Greg Ruth
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780252043895
- eISBN:
- 9780252052798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043895.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sport and Leisure
This chapter considers how World War II impacted the possibilities of the professionalization of tennis by looking closely at the careers of several California players who, to varying degrees, ...
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This chapter considers how World War II impacted the possibilities of the professionalization of tennis by looking closely at the careers of several California players who, to varying degrees, benefitted from the player development programs put in place by Perry T. Jones in Los Angeles. Don Budge reappears as a champion whose playing career took a turn for the worst during the 1940s. Bobby Riggs presents a study in contrast in terms of both infamy and as a player who benefitted from wartime disruptions. In the latter 1940s Jack Kramer became the dominate touring professional.Less
This chapter considers how World War II impacted the possibilities of the professionalization of tennis by looking closely at the careers of several California players who, to varying degrees, benefitted from the player development programs put in place by Perry T. Jones in Los Angeles. Don Budge reappears as a champion whose playing career took a turn for the worst during the 1940s. Bobby Riggs presents a study in contrast in terms of both infamy and as a player who benefitted from wartime disruptions. In the latter 1940s Jack Kramer became the dominate touring professional.
Elizabeth O’Connell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617038136
- eISBN:
- 9781621039617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617038136.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sport and Leisure
This chapter explores the lasting legacy of the tennis athlete Billie Jean King in advancing gender equality in sports. Her victory over Bobby Riggs in the exhibition match dubbed as the “Battle of ...
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This chapter explores the lasting legacy of the tennis athlete Billie Jean King in advancing gender equality in sports. Her victory over Bobby Riggs in the exhibition match dubbed as the “Battle of the Sexes,” vindicated the cause of the women’s movement, advancing gender equality in tennis and uplifting women’s self-esteem across the world. It adds that despite her enduring legacy, King’s reputation was often marred by questions of sexuality and the parity of prize money. It suggests that Billie Jean King should be remembered in the simplest way possible: as one of the best female players in tennis who advanced gender equality to improve the sport for all.Less
This chapter explores the lasting legacy of the tennis athlete Billie Jean King in advancing gender equality in sports. Her victory over Bobby Riggs in the exhibition match dubbed as the “Battle of the Sexes,” vindicated the cause of the women’s movement, advancing gender equality in tennis and uplifting women’s self-esteem across the world. It adds that despite her enduring legacy, King’s reputation was often marred by questions of sexuality and the parity of prize money. It suggests that Billie Jean King should be remembered in the simplest way possible: as one of the best female players in tennis who advanced gender equality to improve the sport for all.
Travis Vogan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520292956
- eISBN:
- 9780520966260
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292956.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
ABC Sports capitalized on the notoriety it achieved during the 1970s by licensing an eclectic collection of items and producing non-sports programming. Along these lines, the subsidiary demonstrated ...
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ABC Sports capitalized on the notoriety it achieved during the 1970s by licensing an eclectic collection of items and producing non-sports programming. Along these lines, the subsidiary demonstrated that it did not need preexisting events to create popular sports television. It developed made-for-television specials, including Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs’s Battle of the Sexes, Evel Knievel’s bone-shattering stunts, and The Superstars, which featured athletes competing in sports outside their areas of expertise. Though commercially successful, these programs were widely belittled as “TrashSports” that degraded the respectability ABC Sports had steadily built. Amid ABC Sports’ investment in TrashSports, the division became embroiled in a scandal surrounding the 1977 United States Boxing Championships, in which elements of the competition were fabricated to ensure its value as a television spectacle. Chapter 6 examines how ABC’s brand extensions and involvement in TrashSports took its sports programming to lengths that no longer necessitated preexisting events, and it uses the controversial boxing championships to investigate the limits to which ABC could manufacture engaging sporting content.Less
ABC Sports capitalized on the notoriety it achieved during the 1970s by licensing an eclectic collection of items and producing non-sports programming. Along these lines, the subsidiary demonstrated that it did not need preexisting events to create popular sports television. It developed made-for-television specials, including Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs’s Battle of the Sexes, Evel Knievel’s bone-shattering stunts, and The Superstars, which featured athletes competing in sports outside their areas of expertise. Though commercially successful, these programs were widely belittled as “TrashSports” that degraded the respectability ABC Sports had steadily built. Amid ABC Sports’ investment in TrashSports, the division became embroiled in a scandal surrounding the 1977 United States Boxing Championships, in which elements of the competition were fabricated to ensure its value as a television spectacle. Chapter 6 examines how ABC’s brand extensions and involvement in TrashSports took its sports programming to lengths that no longer necessitated preexisting events, and it uses the controversial boxing championships to investigate the limits to which ABC could manufacture engaging sporting content.
