A TALE OF TWO WOMEN


With so much of happenings around reported these days of discrimination against the fairer sex, it would be quite in order to remember, this day, the names of two women, renowned in their eras and areas of work. Dr. Annie Besant, whose 91st Punyatithi it is today, and tennis legend Billie Jean King for her unique sporting feat...

London born Annie Wood of Irish parentage, having gone through tough childhood days, Dr. Annie Besant had developed an independent mind with a strong sense of community service. "To be free in India as the Englishman is free in England” was her motto...

Coming to India in 1893 as part of the Theosophical Society, Dr. Besant became it's president from 1907 to 1933. Setting up the Central Hindu College in Benares, Dr. Besant founded the Benaras Hindu University in 1916 with Madan Mohan Malaviya...

Dr. Besant joined the Indian National Congress and launched the All India Home Rule League in 1916 along with LokmanyaTilak, conducting public speeches, meetings and demonstrations, for which she was arrested in June 1917. Released in September 1917 after public protests, Dr. Besant became the first woman Congress President...

Dr. Besant passed away this day at Adyar, Tamil Nadu, India, 1933, aged 85. By way of her yeoman contribution to India's freedom struggle Dr. Besant shall always be remembered for leading the Home Rule League Movement in India and for uniting the various sections of the Congress...

🙏🙏🌹💐


Way back, 51 years to be precise, in 1973, 29-year-old Billie Jean (Moffitt) King defeated the 55-year-old Robert Larimore (Bobby) Riggs, in a challenge match of sorts...

Riggs, a leading tennis player of the 1930s and 1940s, essentially a self-proclaimed male chauvinist then, and who won his lone Wimbledon title in 1939, held a view that the women’s game was so inferior to the men’s game that at his age he could beat any top female player...

As luck would have it, he prevailed upon Margaret Court 6-2, 6-1 on May 13th and thus threw a challenge to King. A crusader for gender equality for women from a young age, King, reluctantly though, accepted the challenge. The rest is history, as King beat the haughty Riggs hands down 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in straight sets, this day at the Houston Astrodome...

Despite the controversies which cropped up later, as is wont to have happened with events such as this, King's triumph was seen as instrumental in ushering in a new era of women's sports as a force to reckon with, and also in more ways than one developing greater recognition for women athletes than just the 'battle of the sexes.' It paved the way not only for parity in women’s sports but also for emoluments in general at the workplaces...

King won 39 singles and doubles Grand Slam championships before retiring in 1984. She remains active as a coach and womens' sports patron. In 2006, the USTA National Tennis Center was renamed in King’s honour...

The champion for social justice and equality, since long, King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 12, 2009, becoming the first female athlete to be honoured with the nation’s highest civilian honor...

🙏🙏💐💐

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