“RBG” opens this weekend – an endearing documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg – legal pioneer and pop-culture phenomenon

Before RBG was named to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter in 1980, she argued important sex-discrimination cases in front of the Supreme Court. What linked these cases — she won five out of six — was the theory that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should apply to women and could be used to remedy discrepancies in hiring, business practices and public policy.