spotlight film


billie jean king and emma stone


The Battle of the Sexes BILLIE JEAN KING AND EMMA STONE


WINNING THE GAME by joel martens


Forty-four years ago, in 1973, things were very different for many in this country. Though the Equal Rights Amendment banning discrimination based on sex was passed by Congress on March 22, 1972, women were still battling their way out from under an oppressive patriarchy that didn’t want them to change…At all.


That was the moment Billie Jean King burst onto the world’s stage as a 29-year-old female tennis champion, a woman who would go on to win 39 Grand Slam titles during her playing career spanning 1966 to 1980. Though she was a world-class player, as were many of her teammates, things were still not easy or equitable within the male-dominated sports world and certainly not part of the of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to which they belonged. Frustrated also by the vast pay gap that existed between men and women


tennis pros, King and what would become known as “the original nine,” of her team mates: Americans Rosemary Casals, Nancy Richey, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, Valerie Ziegenfuss and Julie Heldman as well as Australians Kerry Melville Reid and Judy Tegart Dalton would broke ranks with the USTA and forming the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973, which is still the central core of women’s professional tennis today. They took it a further step, along withWorld Tennis magazine publisher Gladys Heldman, when they signed one dollar contracts, creating the first Virginia Slims Tour, bucking the wishes of USTA even more, who would threaten to ban them from all Grand Slam events. Something that they would eventually back away from under intense pressure.


32 RAGE monthly | OCTOBER 2017


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