by Susan Ware
82 All the general sources on second-wave feminism cover the gay/straight split, but Cohen, The Sisterhood, does an especially good job of exploring the personalities involved.
83 She was aware of it, however, as the “Playboy Interview: Billie Jean King,” 59, confirms. When asked if she ever felt pressure to try lesbianism as a way to demonstrate support for women's liberation (what a dumb question), she replied, “No. Gay women turn on to me sometimes, gay women's lib people. I get a lot of letters from them, but they’re OK when I meet them. They don't make passes at all.”
84 In addition to Gross and Seidman, general sources on gay history include John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999); and John D’Emilio, The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics and Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002). On outing, see Signorile, “I, Ayatollah.”
85 In a nice touch in the widely watched episode, Ellen's childhood bedroom was depicted as having a poster of Billie Jean King on the wall. A. J. Carson, “The Ellen Show,” posted June 28, 2006,
86 Gross, Up from Invisibility, 195–201; Anderson, In the Game, 14. See also Baumgard-ner, Look Both Ways.
87 BJK, Pressure Is a Privilege, 155; Griffin, Strong Women, Deep Closets, 180; Kort, “King Comes All the Way Out”; Planck, “Portrait of a Legend.”
88 Karen Ocamb, “women's Night ‘99 filled with Surprises,” Lesbian News, April 1999, 16; Sandomir, “A Complex Life”
Epilogue
1 John Jeansonne, “Tennis’ Serve to Billie Jean,” Newsday, August 29, 2006, A04; Jo Piazza, “King's Castle,” New York Daily News, August 29, 2006, 9; Jeansonne, “Tennis’ Serve to Billie Jean”; George Vecsey, “A Fitting Tribute for a Champion Who Didn't Always Fit In,” New York Times, August 29, 2006, D1.
2 Richard Sandomir, “Tennis Center to be Named for King,” New York Times, August 3, 2006, 1.
3 Bud Collins, “Naming Honor is fit for this King,” Boston Globe, August 29, 2006, D2; “Quotation of the Day,” New York Times, August 3, 2006, 2.
4 “People in Sports,” Houston Chronicle, October 19, 1992, 12; Christine Brennan, “Prizing the Past in Taking the Prizes,” USA Today, July 9, 2007. See also Billie Jean King, Pressure Is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes (New York: LifeTime Media, 2008), 184.
5 John Jeansonne, “Call it the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center after tonight,” Newsday, August 28, 2006, D03; Jon Carroll, “The Ballad of Billie Jean,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 1998, E10.
6 This is similar to the definition of third-wave feminism given by Leslie Heywood and Shari L. Dworkin: “Third wave feminism is a product of that contradiction between the continuation of sexism and an increasingly realizable feminist dream that today many women do have more opportunity.” Leslie Heywood and Shari L. Dworkin, Built to Win: The Female Athlete as Cultural Icon (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 41.
7 Sheila Weller, Just Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation (New York: Atria Books, 2008), makes this argument.
8 “Title IX question leaves Capriati without answer,” St. Petersburg Times, August 30, 2002, 6C; Karen Blumenthal, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, The Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America (New York: Atheneum Books, 2005), 129.
9 Debra West, “Reschedule Girls’ Soccer, 2 Schools Are Ordered,” New York Times, June 5, 2004, B4. Leslie Heywood and Shari Dworkin refer to this as “stealth feminism.” “Through their work on women's sports issues, every day feminists are advancing their causes in a kind of stealth feminism that draws attention to key feminist issues and goals without provoking the knee-jerk social stigmas attached to the word feminist, which has been so maligned and discredited in the popular imagination. At this historical moment, feminists need athletes to help advance agendas such as equal access to institutions, self-esteem for all women and girls, and an expanded possibility and fluidity within gender roles that embraces difference.” Heywood and Dworkin, Built to Win, 51.
10 Mark Starr, “The Battle of the Sexes,” Newsweek, September 21, 1998, 90; foreword by Nancy Lieberman-Cline in Marian Betancourt, Playing Like a Girl: Transforming Our Lives Through Team Sports (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2001), ix.
