Game, Set, Match
Page 19
Long before Reebok hired Rebecca Lobo or Nike told women to “Just Do It,” a band of far-sighted women entrepreneurs saw a niche and began to fill the needs of all those female athletes whose lives were being changed by the revolution in women's sports, right down to their underwear. No wonder a Washington Post writer in 1999 described the now-ubiquitous sports bra as “the cloth symbol of Title IX’s success.”88
Chapter Five The Feminist Moment That Wasn't
In her November 1977 Publisher’s Letter, Billie Jean King alerted readers of womenSports to be on the lookout for “the largest gathering of tomboys and ex-tomboys in recent history.” She wasn't referring to a sporting event or pre-Olympic competition, but to the National women's Conference to be held in Houston on November 18–20, 1977, in observance of International women's Year (IWY). This gathering brought together 2,000 elected delegates from every state in the union, supplemented by almost 20,000 alternates, observers, and members of the press, to debate and eventually pass a national plan of action on women's issues. In many ways the Houston conference was the high point of feminist activism in the 1970s, as women of varying political agendas came together to build common ground. In retrospect, it also demonstrates the growing political power and attraction of the antifeminist narrative, embodied by Phyllis Schlafly’s marshalling of between 15,000 and 20,000 women to a counter-convention for those who claimed that the Houston delegates did not speak for them. Here was the moment in the 1970s when it became clear that the category “woman” was far too broad to embrace everyone of that gender.1
The symbol of the Houston Conference that most captured the public imagination was a 2,600-mile torch relay that originated in Seneca Falls, New York, the site of the seminal women's rights convention in 1848, to recognize the link between the two historic conferences.2 Organized by a team of volunteers, including members of the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport, the Road Runners of America, and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, the event began at a candlelight ceremony in Seneca Falls on September 28, when Judy Carter, the president’s daughter-in-law, read a Declaration of Sentiments written by poet Maya Angelou, who was also an International women's Year commissioner. The next morning Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially compete in the Boston Marathon, accepted the torch from a descendant of a signer of the original Seneca Falls declaration. After several miles, she handed it off to Donna de Varona, Olympic gold medalist and women's Sports Foundation activist. Other runners that first day included Carole Oglesby, a Temple University professor who was the primary sports consultant for the International women's Year commission, and Betsy East, a physical education specialist and coordinator of the New York state leg who happened to be the daughter of Catherine East, one of the original IWY coordinators.3
Over the next fifty-one days, the volunteer corps of runners made their way south and east, clearly identifiable as they ran their assigned miles by their bright blue t-shirts with “Women on the Move” embedded in the IWY logo. Their somewhat circuitous but media-friendly route took them by way of New York City, where they held a spirited rally led by presiding IWY officer Bella Abzug, and then Washington, D.C., where the runners circled Lafayette Park and held another rally outside the White House. Then it was on to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Other than the usual problems of bad weather, traffic, and sore muscles, the most serious difficulties arose in Alabama, where under pressure from Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) opponents, many of the scheduled Birmingham runners pulled out at the last moment, causing the relay organizers to scramble to recruit substitutes, and in one case, fly in marathoner Peggy Kokernot from Houston to run for sixteen miles. In sweet vindication, it was Koker-not’s picture that graced the cover of Time magazine’s December 5 story about the conference.4
Soon the torch relay was back on schedule, moving steadily through Mississippi and Louisiana and finally into Texas. After a symbolic stop at Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s birthplace in Beaumont, the relay moved into high gear as it approached Houston. In the final mile the official runners were joined by a host of supporters, including Donna de Varona, Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee, IWY commissioner Bella Abzug (with customary hat, but wearing pumps instead of running shoes), Betty Friedan, Susan B. Anthony II, and, not to be left out of such a wonderful moment linking her beloved causes of sports and feminism, Billie Jean King. The widely distributed photograph of the runners, arms linked with feminist leaders Abzug and Friedan as well as sports icon King, became the symbol of the “Spirit of Houston.”5