Julie Willett
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781469661070
- eISBN:
- 9781469661094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661070.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This Chapter looks at how the male chauvinist went from an epithet to a popular brand. Bobby Riggs, a middle-aged tennis player, and television’s most lovable patriarch and Archie Bunker were both ...
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This Chapter looks at how the male chauvinist went from an epithet to a popular brand. Bobby Riggs, a middle-aged tennis player, and television’s most lovable patriarch and Archie Bunker were both infamous for their irreverent antifeminist stance in a battle of the sexes. Just as fun to hate as Archie Bunker was his real-life counterpart—a middle-aged tennis player who lost out to Billy Jean King on the tennis court in 1973 but remained a cultural icon. Like Bunker, Riggs and other MCP icons of the era turned the battle of the sexes into a comedic routine. The media’s distortion of feminism, something Ms. magazine founder and feminist icon, Gloria Steinem pointed out coupled with male bravado breathed life into the male chauvinist pig. As feminist humor was erased, the male chauvinist pig’s heterosexual prowess could sell everything from men’s shoes to neckties and other iconography.Less
This Chapter looks at how the male chauvinist went from an epithet to a popular brand. Bobby Riggs, a middle-aged tennis player, and television’s most lovable patriarch and Archie Bunker were both infamous for their irreverent antifeminist stance in a battle of the sexes. Just as fun to hate as Archie Bunker was his real-life counterpart—a middle-aged tennis player who lost out to Billy Jean King on the tennis court in 1973 but remained a cultural icon. Like Bunker, Riggs and other MCP icons of the era turned the battle of the sexes into a comedic routine. The media’s distortion of feminism, something Ms. magazine founder and feminist icon, Gloria Steinem pointed out coupled with male bravado breathed life into the male chauvinist pig. As feminist humor was erased, the male chauvinist pig’s heterosexual prowess could sell everything from men’s shoes to neckties and other iconography.
Susan Ware
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834541
- eISBN:
- 9781469603384
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877999_ware
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
When Billie Jean King trounced Bobby Riggs in tennis's “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973, she placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equity. In this combination of ...
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When Billie Jean King trounced Bobby Riggs in tennis's “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973, she placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equity. In this combination of biography and history, the book argues that King's challenge to sexism, the supportive climate of second-wave feminism, and the legislative clout of Title IX sparked a women's sports revolution in the 1970s that fundamentally reshaped American society. While King did not single-handedly cause the revolution in women's sports, she quickly became one of its most enduring symbols, as did Title IX, a federal law that was initially passed in 1972 to attack sex discrimination in educational institutions but had its greatest impact by opening opportunities for women in sports. King's place in tennis history is secure, and now, with this book, she can take her rightful place as a key player in the history of feminism as well. By linking the stories of King and Title IX, the book explains why women's sports took off in the 1970s, and demonstrates how giving women a sporting chance has permanently changed American life on and off the playing field.Less
When Billie Jean King trounced Bobby Riggs in tennis's “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973, she placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equity. In this combination of biography and history, the book argues that King's challenge to sexism, the supportive climate of second-wave feminism, and the legislative clout of Title IX sparked a women's sports revolution in the 1970s that fundamentally reshaped American society. While King did not single-handedly cause the revolution in women's sports, she quickly became one of its most enduring symbols, as did Title IX, a federal law that was initially passed in 1972 to attack sex discrimination in educational institutions but had its greatest impact by opening opportunities for women in sports. King's place in tennis history is secure, and now, with this book, she can take her rightful place as a key player in the history of feminism as well. By linking the stories of King and Title IX, the book explains why women's sports took off in the 1970s, and demonstrates how giving women a sporting chance has permanently changed American life on and off the playing field.
Susan Ware
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834541
- eISBN:
- 9781469603384
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877999_ware.5
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter describes how Billie Jean King dramatically recalled her feelings about the Bobby Riggs match's larger historical significance for reporter Selena Roberts. “My job in the match, and I ...
