On the Basis of Sex

I didn’t know anything about Ruth Bader Ginsberg before going into this movie except that she seems like a Bad Ass.  After seeing this movie, I have concluded that she IS a Bad Ass!!  “On the Basis of Sex” follows the life of RBG from her time at Harvard Law School as a married undergrad to a ground breaking case that got her career going.  That case helped to toppled decades old laws that discriminated against men as well as women.  Her case, Moritz vs. the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, was distinctive for involving sex discrimination against a man.   Charles Moritz was denied a $600 tax deduction because it was ruled that a man could not be considered a caregiver.  Ruth knew all about discrimination as she faced prejudice, condescension and ignorance in her pursuit of a degree and then a career in law.  As a lot of women back in the day found out, a woman had to work twice as hard to succeed in traditional male occupations.  Once she got her degree, she had a hard time finding a law firm that was willing to hire a woman, even one who was at the top of her class. One prospective employer assumed she would get pregnant and quit while another told her that women were too emotional.  Through it all, her husband Martin, a successful tax lawyer, supported and believed in her.  One potentially tragic  episode in her life occured while she and her husband were both in law school; and Martin ( played  by Armie Hammer) is diagnosed with testicular cancer.  At the time there was about a 5% survival rate, yet they pulled through it all, and he subsequently was a great helper in her reaching her goal. Though the focus of her efforts was sex discrimination (a term they modified to a less aggressive gender discrimination-it was the 60’s after all), she and her team (including her daughter and the ACLU) attacked the issue using the test case involving a man. Ruth, in a fine performance by Felicity Jones, manages her classes, his classes(while he battled cancer) and their daughter as they get through this trying time with an even stronger marriage.  While I found this movie interesting and extremely topical, it is a little slower paced than most movies and I found my self losing interest here and there.  But the performances are great and the plot is full of information that was new to me.  I came out of this movie with a greater respect for the justice that some have nicknamed The Notorious RBG.