11 Philip Reid, “A King Who Set Her People Free,” Irish Times, June 26, 2000, 59.
Acknowledgments
Whenever I describe this project, the first question I am invariably asked is whether I interviewed Billie Jean King. The answer is yes, and I would like to thank her for taking time at a women's Sports Foundation event in Boston in 2007 to talk to yet another in the long line of journalists and writers who have been wanting a piece of her since she burst onto the tennis scene in the 1960s. In addition to the insights she shared with me, including her observation that feminists often think “from the neck up,” the occasion allowed me to experience firsthand her charismatic energy and passion for history, as well as watch her use her celebrity to work a room for a cause she believed in. I also benefitted from conversations with other major players in my story, including Donna Lopiano, Margaret Dunkle, and Bernice Sand-ler. In addition to serving as a commentator for a talk on Billie Jean King that I gave at the Harvard Humanities Center, Lopiano welcomed me to the women's Sports Foundation while she was still its head and facilitated my use of its archives.
Once again my main scholarly home as I researched this book was the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. The library contains a treasure trove of material on feminism in the 1970s, which I sampled extensively. For their help navigating this material and for always making me feel welcome when I turned up, I would like to thank the entire Public Services team: Ellen Shea, Sarah Hutcheon, Lynda Leahy, and Diana Carey. I would also like to recognize Johanna Carll and Jenny Gotwals, the archivists who processed the Margaret Dunkle and Bernice Sandler papers that were so central to my research. And special thanks to Kathy Jacob for a very special friendship forged over the past several years. I would also like to acknowledge the support I received from the Charles Warren Center at Harvard as a fellow in 2007–8. Arthur Patton-Hock and Larissa Kennedy keep the Warren Center running so smoothly I was free to interact with a wonderful group of fellows, including Albrecht Koschnik, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Francoise Hamlin, Tim McCarthy, Lisa Tetrault, Manisha Sinha, Dan Kryder, Lisa Materson, and Maartje Janse. Thanks also to Dan Carpenter and Lisa McGirr for their leadership of the Politics and Social Movements seminar where I presented my work.
At the University of North Carolina Press, I am tickled to be working again with Chuck Grench after a gap of more than twenty years. From his initial “absodarnlootly” response to the topic, he has been a steadfast supporter as the manuscript worked its way through the review process. Thanks, too, to Katy O’Brien, Ron Maner, and Liz Gray for making the process as easy and seamless as possible. The world of publishing, trade and academic, can be a scary place these days, and I am lucky to have landed at UNC Press.
On the friends and family front, Joyce Antler once again performed her now time-honored role as first reader, offering helpful comments and huge doses of encouragement as the book took shape. She was joined at an early stage by Claire Potter, whose sharp skills as a historian and critic are supplemented by her athlete's competitive sensibility, an excellent combination. I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of Eileen McDonagh, whose work on Title IX pushed me to think more deeply about the separate-but-equal question as it applied to women's sports. On the home front, Don Ware gets credit for literally pushing me onto a tennis court when I was in college, something he perhaps regretted when I began to beat him regularly. It is a measure of the longevity of our relationship that we
watched the Battle of the Sexes match together in 1973 and now celebrate the publication of a book inspired by that event almost forty years later.
This book is dedicated to Imogene Fish, an extraordinary competitive athlete and dear friend who has been my model of an engaged, athletic life for almost thirty-five years. Living proof that women excelled at sports long before Title IX, Imo still thinks of major birthdays divisible by ten as a chance to compete in a new age group! Raised in North Conway, New Hampshire, after her family fled Germany in 1940, Imogene Opton placed an amazing fifth in the slalom at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway, when she was only nineteen. She later graduated from Mount Holyoke College, married attorney H. Kenneth Fish, and raised three talented daughters who found many more opportunities, athletic and otherwise, than had been open to their mother's generation. Imogene's lifelong passion for all things athletic, which she and Ken shared over years of cross-country skiing and hiking in the White Mountains, is truly inspirational. The dedication honors her pioneering role in the history of women's sports.
