I just finished reading All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King. She is a few years older than I am, so I was aware of her, primarily as a champion tennis player, but I did not totally appreciate all she has accomplished. She is an amazing woman, and I recommend reading her book for first-hand accounts of the events of her life. If you do not have time to read the book, you could read the “shorter” version on Wikipedia to get the facts if not the birds eye view of the struggle.
en.wikipedia.org/…
Also, for more information, her website:
www.billiejeanking.com
For younger women, it is a good lesson to learn about the hard work that women of Billie and women of our generation did to make it possible for women today to have the rights they now enjoy. In Billie’s case, she is still going strong as she approaches 80.
With the right to choose if and when to have children on the line, the section on how Billie Jean made the difficult decision to end her pregnancy is very timely. She and her husband married early, ages 19 and 20, and talked about having children, “someday” in the future. They were not at all ready when she found herself pregnant and with the support of her husband, ended the pregnancy. This was years before Roe and was not an easy choice or simple to do medically.
But the wake-up thought to me was, what if she had not been able to do that? Looking at her life’s work, how much of that would have been accomplished if she had been forced at an early age to have a baby? How many millions of women and other oppressed groups are better off today than they would have been if Billie and other women fighting for equal rights had been forced to take another life path? How could we let the GOP take away the right for so many women like Billie Jean to make their own life choices free of government coercion to remain pregnant against their will?