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Jean baker miller (1991) addresses the importance of ambition in women. She writes, in effect, that if we are going to create the kinds of institutions and personal lives that permit women to grow and flourish, we must apply much more conscious, concerted, direct attention to women and power. Miller adds that she believes most women still have a great deal of trouble with the issue and that we must continue to study this issue together. The topic is not only important, but also timely. For example, it is interesting to consider how the recent nomination and confirmation of a woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court was responded to in the press. There was an enormous show of interest in her growth and development, with the focus on how she represents her entire generation of women in the degree to which her ascension to power seemed against all odds. To illustrate, Ginsburg (1993) told this story about herself.
At a tea given for her and the eight other women in her class at Harvard Law School in 1956, the Dean asked each woman in turn how she felt about taking a place earmarked for a man. Fearful of seeming too assertive, she tells us, Ginsburg mumbled something about how