Index
ABC, 5, 6, 32, 75, 93, 94
Abortion: liberalization of California law and, 36–37; Billie Jean King and, 36–38, 152, 185
Abzug, Bella, 10, 48, 113, 148, 149, 154
Affirmative Action, 58, 160, 164, 255–56 (n. 40)
African American athletes, female, 58, 123, 126–27, 135
AIDS, 202, 205
Ali, Muhammad, 6, 16, 41, 175
All American Girls Baseball League, 123, 195
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), 52, 122–23, 135–36
American Football Coaches Association, 61, 67
American Tennis Association, 21, 126
Ashe, Arthur, 30, 102, 131, 202, 208, 266 (n. 74)
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), 71, 137, 138, 158; battle with NCAA, 12, 55, 67–69, 74, 82;
philosophy of, 125, 132–34, 160, 162
Auchincloss, Eva, 91, 94, 97
Austin, Tracy, 96, 199, 201
Avon, 194, 195
Bacon, Mary, 84, 86, 127
Barnett, Marilyn, 5–6, 26, 28, 114, 179–91 passim, 205
Baseball, 19, 20, 120, 173, 174; Little League, 128–29, 166
Basketball, 71, 83, 119, 122, 123, 130, 166, 174, 176; African American athletes in, 58, 126, 135;
professional teams in, 78,
142–43;
history of, 134–39; impact of Title IX on, 138–39
Battle of the Sexes, 1–8, 14, 32, 38–39, 75, 207, 209; Billie Jean King on, 2, 5, 6, 53–54;
significance of, 7–8, 43, 62, 76, 118,150, 178, 213;
Marilyn Barnett at, 182–83
Bayh, Birch, 47, 63
Beauvoir, Simone de, 173
Berenson, Senda, 119, 134–35, 136
Berg, Patty, 96, 144
Bicycling, 119–20, 131
Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, 22, 207–8, 209
Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer (2006), 37, 206
Blalock, Jane, 93, 143
Blazejowski, Carol, 94
Brennan, Christine, 8, 171
Broun, Heywood Hale, 137, 248 (n. 58)
Brown, Rita Mae, 192, 193, 194
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 40, 119, 162–63, 167, 259 (n. 72)
Boxing, 156, 175
Califano, Joseph, 63
California State University, Los Angeles. See Los Angeles State College
Capriati, Jennifer, 202, 212
Carbine, Pat, 79, 86
Carillo, Mary, 201
Carter, Jimmy, 63, 95
Casals, Rosemary, 3, 4, 6, 30, 32, 33, 152, 196, 201
Casey Amendment, 61, 62
Cawley, Evonne Goolagong, 32, 41
Celebrity, culture of, 5–6, 39–41, 131, 180–81, 184–85, 210
Chaffee, Suzy, 91, 93, 149
Chastain, Brandi, 117, 145
Chronicle of Higher Education, 47, 53, 56, 58, 59, 66, 225–26 (n. 9)
Cigarettes and tobacco industry, 33–34, 85–86, 93, 223 (n. 66)
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 44–46
Clarenbach, Kathryn, 124
Coaches and administrators, decline of female, 13, 68–69, 71, 74, 139, 141, 213
Coachman, Alice, 126
Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, 61
Cold War, 203; impact on sports, 126, 127, 136–37, 192
Collins, Bud, 23, 35, 82, 100, 208
Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW), 125, 136
Competition: focus on winning, 13, 125, 134, 154; anti-competitive focus and, 120, 121–22, 124, 125, 126, 132, 135, 174
Connolly, Maureen (“Mo”), 23, 29
Connors, Jimmy, 102, 115, 131, 207
Contact sports exclusion, 60, 165, 166–67, 172
Cosell, Howard, 6
Court, Margaret Smith, 4, 24, 32
Cullman, Joseph P., 31–32
Decker, Mary, 96
Deford, Frank, 41, 77, 183, 185, 260 (n. 12)
DeGeneres, Ellen, 205, 267 (n. 85)
Delta State University, 135, 138
Diamond, Jerry, 35, 79, 195
Didrikson, Babe. See Zaharias, Babe Didrikson
Division for Girls’ and women's Sports (DGWS), 125, 128
Dunkle, Margaret, 49–50, 52, 60, 61
Durr, Francoise, 30
East, Catherine, 148
Ederle, Gertrude, 40, 83, 96, 120
