Everyone Matters

Yesterday’s election brought much needed changes to the look of our government finally looking a little more like the diversity of people that America is. Many people have suffered just trying to be themselves in the workplace. One trail blazer in the battle of the sexes was Tennis champ Billie Jean King. She even had a tennis match playing against a man where everyone suddenly became a tennis fan. He said she was playing for women’s liberation and he said,   ”Man is supreme, the man is king no matter what the difference is in age.”  He was Bobby Riggs who was once the number one tennis player in the world. He was proud to be a male chauvinist and had no problem boasting about his discrimination of women.  He said, “Women want the same kind of money as men get and that is ridiculous!”

Billy Jean started playing tennis when she was 11 years old and knew that tennis was going to be her way to make a living. She went on to win 40 Grand Slam Titles. Beyond all her sports achievement she also became famous for her fight for equal rights   on and off the court especially for women. At college she fell in love with a guy who had a college grant to play tennis and she didn’t despite her achievements. She was the best athlete, everyone knew her name yet she couldn’t get a grant because she was a girl and that was in the 1970’s.

When she won the Women’s Singles at Wimbledon in 1968 she took home half the money that the men’s winners took home. Who wouldn’t be happy after winning one of the biggest tournaments ever? By 1970 she and 8 other tennis pros signed contracts to form their own tour called the Net Rebels. She won that famous game against a man, Bobby Riggs in three straight sets. No real contest. Thirty thousand people watched in the stadium and 50 million people tuned into watching the match on their TVs. She married that handsome college tennis pro but by the time she was 40 years old she found herself attracted to women.

At a press conference she admitted to being a lesbian and divorced her husband of many years in 1987. She lost fans and millions of dollars in endorsement deals. Hollywood has taken notice about her life fighting for equal pay and the right to be whoever you want to be sexually.  Bobby Riggs once said,” I’m not saying that women don’t belong on the tennis court. Who would pick up the tennis balls around the court then?” The discriminatory comments were everywhere. So, watch the new movie called The Battle of the Sexes starring Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs and Emma Stone as Billy Jean King.

Now Billy has been living with a woman for almost 30 years. She owns the Philadelphia Freedoms a tennis league. It is the first professional sports league where men and women compete against each other not by being male or female, but by ranking. Elton John was so impressed by her courage to come out in the 80’s that he wrote a song for her called Philadelphia Freedom. The song hit number one on the charts in 1975. Now she is 73 years old and still an advocate for freedom on and off the court. Her motto is “every human being matters.” If only we could all think that way.