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This chapter describes how Billie Jean King dramatically recalled her feelings about the Bobby Riggs match's larger historical significance for reporter Selena Roberts. “My job in the match, and I remember this being very clear, was to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation of Title IX and what we were trying to do with the women's movement. It was to validate it, to celebrate it, and to get going toward changing a world where we had equality for both genders.” King had voiced similar sentiments on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the match in 1998: “Title IX had just passed, and I would see people [looking] for an excuse to backtrack. I wanted to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation we had just gotten in place.” Recently she upped the ante by claiming that she had helped get Title IX passed in the first place.Less
This chapter describes how Billie Jean King dramatically recalled her feelings about the Bobby Riggs match's larger historical significance for reporter Selena Roberts. “My job in the match, and I remember this being very clear, was to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation of Title IX and what we were trying to do with the women's movement. It was to validate it, to celebrate it, and to get going toward changing a world where we had equality for both genders.” King had voiced similar sentiments on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the match in 1998: “Title IX had just passed, and I would see people [looking] for an excuse to backtrack. I wanted to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation we had just gotten in place.” Recently she upped the ante by claiming that she had helped get Title IX passed in the first place.
Julie Willett
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781469661070
- eISBN:
- 9781469661094
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661070.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a series of stock characters emerged to define and bolster white masculinity. Alongside such caricatures as "the Playboy" and "the Redneck" came a new ...
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In the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a series of stock characters emerged to define and bolster white masculinity. Alongside such caricatures as "the Playboy" and "the Redneck" came a new creation: "the Male Chauvinist Pig." Coined by second-wave feminists as an insult, the Male Chauvinist Pig was largely defined by an anti-feminism that manifested in boorish sexist jokes. But the epithet backfired: being a sexist pig quickly transformed into a badge of honor worn proudly by misogynists, and, in time, it would come to define a strain of right-wing politics. Historian Julie Willett tracks the ways in which the sexist pig was sanitized by racism, popularized by consumer culture, weaponized to demean feminists, and politicized to mobilize libertine sexists to adopt reactionary politics. Mapping out a trajectory that links the sexist buffoonery of Bobby Riggs in the 1970s, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh’s screeds against "Feminazis" in the 1990s, and the present-day misogyny underpinning Trumpism, Willett makes a case for the potency of this seemingly laughable cultural symbol, showing what can happen when we neglect or trivialize the political power of humor.Less
In the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a series of stock characters emerged to define and bolster white masculinity. Alongside such caricatures as "the Playboy" and "the Redneck" came a new creation: "the Male Chauvinist Pig." Coined by second-wave feminists as an insult, the Male Chauvinist Pig was largely defined by an anti-feminism that manifested in boorish sexist jokes. But the epithet backfired: being a sexist pig quickly transformed into a badge of honor worn proudly by misogynists, and, in time, it would come to define a strain of right-wing politics. Historian Julie Willett tracks the ways in which the sexist pig was sanitized by racism, popularized by consumer culture, weaponized to demean feminists, and politicized to mobilize libertine sexists to adopt reactionary politics. Mapping out a trajectory that links the sexist buffoonery of Bobby Riggs in the 1970s, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh’s screeds against "Feminazis" in the 1990s, and the present-day misogyny underpinning Trumpism, Willett makes a case for the potency of this seemingly laughable cultural symbol, showing what can happen when we neglect or trivialize the political power of humor.
George Cotkin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190218478
- eISBN:
- 9780190218508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190218478.003.0024
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Cultural History
Erica Jong’s smash-hit novel, Fear of Flying, was a work of unabashed sexuality and feminism. It takes the traditional male bildungsroman and turns it into a journey about a woman’s identity and ...
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Erica Jong’s smash-hit novel, Fear of Flying, was a work of unabashed sexuality and feminism. It takes the traditional male bildungsroman and turns it into a journey about a woman’s identity and sexual pleasure. But the desire for a “zipless fuck,” sex without any emotional strings attached or desired, proves to be elusive. The book, published when feminism was taking a radical turn and also entering the realm of public consumption (with the tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs), garnering massive attention, serves as a model of dealing with sexual excess.Less
Erica Jong’s smash-hit novel, Fear of Flying, was a work of unabashed sexuality and feminism. It takes the traditional male bildungsroman and turns it into a journey about a woman’s identity and sexual pleasure. But the desire for a “zipless fuck,” sex without any emotional strings attached or desired, proves to be elusive. The book, published when feminism was taking a radical turn and also entering the realm of public consumption (with the tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs), garnering massive attention, serves as a model of dealing with sexual excess.