Venus, Serena Williams Join Billie Jean King Equal Pay Push

A day before playing in the final in the year 2005 at the All England Club, the former world no. 1, Venus Williams addressed a meeting of the Grand Slam Board, there she urged the French Open and Wimbledon to offer equal pay to male and female players.

“I said: ‘When we are on the court holding tennis racket in hand, all of our hearts beat in the same manner. If you will close your eyes, you won’t be able to really judge who is next to you, who’s a woman and who’s a man.’ She then asked the people sitting there, think about their, sisters and daughters. How would they like them to be treated?” Williams recalled. “We don’t realize, sometimes, we lose track of, our own bias and we confront our own prejudice. We have to confront ourselves.”

And after this, the same afternoon, she won one of her seven major singles championships. And about 1 1/2 years later of this argument, Wimbledon announced that it would, indeed, pay the same prize money for women and men in all rounds of the tournament, and the suit was followed by French Open soon, eliminating the gap of prize money at the four majors.

And now, Williams sister are adding their voices and names to the push for equal pay amount across all types of jobs that the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative (BJKLI) is championing. According to the information, the two tennis stars are joining the group’s advisory board founded by the former player, and announcement on Tuesday was timed to coincide with Equal Pay Day, which calculates how far a woman must work in a year to earn what a man made by the last year 31.

In a telephonic interview, King said “Venus, in particular, helped us get equal prize money in the majors”.