I hope Ruth Bader Ginsburg pre-gamed her birthday as hard as she pre-games State of the Union addresses

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is all of us, and I have proof:

Remember that one time she got caught nodding off during a State of the Union address? And then a week later when asked about falling asleep at said address, she replied, “As I often do”.

She isn’t called the Notorious RBG for nothing, and she’s done more to bring women to the forefront of politics than just about anyone. She dedicated her life to infiltrating the conversation from the inside, and that’s precisely what she’s done.

What’s most interesting about Ginsburg, is how she’s loved equally through generations of women. She has the sort of following that can only be attributed to her dedication to empowering women through her work.

An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was appointed by Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. But before becoming a judge, she spent a large portion of her career as an advocate for the advancement of women’s rights.

In the fall of 1956, she enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she was one of nine women in a class of 500. She then transferred to Columbia Law School and became the first woman to be on two major law reviews. Upon graduation, she tied for first in her class.

Despite all her work, at the beginning of her career, she’s on record saying she had a hard time finding employment being a wife, and a mother — although we hardly need this on record to believe it. And in 1960, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter turned down Ginsburg for a clerkship position because of her gender.

In 1972, as the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court, and won five. However instead of asking the Court to end all gender discrimination at once, Ginsburg charted a strategic course — a decision she’s stuck defending to this day.

But she knew then what many of us still have a hard time absorbing now. Change comes slowly — she’d lived through it, and she’d seen it. She’d been turned down for jobs she was more than capable of, and despite certain advances, she decided to take it slowly. She continued to work on the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project until her appointment to the Federal Bench in 1980, where she served for 13 years before joining the Supreme Court. And on June 14, 1993, she was nominated as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court.

So the next time someone tells you you can’t do something because of your gender, tell them her story. Happy birthday RBG, and thank you for all the setbacks you’ve endured so we wouldn’t have to.

At a talk at Georgetown’s law school a few years ago, Ginsburg was asked when there will be enough women on the Supreme Court.

“When there are nine,” she replied.