Battle of the Sexes

I rewarded myself with a pretty light day today, cutting out early to see the film about Billie Jean King and Bobbie Riggs. The level of explicit sexism in the 1970s was awful. Women being told outright they belonged in the kitchen and bedroom, not on the tennis court. And not just by Bobbie Riggs. Sports commentators focused on how pretty the “girls” are but how they lacked the emotional discipline to play competitively.

I was so impressed by Billie Jean’s steely demeanour when the head of the US Lawn Tennis Association tried to call her bluff, twice. Once when she formed the Women’s Tennis Association and twice when she threatened to walk out of the Riggs contest rather than accept him as commentator because of his complete disrespect of women. Both times he threatened her and both times she stood her ground.

We’ve recently established that I have a crap memory, so I have no distinct memories of the match or hardly of the era. But I'm sure it shaped me. I remember that after Londonderry High School (girls) amalgamated with Foyle College (boys), I was all about fighting for equal rights for the girls. I started a magazine with four boys and in it I challenged students to turn out for their hockey team as well as the rugby team. I remember trying to raise the profile of girls sports at a sports-mad school that seemed to want to erase half the student body. At the University of Delaware, I did a special project on the Equal Rights Amendment, interviewing a lawyer in Wilmington about the need for the ERA. I also wrote a column for the student newspaper defending the right of women not to shave their legs--making me a heroine to some and a pariah to others.

I would say in my own little ways I reacted against the same fog of misogyny Billie Jean faced. Not to great effect, but at least I was raging against a machine that appears very much intact 40-plus years on. I was very pleased to see Time Magazine give its person-of-the-year cover over to the women who began the avalanche of sexual harassment claims. I was not so pleased that, in 2017, men feel safe in their entitlement to women’s bodies. Hopefully that is changing.
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