Billie Jean King thought it was highly appropriate that sportswomen “on the move” served as the image of the Houston IWY conference. Not only did they symbolize the enormous changes underway in the field of athletics, but they also showed how much more remained to be done before women reached equality—in sport, and in all aspects of American society. The prominence of sports imagery at the conference also pointed to another truth about sports and feminism: that while issues of athletic equity were certainly recognized by second-wave feminists, they were not deemed important enough to be a major focus of the Houston plan of action, despite efforts by a small band of sports activists to push the issue. The National Plan of Action endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, the rights of minority women and lesbians, and support for reproductive freedom, but subsumed all sports questions in the general plank on education, which called on the president to “direct the vigorous and expeditious enforcement of all laws prohibiting discrimination at all levels of education and oppose any amendments or revisions that would weaken these laws and regulations.” In hindsight, the Houston conference confirmed that the most dependable way for sports to stay on the feminist agenda was through its association with Title IX.6
Even if sports remained a low priority for second-wave feminism nationally (it likely had more resonance on the local level7), there were still many points of connection between the powerful ideas of modern feminism and contemporary sports developments in the 1970s. Billie Jean King supplied one of the most prominent links with her outspoken advocacy of more opportunities, resources, and respect for women in sports and for women in general. The National Organization for women's strong support for the Equal Rights Amendment led it to propose a controversial and far-reaching challenge to the principle of separate but equal where sports were concerned, and legal cases used the Fourteenth Amendment to expand opportunities for women to compete alongside men. Lurking beneath the surface was the question of why it was necessary to so strictly segregate the sexes when it came to sports in the first place. Ironically liberal feminism, which is often criticized for its tendency to work within the system, contained the seeds for a radical approach to sports that would have totally upended the contemporary world of athletics. This challenge did not take root in the 1970s—the feminist moment that wasn't—but the philosophical and practical questions it raised are even more relevant and compelling today.
BILLIE JEAN KING’S initial reaction to second-wave feminism in the late 1960s was decidedly negative: “When I heard that women were marching, burning bras, and picketing things like the Miss America pageant in the politically turbulent 60s, I thought they were foolish.” (Her husband, Larry, offered an unintentionally hilarious explanation of why she fixated on the bra-burning: “Billie Jean just couldn't understand why people were burning bras. Billie Jean was really literal. To her, you needed a bra when you played athletics.”) Quoted in the New York Times the day after mass rallies commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of woman suffrage around the country on August 26, 1970, she said she agreed “with most of the women's lib things, but some of it seems far out. But that might be just for attention. Lord knows, you really have to exaggerate these days to get attention.” Her major beefs were the stridency of feminist demands and the necessity to toe the party line: “women's lib can be so negative, so defensive, so narrow-minded. They think their thing is the only thing in the world for everybody. I have to do things my own way.�
� That last phrase—” I have to do things my own way”—sums up Billie Jean King’s philosophy of life as well as her relationship to feminism.8
Even as she was increasingly associated in the public mind with women's issues—a process that predated the Battle of the Sexes—Billie Jean King often resisted the feminist mantle, wanting to be seen as an individual and an athlete, not as the spokesperson for a cause. For example, in 1972 she complained to the Washington Post, “I won 19 tournaments last year. I was the first woman to win $100,000. Time magazine calls and wants to talk about women's lib. I wish they would say, ‘We want to talk to you as an athlete.’ “Note how her use of the phrase “women's lib” tended to parrot and reinforce the dismissive tone the media had adopted toward this new movement; feminist leaders carefully avoided the term, precisely because of its negative connections. And yet King realized that whenever the terms feminist or women's lib were applied to her, they were usually used pejoratively, so she was well aware of the power of the labels to silence or discredit so-called “uppity” women.9
