‘She Had to Pretend to Be a Guy’ - Venus Williams Details the Fights of Women for Equality and How Her Mother Oracene Impacted It - EssentiallySportsAmerica's Favorites Trending in U.S.A.
She Had to Pretend to Be a Guy – Venus Williams Details the Fights of Women for Equality and How Her Mother Oracene Impacted It
Published 05/04/2022, 10:47 PM EDTBy Venus Williams of USA plays a forehand during her round of 16 match against Lauren Davis of USA at the ASB Classic on January 03, 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images) Women’s tennis has had many glorious moments in history. From Martina Navratilova’s domination on the tennis court to Billie Jean King and Venus Williams’ successful fight against the gender pay gap, these moments changed the face of women’s tennis. Recently, seven-time women’s singles Grand Slam champion, Venus Williams, opened up about her fight against this grim issue. ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad Venus Williams inspired by her mother
ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad The elder Williams sister carried the baton from Billie Jean King to fight gender inequality. Billie Jean King played a pivotal role in eradicating gender-based pay from the US Open. Similarly, Venus fought to eradicate this problem from the entire women’s tour. Further, talking about how her mother inspired her in this fight, she , “My mom was an inspiration. She’s a wonderful, fun lady, strong lady, good tennis player, and a great cook. She’s also very spiritually strong, so it gave us an opportunity to have belief and hope and to be calm and not be stressed about the regular worries of the day.” Further, talking about her fight, Venus said, “We been fighting thousands of years of inequity, so we can’t think that [change] is going to happen overnight. We want it to, and we work at a pace so that it could be, theoretically, but it’s about changing minds, changing cultures, changing history, and it’s about not giving up.” Venus opens up about what led her to fight against the gender pay gap
ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad The former World Number raised her voice against this issue from a very young age. Recounting the reasons for what led her to this, she said, “Getting there and realizing, ‘Wow, I’m not being paid equally,’ was just definitely a slap in the face to a 16-year-old. It hit me hard.”MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 31: Venus Williams of the. United States celebrates victory in her match against. Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands during day one of the WTA 500. Yarra Valley Classic at Melbourne Park on January 31, 2021 in. Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images) Moreover, she went on to say, “Two short years later, after 30-plus years of fighting for equal prize money, we finally arrived. It was a wonderful moment. It wasn’t until the ’60s that a woman first ran a marathon, and she had to pretend to be a guy.” ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad WATCH THIS STORY: Further, fight bore fruit during the 2007 Wimbledon Championships. After she won the tournament, Venus became the first player to receive equal prize money as men. Subsequently, other major tournaments followed suit and awarded equal prize money for men and women. This chapter went down in the history book of tennis. Moreover, it completely changed women’s tennis as we see it today. SHARE THIS ARTICLE
ADVERTISEMENT Vatsal Shah 1323 articlesVatsal Shah is a tennis author at EssentiallySports. With a Bachelor's degree in engineering, he is a die hard fan of tennis and sports in general. He is an ardent follower of Rafael Nadal and is inspired by his never-say-die attitude.Please enable JavaScript to view the ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT EDITORS' PICK
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