From Title IX to WTF
It feels like whiplash to go from a week of Title IX 50th-anniversary celebrations to Friday’s announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade (just six months before it too would turn 50).
Before I saw the news, I was out for a run, enjoying the beautiful day and listening to Billie Jean King on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Glennon’s sister (who is only ever called “Sissy”). It was a joyful and celebratory conversation even though so much of it was about overcoming many painful experiences and injustices.
They talked about Title IX, and Abby was practically (if not actually) in tears expressing her gratitude to Billie Jean King and all she’d done for women’s sports. King talked about her fight to get equal pay in the tennis world, about her struggle to come to terms with her sexuality and being outed, and about her lifelong eating disorder.
And King talked about her experience of having an abortion before Roe v. Wade. One the one hand, King acknowledged that she had access to an abortion because she was wealthy. “If you’re rich you can always get an abortion,” she said. “It’s really the people who are under-resourced that really suffer the most.” But she also said that she and her then-husband Larry had to go with her before a hospital committee to get their approval. Larry walked in behind her saying, “This is ridiculous. No one should have to go through this. Who are they to make a decision for me?” (Which reminds me of Florynce Kennedy’s argument, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”) Of the experience, King said, “It was horrible, and it was degrading. And I thought to myself, ‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ because I wasn’t in a back alley.”
“People should know,” King said, “that if we lose out on Roe v. Wade, we are going backwards, particularly for women who are under-resourced.”
The episode aired the day before we lost Roe v. Wade.
This past week I had a short article + comic about Title IX in the Washington Post and Lily News. When I was drafting the comic, the news had already been leaked about the possibility of the Court overturning Roe v. Wade, and I knew the potential reversal would happen in June, possibly around the time my comic came out. This, and my previous research into the history of Title IX and women’s sports for my book, led me to take a big-picture approach to Title IX as one part of a centuries-long struggle for equal rights. (My early sketches of the comic included a direct reference to Roe v. Wade, but in consultation with the editor, we ultimately cut it.)
Women’s sports history is the history of what a patriarchal society believes women can and can’t do with their bodies. When women tried to start soccer leagues (aka “football clubs”) in late 19th-century Britain, the focus of commentary was on their bodies as being unfit for the “rough work” of the sport. I write about this in The Keeper:
A hundred years later in 1999, do you remember how bonkers people went about this moment:
Is that her . . . bra?!?! Cover your eyes, children!
Anyway, much of the commentary about Title IX last week was along the lines of, “We’ve come so far. We have so much more to do.” Friday made the second sentence painfully clear.
I’m still reeling, but when I look to the history of women’s sports and to revolutions in civil rights, I am inspired and motivated by how much was achieved by passionate people who wrote and marched and organized and made art and donated money and told their stories.
This week’s inspiration: Arwen Donahue
Already a mother of one daughter, 40 years old, and “barely scraping by” in rural Kentucky, Arwen Donahue exemplified the “under-resourced” folks that Billie Jean King referred to in the podcast. In this powerful, educational, and beautifully drawn comic, “I Went to Kentucky’s Last Abortion Clinic (2018)” (published at The Nib), Arwen describes the obstacles to abortion care in rural Kentucky (even under Roe v. Wade). And, to combat the perceived power of shame wielded by anti-abortion activists, she publicly shares her private experience. I’m grateful for Arwen’s art and story.
More here: https://arwendonahue.com/