Not surprisingly, Billie Jean King had mixed feelings about the Equal Rights Amendment, the centerpiece of the legislative agenda of second-wave feminism. “Progress is going to continue for women whether the law is passed or not, because society’s changing and society will rule,” she said in 1976. “But I wish we could just get it ratified and go ahead and get this show on the road. It is so obvious that we should already be equal under the law that it’s ludicrous to be debating about a law that should have been there when the Constitution was written 200 years ago.” Showing her liberal feminist bent, she sometimes wished it could be called the Equal Opportunity Amendment or the Equal Chance Amendment, as in, “The ERA just gives you a lot more options, and you take it from there.” In 1982, the year that the ERA went down to defeat, she still was not convinced that it was necessary or the best tool for change: “If it means the end of discrimination on the basis of gender, then I want it. But I don't believe you can legislate people’s minds. I believe that it is persuasion you need, not force. Just because you legislate does not mean people will change.”10
And yet there is no denying that King had a well-developed sense of feminism. Here is how she defined her views in her 1974 autobiography: “To me, women's liberation means that every woman ought to be able to pursue whatever career or personal lifestyle she chooses as a full and equal member of society without fear of sexual discrimination. That’s a pretty basic and simple statement, but, golly, it sure is hard sometimes to get people to accept it.” The focus on freedom of choice and equal opportunity, which are the essence of liberal feminism, was the core of her philosophy, as she showed in an interview in Playboy in 1975: “If a woman wants to have a career, I say fine, don't put her down for it. But if she wants to be a housewife, right on; if she wants to be a mother, that’s beautiful. I want every woman to be able to be whatever she wants to be. That’s what the women's movement is all about.” As a corollary, she always made it clear that similar choices and options should be open to men, in sports and in life generally. “I don't want to see women pressured by society to become housewives and mothers, but I also have empathy for the little boy who doesn't want to be a super-jock.… Let the boy do what he wants to do.” If the world were set up in reverse where gender was concerned, she once said, she hoped that she would be fighting for the equality of men. Mainly she wanted all people to be treated as individuals, regardless of sex. This too was a key tenet of liberal feminism.11
While initially she had not connected her struggles in tennis with the broader movement, Billie Jean King gradually—and a bit grudgingly—made the link: “Although I realized many things were not right in my small but total sphere of tennis, it took me a while to relate them to the inequities that exist in other spheres. I finally realized that these women were not different from me; that what they were demonstrating about was the same thing I was protesting in tennis—lack of equal opportunity.” Or as she told Ms. in 1973, “At first, when I was becoming aware, I blamed the system, but when I began to analyze it, I realized the ‘system’ is men.” She always credited her husband, Larry, with being the major influence on her developing feminism, far more so than feminist leaders or activists, whom she knew only slightly.12
Being linked in the popular mind with the feminist cause helped her advocacy of women's professional tennis and sports in general, but in many ways the women's movement needed Billie Jean King a lot more than she needed them. Given all the other demands on her time, plus a deep-seated individualism bordering on stubbornness, King often experienced the movement’s requests as unwelcome intrusions.13 Still, she generously lent her name and presence to a wide variety of feminist causes. She spoke out publicly in favor of legalized abortion and equal pay for equal work and testified before Congress in support of the women's Educational Equity Act in 1973. She also lent her name to the National women's Political Caucus starting in 1972. As she realized, “because of my prominence, or notoriety, or whatever you want to call it, I’ve got a platform. I’m in a position to be heard out. There are certainly a lot of women who are more intelligent than I am and better informed about things like women's Liberation, for example, but they can't reach anybody. What I have and what they don't have, simply, is a forum.”14
