Venus Williams greatest achievement is about money.
She is, of course, famous around the world as an amazing tennis star.
She’s undeniably an international sports icon.
Her career, records, serves, groundstrokes, volleys, and overheads speak for themselves.
Her achievements are legendary.
Venus Williams Greatest Achievement Isn’t About Playing Tennis
Venus’s greatest achievement is about tennis…but not about playing tennis.
Venus’s greatest achievement is about her long struggle to achieve equal pay for women tennis players.
That struggle has impacted not only women tennis players. It’s also carried over and impacted women in all walks of life in every corner of the world.
Sexism And Gender Inequality
For those of us who were fans of pro tennis back in the ‘60’s and 70’s, there’s no denying the blatant sexism and gender inequality rampant in the sport back then.
Maybe it’s because sexism and gender inequality were also prevalent in most areas of life. We naively didn’t notice it so much.
But, not to get sidetracked on broader issues, let’s agree there’s no denying it was widespread in tennis.
It was clearly manifested in the inequality of men’s and women’s prize money in professional tennis.
Equal Pay For Women – In The Beginning
Venus Williams wasn’t the first nor the only woman crusader for equal pay for women. Most people credit Billy Jean King as the spearhead.
Billy Jean was nothing if not outspoken – about just about anything and everything.
For Billy Jean, the equal pay issue really rose to the forefront in 1968.
That’s the year she won Wimbledon. Her payday was $980.
The next day, Rod Laver won the Men’s Championship. He got $2740.
Billie Jean’s pay was about 38% of Laver’s. Obviously not equal. Unfair for sure.
Billie Jean was almost single handedly responsible for persuading the U.S. Open to pay men and women equally. It was the first Major to do so. The year was 1973.
The other three Grand Slam Tournaments resisted and refused. It was definitely not an immediate game of follow-the-leader.
Venus Williams Enters The Fray
Venus grew up in Compton, California. Even as a kid she was dreaming and talking about playing and “winning as many titles as a person can win” at Wimbledon.
Billie Jean met Venus and Serena when they were still Juniors playing in Southern California.
The Williams Sisters presence in major tournaments around the world elevated women’s tennis into the public eye. Their very presence was a boon to the sport.
Billie Jean King had not stopped working for equal pay for women.
Venus was a continual fan of Billie Jean. Venus took up the cause in her own, quite humble way.
As Billy Jean had more or less single handedly moved the US Open to equal pay in 1973, Venus did it for the last hold out – the tournament of her childhood dreams – Wimbledon.
The Majors Finally Start Getting In Line
The Australian Open came around with equal pay 28 years after the US Open did. It was 2001.
The French Open, where women’s tennis had traditionally been viewed as an inferior product, agreed to offer equal prize money to the men’s and women’s singles champions in 2006.
Billie Jean and other tennis pros, equal rights advocates, women’s rights activists, and many others had tried for years to get Wimbledon in line with the other Majors.
But the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (the snooty, fancy name for Wimbledon) still lagged behind.
True, they had agreed to close the gap between the men’s and women’s pay.
But there was still a gap.
Introducing Larry Scott
In 2005, Larry Scott was the head of the WTA Tour. He was in favor of getting Wimbledon off the stick on the equal pay issue. However, all of his influence and back room political maneuvering and pushing and cajoling was going nowhere fast.
He called a meeting of the top 10 ranked women in the world. He asked who, if any, would be willing to make a personal appeal for equal pay to the “Grand Slam Committee.”
The Committee included the top ranking representatives from all four of the Grand Slam Tournaments, including the top representatives from the All England Club.
There was a catch, though.
The Grand Slam Committee meets on the day before the Women’s Final at Wimbledon. It’s their annual meeting. It’s the one day in the year that such an appeal to them could be made by a player.
Venus Williams Has A Melancholy Temperament – Perfect For The Job
Venus has a Melancholy Temperament.
Some common traits and characteristics of Melancholics include being somewhat shy and introverted, being precise and at least a bit perfectionistic, loving routines, schedules, and plans, being organized and efficient, being morally and ethically strong, being slow paced (not necessarily on a tennis court – but in life generally speaking), having patience, being thinking oriented, articulate, thoughtful, soft spoken, and analytical.
(You can discover your Temperament Type by taking our FREE Be The Naked You Temperament Type Quiz – Click Here.)
Although not outwardly brazen and outspoken like her little sister or Billie Jean, Venus was passionate about and committed to the equal pay issue.
Venus had been inspired by Bille Jean. However, Venus was quite different in Temperament. Both Serena and Billie Jean are primarily Choleric Temperaments. They’re outgoing, aggressive, extroverts, fast paced, impatient, “I want it my way, right now, so just do it or get out of my way” types.
Of all the top 10 women in the room, the Melancholy Venus turned out to be the volunteer.
