Barbra Streisand to Receive 2023 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award
Barba Streisand is already the proud owner of EGOT status. But the pop icon will add another landmark piece of hardware to her awards shelf in April when she receives an honor named for one of her heroes.
“I am deeply honored to receive this award named after one of the iconic and pathbreaking Justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court,” Streisand wrote in a tweet announcing that she will be the recipient of the 2023 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award at the Library of Congress on April 22.
A Washington Post story about the award noted that Ginsburg was a huge Streisand fan and that late in her life when she invited her friend philanthropist Julie Opperman to her chambers to discuss establishing an award in her name for women striving to change society in positive ways, Barbra’s name quickly came up.
“She wanted to honor women of great passion and achievement,” Opperman told the paper about the March 2019 conversation that came 18 months before Ginsburg’s death. “She wanted it to be women in the RBG tradition. I’m pleased to say Barbra Streisand was among them.”
“Women everywhere have benefited from the brilliance and courage of the Hon. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Streisand, 80, said in a statement to the Post. “She is an inspiration to us all. She devoted her life to advancing equality and justice, and the world is a better place for it. I am so deeply honored to receive an award in the name of such an extraordinary woman, American hero and an icon to the world.”
Streisand is the fourth recipient of the award, joining arts patron Agnes Gund, fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg and the late Queen Elizabeth II. The singer/actress/director is being recognized for her “advocacy of a variety of causes, including voting rights, climate change research and racial and gender equality,” the paper reported, additionally citing Streisand’s establishment of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“It’s fair to say that for Barbra Streisand, it was shortest deliberation we’ve ever had,” Opperman said.
See Streisand’s post below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
