You have to go back to 1973. At least, back then the ‘male chauvinist pigs’ proudly believed that ‘women belong in their bedrooms and kitchens’. We knew what problems we were facing most of the time because it was clearly visible.
At least Billie Jean King changed that. 50 years ago today when she was 29 and already 10 times The Grand Slam With the title up for grabs, Billy King took on former US men’s number one Bobby Riggs.
He gave these specific words to the competition. one Tennis The match was dubbed the ‘Battle of the Sexes‘. It is one of the most watched sporting events in history, watched by 90 million people on their TV screens and over 30,000 on the tennis court.
Bobby Riggs, then 55, criticized the women’s game for being inferior. He insisted that even a retired male athlete like him could beat a female athlete in her prime.
Billie King defeated Bobby in all sets to win the $100,000 prize money, but she knew the price of losing the match would be too high.
It was an era when working women faced office politics from ‘mad men’ i.e. patronizing them, patting them on the back and men hovering around their desks.
We couldn’t apply for a credit card, open our bank accounts without a man’s signature and not even mention the huge gender pay gap.
Women players were paid very less prize money than men. So much running, sweating and this reward? So many women’s rights are lost. But Billie Jean King played the drums in 1970. She embarked on a women’s tennis tour with a group of fellow rebel players that a horrified male journalist of the time likened to a disease.
The organizers of the Battle of Sexes had created excitement for this competition. You’ve probably seen the footage or movie version of Bobby Riggs riding into the Houston Aerodrome on top of a ridiculous car with his ‘bosom buddies’, a group of beautiful local women, wearing the ‘Sugar Daddy’ logo on his kit. was decorated with
Billy King was escorted to the tennis court surrounded by shirtless male ‘slaves’ while a band played Helen Reddy’s ‘I’m a Woman’. Commentator Howard Cosell commented: ‘Sometimes you get the feeling that if she ever wore her hair down to her shoulders and took off her glasses, she would look nothing less than a Hollywood heroine.’
Bobby Riggs, who died in 1995, insisted in a pre-match press conference: ‘I’ll tell you why I’m going to win. She (Billy King) is a woman and has no emotional stability. She will square off, the man is always superior.’
His views had hardly come to light when just a year earlier, 1972 Wimbledon champion Stan Smith, said that ‘a woman should stay at home and have children because that’s what she’s for.’ Women’s freedom can go a long way. Just think about that the next time you put on your white trainers.’
Two hours and four minutes after Bobby Riggs and Billy King entered the court, the world looked different. With all its over-the-top publicity stunts, the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ was a milestone for women’s rights that ended the notion that they should stay at home instead of on the sports fields in front of millions of people.
It is no exaggeration to say that they were viewed and valued differently. Billie King, who won equal prize money at the US Open the same year and paved the way for the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), says people still contact her every day to talk about the same match. do
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As Riggs told Billy King on the tennis court shortly after his victory: ‘I underestimated you.’
It was not her first victory in 1973, as abortion rights were enshrined in the US Constitution in January of that year, and Congress passed Title IX to protect women from sex discrimination in educational programs that received federal funding. Meanwhile, the second wave of feminism was gaining momentum, but Billie King’s victory breathed new life into it. She was the right woman at the right court, at the right time.
Billy King said she ‘gave women the confidence to stand up for themselves because we weren’t taught to do that.
‘They demanded more pay. Many women have told me how they have changed their life or their grandmother’s life or someone else’s life. Only different races are covered.’
Yet they are still targeted in the battle of the sexes on and off the court.
Just this week, Spanish player Jenni Hermoso accused the country’s football federation of trying to influence and ‘intimidate’ female players after the resignation of president Luis Rubiales, who allegedly kissed a female player during the World Cup. has been
And we need Billie Jean King-like moments in sports, politics, entertainment, business, medicine, and many other fields in which women are now included but are considered inferior.
One thing is clear and that is that half a century later they are still underestimating us.
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