Breaking Routine
If you’re a tennis player, you’ll understand that we all have our routines before we play important matches. Melancholics, in particular, love their routines. They tend to get insecure and nervous without a routine to follow.
In preparing to play the finals, it’s hard to imagine any player wanting to go into a room full of “good old boys” to argue for equal pay for women at Wimbledon. That’s especially true for a Melancholy.
Having to become the center of attention in a room full of possible adversaries would be bad enough.
To have to break up your normal routine the day before your match would be almost unthinkable by itself.
To both put yourself into a confrontational environment with a bunch of powerful strangers and alter your routine would be near impossible.
The stress levels would be intolerable. And certainly not helpful to your best state of mind for playing your match on one of the grandest stages in sports.
And yet, without ever ranting or raving or seeming to make a big fuss about it at all, Venus was so passionate about the issue, she agreed to confront the Committee.
Venus Williams At The Big Meeting
Larry Scott was convinced that when the time came, if Venus actually made it to the finals of the Tournament, that she wouldn’t even remember promising to meet with the Committee.
But, when the day came – on the day before her Finals match against Lindsay Davenport in 2005 – Venus showed up and accompanied Scott to the meeting.
The Members of the Committee hadn’t been forewarned about Venus’s appearance.
She came in cold. A complete surprise.
Venus later confided that is was extremely awkward. For both her and the Committee Members.
Venus, in typical Melancholy fashion, kept cool and stayed calm.
She also did something quite amazing.
First, she asked the Members to close their eyes (and had to remind them not to “peek” as she looked around the room and they were mostly peeking).
Then she asked them to imagine being a child or young person with a huge dream. And to grow up doing everything possible to achieve that dream. To study hard. To work hard. To develop the knowledge and skill needed to reach your dream. To put in all the effort anyone possibly could. And then, to have someone take it away from you for no reason whatsoever except that you were a girl. That you couldn’t have what a boy could have, just because you were a girl.
That was it. No long argument. No cajoling. No begging. No demanding. No threatening. No pros and cons. No contrived justifications. No spin.
Just a short simple exercise in imagination.
It was a perfectly presented logical, organized, thoughtful, calm, precise presentation.
It was the calm, controlled genius of a strongly Melancholic Temperament on display.
Did It Work?
Venus moved them.
Larry Scott said, “It was one of the most stunning, poignant, powerful moments I’ve ever experienced in a business meeting.”
By itself, it wasn’t quite enough though.
Venus, by the way, won her match against Lindsay Davenport the next day. Her pay wasn’t as much as the men’s champion, Roger Federer.
Then, in June of 2006, she wrote an eloquent op-ed piece (that could only have been penned by a Melancholy Temperament) that was published in the Times of London, a prominent British newspaper. You can read it here if you’d like.
Shortly after the op-ed piece was published, a brave female member of the British Parliament brought the issue up with the Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, at an open session of Parliament.
Prime Minister Blair, clearly put on the spot, and yet without hesitation, stated categorically that there should be equal pay for men and women at Wimbledon.
And that, it seems, was the coup de grace.
Equal Pay At Last
When Venus Williams won the 2007 Women’s Wimbledon Championship over Marion Bartoli and Roger Federer won the Men’s Wimbledon Championship over Rafael Nadal, Venus became the first female champion at Wimbledon to receive prize money equal to the male champion’s.
It’s only fitting, isn’t it, that after all her work, Venus Williams was the first of many women to be rewarded for her efforts with equal prize money?
Conclusion
In my opinion, obviously without belittling her on-court prowess and other off court accomplishments, Venus Williams Greatest Achievement was her victory over the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club where she won equal pay for women.
Best…
Dexter Godbey (Dexter@BeTheNakedYou.com)
PS – if you’d like to discover if your Temperament is:
- Melancholy like Venus and Roger, or more…
- Choleric like Billie Jean and Serena, or maybe more…
- Sanguine like Novak Djokovic and Madison Keys, or more…
- Phlegmatic like Sam Querry and Caroline Wozniacki (or maybe the most Phlegmatic tennis player of all time, Kim Klisters who once said she’d rather make friends on tour than win tournaments)…
…then please head over to our BeTheNakedYou.com Temperament Quiz by Clicking Here.
The Quiz is free. It takes about a minute. You’ll get a free detailed report and discover all about your natural, inborn, hard-wired strengths, traits, and characteristics that make up your natural Temperament and are reflections and manifestations of your Genetic Code and DNA.
Those DNA imposed traits and characters are what make you who you are and they’re the underlying cause of why you do what you do – on and off the tennis court – in every area and aspect of your life.
It’s fast, fun, insightful, profound, and powerful.
PPS – There is a fabulous short (around 50 minutes) documentary on Venus’s struggle for equal pay at Wimbledon. It’s called “Nine for IX – Venus VS.” Most of what I’ve written here can be attributed to it. If you ever get a chance to see it, do so. I can’t recommend it highly enough.