Overdue Thanks to Billie Jean King 

In the eighteen years we have been friends with the Toms we had never had a double date to the movies before today. The mothers go to the movies together often. The fathers may have taken the daughters to a movie once or twice. The mothers certainly too the daughters to the movies many times. But today with the daughters both in college the mothers and the fathers finally all went to the same movie, The Battle of The Sexes, together.
Of all the times for the daughters to be away, I wish they were here to see it with us. This was a movie depicting a time that the mothers lived through and remembered like it was yesterday. It made a big impact in the world for girls and women of the time.
Battle of the Sexes is the story of Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs and Women’s tennis players fighting for equality. The impact of Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs gave me, as a seventh grade girl, the voice to stand up to chauvinists I encountered, and it was happening in real time.
My dancing school teacher, Walter Shaulk, was very chauvinistic and I called him out for it. He favored boys so they would come to dancing school, because he had no trouble filling classes with girls. What he didn’t embrace was that the boys came for the girls and not because he favored them.  
I did get in big trouble for calling him chauvinistic, but to this day I don’t regret standing up for the girls in our class. It was good practice for standing up the rest of my life.
I owe Billie Jean King a lot for speaking out at the time. Someone had to counteract Anita Bryant and other women who were willing to remain second class. So Ellis and Carter, you need to watch this movie and see what women did so we could try and find parity with men. The fight is not over, but it certainly got better because of Billie Jean.