Education Amendments Act of 1972, 9, 48, 211. See also Title IX
Ephron, Nora, 4, 37
Epstein, Charlotte, 120
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 170
Equal Protection Clause. See Fourteenth Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment, 9, 47, 82, 148, 149, 181; Billie Jean King on, 151;
and protective legislation, 156–57;
and sports, 163–64, 165, 169–71
Evert, Chris, 18, 84, 88, 101, 199, 201, 207; on Billie Jean King, 5, 36, 222 (n. 62);
image of, 32–33, 192, 195
Felshin, Jan, 132, 140, 253 (n. 19)
Field Hockey, 71, 83, 119, 122, 130, 173, 244 (n. 14)
Figure Skating, 123, 126, 143–44, 173
Fleming, Peggy, 143, 261 (n. 22)
Football, 84, 120, 122, 164, 173, 174; and Title IX, 47, 55, 56, 60, 166
Ford, Gerald, 59, 60, 63
Fourteenth Amendment, 150, 163, 166–67, 168, 169
Friedan, Betty, 10, 113, 149, 204
Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), 168
“Galimony,” 188, 190
Gay history and gay rights, 180, 181, 190, 191, 192, 197–98, 203–5, 206
Gibson, Althea, 21–22, 29, 40, 96, 126–27
Gilbert, Bil, 52–53, 131
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 52
Goesaert v. Cleary (1948), 167–68
Golf, 78, 93, 120, 121, 123, 139, 144, 175, 197
Goolagong, Evonne, 32, 41
Green, Edith, 44, 46–47, 48, 212, 226 (nn. 13, 16)
Gregory, Gwen, 50, 51, 53, 161, 229 (n. 41)
Griffin, Pat, 96, 139, 140
Griffiths, Martha, 45
Grove City v. Bell (1984), 199, 265 (n. 65)
Guthrie, Janet, 10, 95, 96, 144–45
Gymnastics, 71, 125, 173
Hamill, Dorothy, 84, 143
Hanes Hosiery, 83, 136
Hantze, Karen, 23, 24, 206
Hardy, Carol Mann, 95, 144, 180
Harris, Dorothy, 128
Harris, Patricia Roberts, 95
Haynie, Sandra, 143, 193
Health, Education and Welfare, Department of (HEW), 46, 52, 53, 82, 170; and Title IX regulations, 49–51, 56, 57–60, 66–67, 158, 161–62;
and Title IX enforcement, 63–65, 94–95, 163
Heinrichs, April, 2
Heldman, Gladys, 31–32, 33, 197
Heldman, Julie, 32, 39, 107, 153
Heroes, sports, 39–41. See also King, Billie Jean—celebrity status of
Heywood, Leslie, 141, 268 (n. 9)
Hicks, Betty, 144, 191
Hockey. See Field hockey; Ice hockey
Hogan, Candace Lyle, 74, 128
Holum, Diane, 93
Homophobia, 12–13, 17–18, 139–42, 195, 200, 213, 265–66 (n. 68)
Homosexuality, and male athletes, 139, 197–98
Hoover, Lou Henry, 121
Hoyt v. Florida (1961), 168
Ice hockey, 58, 122, 175
Immaculata College “Mighty Macs,” 137-38, 141
International women's Year, 147, 148, 149
Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU), 137
Jacobs, Helen, 21
Jaeger, Andrea, 198–99, 201
Javits Amendment, 229 (n. 43)
Jefferson, Linda, 84, 236–37 (n. 30)
Jensen, Marlene, 79
John, Elton, 101, 205, 206
Johnson, Lyndon, 45
Jones, Perry, 21, 22, 219 (n. 21)
Jorgensen, James, 91, 92
Joyce, Joan, 93, 127, 143, 153
Kamenshek, Dottie, 123
Kane, Mary Jo, 173, 174
Kellerman, Annette, 120
King, Billie Jean
—abortion of, 36–38, 152, 185
—on aging, 202, 209
—ambition of, 18, 19, 23, 76–77
—autobiographies by, 15, 16, 36, 37, 151, 185
—Marilyn Barnett: relationship with, 5–6, 114, 179–80, 181–84, 186, 187, 190, 191; sued by, 28, 184, 187, 189–90
—and Battle of the Sexes, 1–8 passim, 38–39, 53–54, 118, 182–83
—Billie Jean King National Tennis Center named in honor of, 22, 207–8, 209
—broadcasting career of, 75, 98, 200, 234 (n. 1)
—celebrity status of, 10, 39, 40–41, 77, 97, 98, 131, 180–81, 210; as platform for causes, 57, 76, 97, 98, 152, 253 (n. 14)
—childhood of, 18–19, 76
—on children, 29, 36