Linda Hirshman begins with a premise reductive to the point of dangerous inaccuracy, though she proceeds with an accessible, necessary and engaging narrative.

Hirshman’s writing is so narrow in scope that it actively disenfranchises the women who Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg do not serve, excuses their limitations, and never seeks to emphasize the work that remains left to be done. Her swooping statement --- that the two women are strikingly different --- functions as the basis of the book and falls uncomfortably flat. “Christian and Jew,” she extols on the book flap and throughout the text. “Republican and Democrat, western rancher’s daughter and Brooklyn girl,” she pronounces, admiring the ways they were able to set aside these “differences” and work to better “all women.” Yet Hirshman presents these distinctions as two opposites of a spectrum without ever acknowledging that she’s prioritizing their identities as absolute enough to be dialectical, while relegating every other identity as “everything else,” and in between. 

"Overall, SISTERS IN LAW is an engaging and informative read. It does the incredibly necessary work of highlighting the intersections and diversions in these two crucial women’s paths to power and what they achieved."

The entire book emphasizes the good that both women worked towards (though Hirshman writes as if the work is now complete) for cisgender, heterosexual, upper middle class American white women. However, it does not address how neither justice, until Ginsburg’s work after the period in which most of the book is set, works to serve women of other denominations. Hirshman points out that 20th-century Ruth Bader Ginsburg “was a liberal, but she did not espouse the ’60s mantra that no one is free until everyone is free” to justify why she fought primarily for “women’s rights” before allowing her skills to focus on gay rights as well. Ginsburg’s attitudes were necessary for a female lawyer in the 1980s. Yet now, don’t we understand how flawed is a system that tells entire legions of women that their rights are intrinsically secondary to supporting women who sleep with men?

I cannot help but think that Hirshman’s inclusion of this anecdote --- which is truly how it is addressed, anecdotally amid chapters of the heroics both justices performed for “all women” with little care for how ironic and painful that may seem for female readers who are not straight, white, able-bodied and well-off --- feels like her own justification. She herself published VICTORY: The Triumphant Gay Revolution in 2012 and perhaps imagines that she has done her part for the LGBTQ+ community and that this book is instead about “women,” not “gay people.”

At its core, my issue with this neglect amounts to inaccuracy. Neither the world nor America has been changed for all women. Not every woman has access to reproductive care thanks to O’Connor and Ginsburg. White supremacy and heteronormativity are part of the patriarchy, not a separate issue. They are not “unambiguous heroes of the modern feminist movement” because the modern feminist movement is necessarily intersectional in a way that Hirshman finds counterproductive. Rather, they are foremothers. We will never destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools, but both women worked to open more doors. They have worked to change the dialogue, to question our givens and offer that a woman’s perspective is not somehow supplementary from the perspective that ought to govern our world, but an irrevocable part of our reality. For this, they should be honored.

To call them unambiguous heroes of everyone who identifies as a woman in this country is to embody the misconception that there is only one way to be a woman, and that needs of race, sexuality, ability, etc. come secondary to the societal perceptions based on your genitals. This disservices both O’Connor and Ginsburg. They are pioneers. We have further territory to chart, and other women have been leading the way, picking up where they’ve left off and delving into the knotted, tangled landscape of human rights that is no more male/female than we as humanity are white/black.

Overall, SISTERS IN LAW is an engaging and informative read. It does the incredibly necessary work of highlighting the intersections and diversions in these two crucial women’s paths to power and what they achieved. Her conversational style ---- though strangely removed at times --- creates an accessible narrative of these players. These stories are not paramount in the recent history of American women, but they are essential and should be taught far more often. Hirshman presents the facts plainly and beautifully, and I hope many readers use her to edify themselves about these fundamental women.

Did Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg change the world? Yes. Yet Hirshman presents the tale as if they’ve changed it into something that functions equally for us all now, and that is not our reality. And if what we now call “equality” is considered unambiguously heroic, we have quite a hefty bit of work to do. Let us take the examples of unapologetic determination that O’Connor, Ginsburg and Hirshman have granted us, and work towards a future in which our rights are truly unambiguous.