For Women, A Golden Age

By Robert Sullivan

Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, eight times U.S. champion between 1915 and 1926, thought a woman should admit "that she is a woman and adopt a style of tennis play which will call for all the generalship and strength which she can claim--but not for more." Whole new ball game, Molla. No self-respecting Williams would let "but not for more" cross her lips, and muscled-up Jennifer will sweat blood on the court just as soon as rock-hard Andre. You can credit Martina Navratilova for this, what with the way she gave Chris Evert her get-thee-to-a-gym marching orders. Or you can credit Title IX, which for 29 years has said it's illegal to give boys more PT than girls.

Don't forget to credit Billie Jean King for what she said off court as much as what she did on. And don't leave out Gloria and Germaine and Susan B. (Don't Call Me Babe) Anthony, the murderers row of women's rights. This is deeper than tennis, deeper than sport. It's about opportunity and encouragement; it's about cultural attitudes--or, as we say in the sports pages, 'tudes. We would not be in the Golden Age of Women's Sports if we hadn't had a sea change in sociopolitical 'tude.

Let's stick to sports here. My point is that in America, we are arrived at not only the Golden Age of Women's Tennis--and it certainly is that, with more talent than even the Mallory-Helen Wills-Suzanne Lenglen era--but also the Golden Age of Women's Soccer, the G.A. of Women's Hoops, of Women's Hockey (ice, not field), of Women's Track, of Women's Rock Climbing, of Women's Everything, including Bobsled (which will rattle and roll in Salt Lake City next February). I'm not talking about Q ratings here; I'm talking about competition. It has never, ever been better. Never even been close.

Wills-Lenglen was a great rivalry, and King-Margaret Court was a great rivalry; but Lenglen sipped brandy during changeovers, and King admits she couldn't powder the ball the way today's women can. What Navratilova taught Evert says that no woman before Martina--the original Martina--hit the ball hard, really hard. And no one since has survived without hitting hard. Also: six of the Top 10 at Flushing Meadows have won Slams, and the injured Mary Pierce would have made seven. There is power; there is depth.

How little depth there used to be in women's sports is truly stunning. In the 1930s and '40s, Babe (Call Me Babe) Zaharias could traipse nonchalantly from being the greatest female track star to being the best female golfer. As recently as the late '50s, Althea Gibson, who won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open twice each with a racquet, also enjoyed a swell career with a driver. Today sprinter Marion Jones, who starred in college hoops at North Carolina, would love to moonlight in the WNBA but knows she can't. If she shifts focus for a nano, she's lost.

The team sports cited above--soccer, hockey, basketball--not only never had a golden age; they never had an age. There weren't enough girls playing hard as kids to do things like win medals and start leagues when they grew up. In the past five years, the U.S. has won world or Olympic titles in all three sports, and in softball too. There are now pro leagues in soccer and hoops. There are now academic scandals in women's college basketball, an ultimate confirmation of arrival.

Even the classic girlie sports are in Golden Ages. I've mentioned softball, and, yes, I now argue that we are in the Golden Age of even Women's Figure Skating. Peggy Fleming was graceful, sure. But the free skating then was always preceded by "school figures," in which a Barbara Pym character walked out on the ice in sensible shoes to look closely at how well a skater could cut a figure eight into the ice. The skater could be cooked before she did anything resembling sport. These days, Kristi Yamaguchi can execute quadruple back-flipping camels and such. Yamaguchi is...well, she's a jock.

All the games are different from what they used to be. No one remembers half-court basketball, or when a girl with an ice-hockey stick was as ludicrous as a boy in a kilt on the field-hockey pitch. Through the years, lots of women have won tennis titles without having to volley, but it will never happen again.

When did things change?

They changed when it became all right for girls to perspire and to aspire to real sport, not the cheerleading squad. The perceived wisdom is that the huge success of America's women at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta was a watershed. I won't dispute Atlanta--not to mention the '99 World Cup soccer win that electrified the country and filled stadiums. But I do think that earlier there was a precise moment of breakthrough, at least symbolically.

It was a hot-as-Hades morning in Los Angeles in 1984, and a pack of superfit women were doing something never before done. They were running an Olympic marathon. For 88 years, officials had said that women could not--should not, cannot--try this ultimate, grueling race. Yet there they were, running. Only three miles in, Joan Benoit of the U.S. was feeling good and stepped out a bit. She looked over her shoulder toward her principal rivals, the Norwegians Ingrid Kristiansen and Grete Waitz: Aren't you coming? Waitz and Kristiansen seemed to consider. They let Benoit go. Not that the Norwegians weren't fine and smart athletes, but at that moment they looked as if they weren't sure of what was possible. They looked like the past. Benoit, by contrast, looked like the future. She won the gold with ease.

Now, in 2001, lots of other things that women could not--should not, cannot--do are being done. Stacy Dragila won the Games' first-ever women's pole-vaulting event in Sydney last year. Next February the U.S. team of Jean Racine and Jen Davidson may well win the Games' first-ever women's bobsled gold.

All these first-evers prove we're in a Golden Age for women, but next year will supplant it, and the next will supplant that. Men's sport is toast; look at the ratings. Women's sport is inevitable; look at the numbers. In 1971, 1 out of 27 girls participated in high school sports; in 1998, 1 out of 2.5. (For boys, the ratio froze at 1 out of 2.) In the 1990s, the number of girls on school teams increased 31% (boys, 9%). Women's college-soccer participation increased 120% from 1990 to 1996. In 1980, 10% of marathon finishers were women; today, about 30%.

Everyone says the money's not there--but it will be. In America money chases success. The women's tennis players have succeeded, and in the U.S. Open they are playing for the same-size pot as the men. Plus they've got the prime-time slot for their final. Riches and night TV: the All American rewards of a Golden Age.