King urges the young to carry on her battle for equality
Tennis legend is the star attraction of Wimbledon’s step towards change, writes Charlie Eccleshare
According to Billie Jean King, history has a habit of appearing to move quickly in retrospect, but at a glacial pace at the time.
Rarely has this been truer than at Wimbledon – where the all-white rule and event names such as the “ladies’ singles” can make it feel as though you have stepped back to the 19th century.
Wimbledon was also the last grand slam event to award equal prize money to its male and female (or, as it might say, “lady”) competitors. It was only in 2007, after Venus Williams asked the committee members to imagine they were nine-year-old girls being told they were effectively worth less than boys, that the All England Club finally relented.
Gradually, though, Wimbledon has found a way to mesh the old with the new – even installing a second roof this year, which until recently would have been considered heresy. Because who does not
love rain delays and impromptu Cliff Richard concerts?
Yesterday Wimbledon took a far more important step in its progression as it hosted its first “Inclusive Leadership” event. Following on from talks in New York and at the Australian Open over the past year, the All England Club co-hosted an event with the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative and Pride Sports to discuss issues of sports, sexuality, empowerment and individuality.
The star attraction was King herself, who urged the youngsters present to take up the fight that she had in the 1960s and 1970s.
King’s story is well documented, but it bears repeating that without her, there would likely be no equal prize money, no platform for female tennis players, no Women’s Tour Association. With the talk taking place at a house that backed on to the Wimbledon lawns, one recalled that when King won a hat-trick of singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles in 1967, her reward was a £45 clothes voucher.
Clearly, Wimbledon, tennis and society as a whole have come a long way since then, but with sexism still rampant in many parts of the world, the question is “How far?”.
“In some ways not at all,” King told this column. “The way these things work is that it’s two feet forward, five feet back. In some ways, very little has happened. Or you could say a lot in some ways – I think we’re having a wave of women’s sports at the moment with things like the World Cup.”
King also cites Thursday’s announcement that the Fed Cup – the women’s tennis equivalent of the Davis Cup – will receive substantial investment and be revamped for next year as a sign of progress. Though even here there is frustration from some that the changes are taking place almost a year after the reformed Davis Cup was announced, and for a smaller prize pot. As King says: two steps forward, five steps back.
As for the World Cup, the only downside of a hugely successful event has been the bores on social media who continue to compare it unfavourably with its male counterpart. It would be interesting to hear how those people would respond to King if they were to listen up close to the struggle she and so many others have been through. A major reason for King’s struggle, of course, was down to her sexuality, which saw her lose all her sponsorships when she was outed as gay by her lover, Marilyn Barnett, in 1981.
Nowadays, we would like to think that a gay athlete would be welcomed, and yet the number of LGBT+ sportsmen and women is minuscule. In men’s tennis, it remains a baffling statistic that since the Second World War there has not been a single openly gay active male player. According to King, fear is still the overriding reason for male athletes suppressing their sexuality.
“Because he doesn’t want to be ostracised,” she said. “Men are rough on each other, it’s the last bastion of masculinity. It’s toxic, they like to beat each other up.”
The giant strides we have made in some areas compared with the painfully slow steps in others is why we need events like yesterday more than ever.
Because, as King says, progress – no matter how real – can feel mighty slow at the time.