Women's Liberation Movement Essay

Introduction In 1973 tennis players Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King had a match that was televised nationwide. This match was referred to as “The Battle of the Sexes.” The winner of the match would win a prize of $100,000. Riggs was anti-feminist, while King was know for being a women’s activist. The tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs was occurring during a time when gender norms were being tested. The Women 's Liberation Movement was spreading heavily, after Title IX was passed more women were participating in sports, and ever since WWII women had been taking up roles that were considered “men’s work.” The “Battle of the Sexes” match between Riggs and Kings reflected the feminist and anti-feminist views seen in society …show more content…
The feminist movement was entering what is now known as The Second Wave. Women were “demanding legal recognition and social acceptance of their rights over their bodies and lives” (Clevenger, 2016). Women wanted to get to the roots of problems in society (Nachescu, 2009) as they believed this would be the only way they would have any progress. They were fighting to increase occupation and educational opportunities for women, reproductive rights, and many more issues. The Women 's Liberation movement was being influenced by the other movements going on during this time. They were being influenced heavily by the Civil Rights Movement (Graham, 1988). There were two types of feminist during this movement. On one hand there were the “liberal feminist” who consisted mostly of women over the age of 30, who had a profession, and a family (Nachescu, 2009). These feminist were fighting for equal rights by going through legislation, the courts, and lobbying (Nachescu, 2009). On the other hand, there were “women liberationists” which were less structured groups which mostly used media-directed tactics to achieve their goals (Nachescu, …show more content…
This was used as a way to limit women’s participation in sports. Women were being taught that they had a limited amount of energy and that it should not be wasted on impractical physical activities, instead they should save it for the maternal aspect of their lives (Sailors, Teetzel, & Weaving, 2016). If women did participate in physical activity it had to be moderate exercise so that they could preserve their energy for motherhood. Women that participating in more intense physical activity supposedly risked damaging their reproductive