Posted on 09/24/2013 5:44:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
You can tell who the keepers of American culture are by, among other things, the anniversaries they mark. We're currently being invited to revel in memories of the "iconic" tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, the so-called "Battle of the Sexes". Robin Roberts of ABC News recalled King's "stunning triumph". ESPN explained to younger viewers that King "won for all women". The New York Times' Gail Collins gushed that King's victory 40 years ago was a message "for any woman who had ever worried about being laughed at if she stepped out of line."
Really? One tennis match decided of all that? First things first: The notion that women's equality rests upon women being just as physically powerful as men is both wrong and doomed. It's wrong because women do not merit equal treatment under the law because they have the identical abilities to men. Equality under the law is a matter of legal and moral standing -- not equality of condition.
It's doomed because it's crazy to suggest that women and men are equals in physical strength. That we still argue about these things is more worrying evidence of resistance to science than skepticism about global warming will ever be. Though you can lose the presidency of Harvard for saying it, there are differences between the sexes. Among the least interesting but undeniable is the differential in upper body strength.
So a 29-year-old, five-time Wimbledon female champion, Billie Jean King, was to play a 55-year-old former Wimbledon male champion, Bobby Riggs, and this was supposed to prove that women were in some cosmic sense just as "good" as men or maybe better?
Why was there no match-up, ever, as far as I know, between male and female tennis players of the same age? Who wants to place bets on a contest between Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams, the winners of this year's U.S. Open? No takers? Not surprising. The New York Times analyzed serve speeds at the 2012 U.S. Open and found that Serena Williams had a serve speed of 125 mph (the fastest among women players). Sixty-nine of the 94 men players served faster than Williams. Only five of 82 women players hit a serve at 120 mph, whereas only 5 of 94 men failed to achieve that speed.
With speed come aces. Only 20 women were able to get 10 aces in the match, compared with 67 men (though men play more sets).
The point is, the ridiculous circus show of Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs didn't even change tennis -- far less America. Did men and women start playing one another after that? Of course not.
The match wasn't so much a set as a set piece. Riggs and King played their assigned roles to the hilt, Riggs pretending to be a "male, chauvinist pig" as the epithet of the time had it, who claimed to believe that women belonged in the kitchen, and King doing her earnest women's lib thing. Before the match began she presented Riggs with a squealing piglet. Everyone at the time acted as if something were really at stake in the outcome.
It may even have been fixed. ESPN has published an interesting piece suggesting that Riggs threw the match to settle his gambling debts. That he was a lifelong gambler with ties to the Mafia is undisputed. He had trounced reigning champion Margaret Court four months before. His son and others confirm that he had visits from mob leaders in the weeks before the King match. This has renewed debate about the game and about whether the 55-year-old was beaten fair and square by the 29-year-old.
The game didn't prove anything and didn't change anything. It was a confection of hype, publicity, money and showbiz. Leave it to the keepers of our cultural flames to treat it like D-Day.
Professional tennis (I am a huge fan), like other professional sports is primarily about revenue generation through entertainment (direct sales of endorsed products, indirect sales via viewer volume in TV and other media and direct sales of tickets and goods at sporting events). Player compensation should be tied to revenue generating ability, which is only indirectly related to athletic talent.
For women players, being attractive is an important part of revenue generation (much more so than with the men players). That is just human nature. Women would do well to play that up to best effect by what they choose to wear in order to make themselves appear more feminine and sexy (there is a fine line here, going beyond which is counterproductive).
Justifying demands for equal pay based on socially engineered equality of outcome between the sexes is total PC nonsense. It’s not about who can win more matches, but who can win more viewers (i.e., generate more revenue).
By the way, most players have a more-or-less set, involuntary grimace that they make while straining when striking the ball. Some of these “face pulls” are quite ugly or weirdly comical and look nothing like the player’s normal, relaxed face. Ana Ivanovic is very fortunate in that not only is she very attractive to begin with, but she has the extra great fortune to have a grimace that almost looks like a normal smile. It makes her stop action shots (photos) look much better than most of the other players (who may look just as nice off court).
One of my favorite women players has been Francesca Schiavone (who I always thought looks something like a cross between a wet rat and the Wicked Witch of the West). I love the way the Italian players tend to show their emotions and “talk with their hands.” I really enjoyed watching her gritty Cinderella run to win the French open a few years ago.
It was probably Laz
Had Lefty Williams not thrown the 1919 World Series, he would be completely forgotten today.
Had Eddie Cicotte not thrown the 1919 World Series, he would be in the Hall of Fame.
It was when BJK was married that she got the abortion. Apparently BJK did not realize she was a lesbo until after her marriage.
It certainly wasn’t publicized to the same extent as the one against King. And if this article is anywhere near the truth, the prior match merely was a set-up for a big payday for the fixed match against King: http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/9589625/the-match-maker
Joe Jackson would be in the hall too. Do you think Joe was innocent?
” Who wants to place bets on a contest between Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams”
Williams is so juiced up she might get a couple of games from Nadal. At thirty two still dominating the women’s tour in majors, and pumped up like a linebacker, there is NO WAY she isn’t on steroids. The pathetic part of this is, everyone knows it even the officials, but she will never be called on it because she is black and a role model to children all over the world. The myth would be exposed.
Shoeless Joe had guilty knowledge, but didn’t throw any games. He deserves to be inducted into the Hall.
Just go watch the Riggs/King match on YouTube, furcrissakes. NO RULE CHANGES!
Billie Jean had two things in common with Bobby Riggs - she used yellow balls and liked p***y.
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