Unusually for me, I was reading two non-fiction books concurrently, this one and The Taste of Empire. Like that one, this one is good, interesting and also about more than the title suggests.
Yes, it is about Billie Jean King but it is more than that. The author is looking at King's rise to the top of "women's" tennis, the ebb and flow of the feminist movement, and the impact of Title IX funding on sports, especially women's sports. Back when I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s there were no organized sports for females. I was especially interested (more so then my brother and his friends) in baseball but Little League was restricted to males, so all I could do was play in the neighborhood games and even there girls were mostly forced to play positions where we could “do little harm”. So, there was lots I did not know, esp. regarding Title IX about how much, and yet how little, it has changed sports. It certainly was eye-opening. As can be said of sports, so too goes feminism. Many things are better certainly, but it is still a very separate and unequal world for women in sports and otherwise.