Billie Jean King was so much in demand in part because she was the rare athlete who truly saw sports within a feminist framework. Journalist Grace Lichtenstein found out how rare King’s perspective was after spending a year on the women's tennis tour in 1972–73. With the exception of King, Rosie Casals, and a few others, the vast majority of tennis players failed to grasp any link between tennis and the women's movement. “They were jocks,” Lichtenstein concluded ruefully. “Their minds did not think about those things—they let their bodies do the talking for them.” As player Julie Heldman later recalled, “The majority of players didn't want to know about women's lib.… People kept laying women's lib on us, instead of [us] laying it on them.”15
Athletes’ lack of identification with the feminist movement went far beyond tennis. Most successful women athletes had made it on their own by distancing themselves from traditional definitions of female behavior, which did not exactly breed a feminist consciousness or an incentive to refer to women as “we.” Said softball player Joan Joyce in 1974: “I’ve pretty much done what I wanted my whole life, so I don't need feminism.” Or as jockey Robyn Smith said in 1972: “I’m not trying to prove anything as a female jockey. I do it because I enjoy it so much, and I think people should do whatever makes them happy.” A lot of established professional women, no matter how liberated their lifestyles, had similar reactions to the brash arrival of second-wave feminism on the scene in the 1970s, but the situation was even more acute for athletes who identified themselves in terms of physical rather than intellectual prowess. As golfer Kathy Duggan put it: “We’re not talkers. We’re doers. What does it matter what the players say as long as they live women's lib?”16
Nor did the leaders in the field of women's physical education exhibit much interest in the rising women's movement, at least initially. Even though sexual discrimination in sports was probably more extreme than anywhere else in society, these women were so caught up in the need to constantly assert their heteronormativity in the face of general disapproval of women's athleticism that they lacked many of the necessary preconditions for feminist consciousness raising. Already marginalized by their interest in women's sports and actively trying to protect their small enclave of women's athletics, such leaders were reluctant to risk being labeled strident, unfeminine, or worse (i.e., lesbians), which they feared could cost them important male allies, and possibly their jobs.17
In many ways the tensions between Billie Jean King and second-wave feminism replicated the classic mind/body split, with King coming down on the action side of feminism rather than the intellectual. “Tennis helps the women's movement just by doing. We’re there, we’re visual, like blacks in sports helped their moveme
nt. If people see us out there every day, that changes people’s minds, not talking about it.” Referring to Kate Millett’s influential but dense Sexual Politics, an unexpected bestseller in 1970, King recalled: “I started the Kate Millett book, but I couldn't hack it. That stuff’s great for about two percent of women. What I’d rather do is influence one hundred percent of women to see a better life for themselves.” And yet King always remained frustrated that leaders of the women's movement, while friendly, too often left sports off the feminist agenda, even though athletes “could have been a great conduit for social change.” As she told Bella Abzug around 1982, “You know, the real shame is that women's sports could be so visible. It is such an obvious tool. But you’ve never used it. No one has.” She made similar complaints about failing to use athletes to highlight equal rights issues to Gloria Steinem, who supposedly replied, “Billie, this is about politics.” For once, the tennis player trumped the prominent feminist with this spot-on reply: “Gloria, we are politics.”18
Billie Jean King was not the first—or the last—to notice a certain disconnect between sports and feminism in the 1970s. Grace Lichtenstein captured the movement’s noticeable lack of interest in sports when she noted in 1974 that while feminist leaders “may have helped liberate women from the kitchen, they did not urge anyone to run out onto the volleyball court.” For many feminists, the topic of sports conjured up images of Monday Night Football, not women's softball. All of the major sporting championships such as the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Masters totally excluded women, and other than Billie Jean King, there were hardly any well-known women from the world of sports to identify with and look up to. Sport was seen as so “male” that many feminists at the time wanted nothing to do with it, even had they been encouraged or welcomed, which they most definitely were not. As Donna Lopiano later put it, “[The women's movement] thought that athletics was a male construct that taught violence against somebody else, inordinate levels of competition—that it was an unhealthy activity for women—and that we were going to follow in the footsteps of men’s values, and not the best men’s values at all.”19