NationofChange
In the late 1990s, I could always draw dismissive snickers at ESPN production meetings I was a commentator there at the time when I lobbied for tennis champion Billie Jean King to be named that network’s number-one athlete of the twentieth century. In those days, even women sports wonks would roll their eyes and keep plugging for the likes of Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, or Muhammad Ali.
My argument then: that while Billie Jean, like all those worthies, not only dominated her sport, sold tickets, and crossed over into popular culture, she also went well beyond them in fighting successfully for gender equality and against that slavish system of control called amateurism. Meanwhile, she was representing and inspiring half the population of the world.
A new report released on Wednesday details what is termed the Tobacco industry’s predatory marketing to woman and girls and the consequences to women’s health.
/PRNewswire/ A new report released today details the tobacco industry s long history of developing cigarette brands and predatory marketing campaigns that.
IndieBound The tennis legend faces off against on-court rivalries and off-court battles for equality in her audacious memoir. King (
Pressure Is a Privilege) looks back on her years as a tennis superstar and winner of multiple Grand Slam titles in the 1960s and 1970s; her exploits leading the movement to professionalize womenâs tennis with the Virginia Slims tour and win equality with men in tournament prize money; her celebrated 1973 âBattle of the Sexesâ match, in which she beat chauvinist figure Bobby Rigg; and her traumatic outing after a former female lover filed a palimony lawsuit, which cost King endorsement contracts. Vivid throughout is Kingâs passion for the gameââI loved the drama of it. the universe of possibilities that opened up as I drew my racket back, then that split-second pause where everything hangs in the balance as youâre preparing to hit a returnââand her obsessive will to win. She also fervidly speaks on con
From the novels of Ben Lerner to Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy (2014–2018) and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s multi-volume
My Struggle (2009–2011), some of the most eye-catching literary fiction of recent years has been heavily autobiographical. The prototype of the modern autobiographical novel is generally considered to be Marcel Proust’s
In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927). What is less widely known, here in the West, is that a very similar kind of novel came to prominence in early twentieth-century Japan. In 1907, a few years before the first volume of Proust’s opus saw the light of day, Katai Tayama published
Futon, an autobiographical novella inspired by his unconsummated relationship with a female admirer and protégé. In 1912 Naoya Shiga published