to pass the examinations required for university studies. She then studied law and political science, first at the University of Marburg as the only woman and later in Göttingen as one of five women. After only six semesters, she completed her studies with distinction. Elisabeth Selbert received her doctorate in 1930 with a dissertation on the subject of marital breakdown as a reason for divorce. Her most important topic, however, remained equality. In October 1920, she went to Kassel as a delegate to the First Reich Women's Conference and criticized "that although we have equal rights for our women today, this equality is still only on paper.“ Although it had been stipulated in the Weimar Constitution a year earlier that men and women have the same civil rights, the reality of life for most women was different.

The National Socialists attempted to push women completely out of all legal professions. Nevertheless, Elisabeth Selbert was able to open her own legal practice in 1934. Since her husband remained unemployed until 1945 due to political persecution, she was the sole bread-winner for the family. After the collapse of Nazi rule, Elisabeth Selbert was one of four women among the 65 members of the Parliamentary Council that drafted the Constitution for the Federal Republic of Germany. With the help of women's rights organizations and other members of parliament of the time, Elisabeth Selbert was finally able - after several failed votes - to push through the sentence "Men and women have equal rights" (Article 3 GG). As a result, many of the family law provisions of the time (which dated from 1896) in the Civil Code also had to be revised, as they contradicted this principle. However, it took a long time before the Equal Rights Act was passed in 1957.

At the end of the 1950s, Selbert withdrew from politics and almost fell into oblivion. She worked again as an attorney in her law firm in Kassel, which specialized in family law and which she ran until she was 85 years old.

How grateful we can be that there were and are women who stand up for equal rights. They have fought tirelessly for this without letting themselves be discouraged. " So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great good fortune," said Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and did not allow herself to be discouraged from rising above obstacles.

For RBG, women were important as decision-makers everywhere: " Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception." I hope that our daughters and granddaughters will make sure that this statement becomes reality.

Foto: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images