"My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent"
About this Quote
The line works because it stages a generational relay under constraint. Ginsburg’s mother, raised in an era when women’s ambition was treated as a breach of etiquette, doesn’t reject “ladyhood” outright; she repurposes it into self-possession. Independence becomes not a rebellion against femininity but a claim within it. That’s strategic. It mirrors Ginsburg’s own jurisprudential style: incremental, disciplined, impossible to dismiss as merely performative rage.
Context sharpens the stakes. Ginsburg came of age when elite institutions routinely fenced women out, and she built landmark gender equality arguments by showing how stereotypes harm everyone, not just women. Read that way, “be a lady” becomes a Trojan horse: a culturally legible phrase carrying contraband ideals. It’s also a quiet tribute to how feminism often survived - not only in marches and manifestos, but in household language adjusted just enough to let a daughter imagine herself as fully sovereign.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mother |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader. (2026, January 15). My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-told-me-to-be-a-lady-and-for-her-that-124919/
Chicago Style
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader. "My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-told-me-to-be-a-lady-and-for-her-that-124919/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-mother-told-me-to-be-a-lady-and-for-her-that-124919/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.
