On Sept. 2 at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York, Aryna Sabalenka, post-win, sat at the podium during a press conference fielding questions from reporters.
The Athletic reporter Matt Futterman asked her how her “mood” was “now that the tournament has started.” Then he added, “Obviously last week it’s lots of parties and fun.”
Sabalenka, her face leaning on her hand, wasn’t going to engage with that narrative. She answered quietly, but firmly. “You guys are, like, a joke. Parties, fun … like, why would you even say that? Why would you even think about that? What kind of question is that? Just because I posted like some activities with brands and you think that I’ve been partying, not training?”
That same day, six miles away on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, feminist icon Gloria Steinem died. She was 92.
On that day, an athlete, a champion of her craft, instantly recognized that a narrative unfolding in real-time was insulting; she didn’t just reject the question, she questioned the question. With calm but unmistakable authority she seized the moment, calling out the reporter’s attitude behind the inquiry. And in doing so, she illuminated the very real problem of how members of the media, particularly men, engage with women in sports, whether they’re athletes or colleagues. She recognized that something was very wrong and she wasn’t going to let it slide. Which is so very Gloria Steinem.
There was also something deliciously on point about this moment happening on the same day of Steinem’s passing. While the exchange demonstrated that the feminist work Steinem devoted her life to was far from over, it was hard not to reflect on what has come to pass since the early days of the feminist movement that Steinem helped lead and transform. Sabalenka openly challenged a man asking her a question that was irrelevant and deeply sexist, whether intentionally sexist or not. But women have walked too many miles to accept excuses for lack of intentionality and accountability by men in sports media, and across all media. We’re beyond the days of dismissing what might be perceived as micro sexism, because all of it matters.
Steinem’s tireless leadership feels very present, watching Sabalenka. Her stance, though personal, can encourage more women in sports to create boundaries, particularly the most vulnerable in the industry—those who are Black and brown, those who are LGBTQ, and anyone that challenges the idea of what an athlete should be (King and Colin Kaepernick come to mind). By standing up for herself, she stands for others who need her courage when faced with questions by a hostile media. Gloria Steinem knew all too well the hostility and rage, as well as the dismissal by media and society in response to women demanding better, demanding more: more safety, more money, more respect, more opportunities.
In terms of sports, Steinem was both a curious journalist and a baffled bystander. In her book Moving Beyond Words, she wrote about buying her own weights and began strength training as well as practicing yoga, in her 50s. She was also a fierce supporter of the advancement of women and girls in sports, saying, “At its deepest anthropological core, Title IX and the issue of gender equity in sports is about female strength and independence.”
Here, then, are five books about sports to read that honor her fiercely intentional life and groundbreaking work fighting for women to live freely, purposefully, joyfully and equally:
1. Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle To Get Inside, by Melissa Ludtke
In 1978, Melissa Ludtke changed the game for women in sports media.
While working as a baseball writer she was told she couldn’t enter the New York Yankees clubhouse, unlike her colleagues who were men. That was the start of a fight for equal access that led all the way to the Supreme Court.
Ludtke understood that her fight was bigger than just Major League Baseball. She knew she was pushing through the doors to the world of the big-league clubhouse, but she also knew that men were opposed to her and other women’s presence because of men’s attitudes toward them. At that time in history, women’s liberation and inclusion was still considered by many to be a novelty, often a joke. Women’s liberation was seen as the end of a traditional structure, of systems that kept women in “their place,” and more to the point, out of what was perceived as men’s spaces. Her courage demanded acceptance —women were working in sports whether they liked it or not.
“Sports had always been the men’s realm. To protect it, they’d do and say outrageous things to maintain the status quo. By ordering baseball to treat me as an equal, she’d [Judge Constance Motley] diminished them. Lacking the power to change her order, they’d unleashed the hate and anger they felt on her for doing what she’d done. That women were among her antagonists spoke to deeply ingrained notion of men’s ownership of sports and the belief that women should stay on the sidelines.”
Steinem was an optimist, and Ludtke’s book illustrates her optimism and relentless Gloria-esque energy to fight the good fight. And, of course, she won.
2. Uphill, by Jemele Hill
In her autobiography, former ESPN host Jemele Hill shares her early growth as a young Black woman pursuing a career in sports journalism, taking us on her journey through her days at ESPN, and what led to her leaving. She writes about the ways in which those in sports media who are Black are subjected to deeply embedded racist attitudes.
“ESPN didn’t give me anything. Black folks are always conditioned to feel grateful when someone else makes the wise decision to nurture and capitalize on our gifts and talents. I earned everything I received at ESPN.”
Hill shines light on the disposition of many white people in America—that it’s theirs. Sports too is also theirs. As a Black woman challenging those attitudes, Hill was willing to stand against decades of white patriarchy.
These are risks Steinem had witnessed all her life, and she consistently corrected the record on women’s rights movements. As Steinem said, “I learned feminism disproportionately from Black women.”
Hill’s book serves as an excellent reminder of the far too often overlooked double- risk of Black women’s advocacy & political courage, and the tunnel vision it requires to take on an industry that was designed for men to succeed.
3. Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, by Misty Copeland
While not always defined as a sport, the art of dance, and the physicality required of dancers is clearly that of an athlete—daily discipline (diet especially), rigorous workouts, and a demand from the body to perform even when exhausted.
Copeland recalls a moment where her own image projected back to her was more than just a dancer accomplishing a lifelong dream.
“It was me, in full blazing color. There was my face, head thrown back in joy, and my body exuding power and femininity, as I stood en pointe on a twenty-four-foot advertisement, waving from the front of the Metropolitan Opera. Misty Copeland. The Firebird… my eyes filled with tears. In all my years of living in New York City, I had never seen a Black woman on the façade of the Met.”
Copeland’s memories of her development in the very white world of ballet are both inspiring and heartbreaking. Her story illustrates vividly the strength of mind she had to have in order to pursue greatness as a young Black woman, and at 17 (late for a dancer). The moment she sees her image adorning the Met, you feel the quiet, deeply emotional triumph she experienced.
Steinem once said, “If there’s no dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming.” Copeland understood that her rise was revolutionary, but it was also joyful. She knew she deserved to celebrate, and the book accomplishes taking you with her.
4. Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World, by Danielle Friedman
“Since the ‘50s, nearly every type of strenuous exercise—jogging and dancing and tucking at a ballet barre—could be spun as a way for women to become lean and lovely. Weightlifting was trickier. Choosing to raise hunks of iron meant seeking out strength for strength’s sake, which defied every norm of womanhood. The act itself was rarely graceful, often eliciting grunts and grimaces. Building muscle implied expanding the body, not reducing it. More than any other physical activity, weightlifting, Americans believed, would make women—sin of all sins—look like men.”
Steinem actually garners a few mentions in Friedman’s vastly researched 2022 book about the history of women’s fitness and athletic pursuits, and how that intersected with women’s liberation. While we more often take for granted the popularity of women athletes and their growing impact, there was a time when the image of strength presenting in the body of women was considered controversial. The ideal feminine physique was not full of visible muscle. The ideal woman was supposed to exist as small, non-intrusive and defined through the lens of men.
In a 2014 interview with Patt Morrison for the Los Angeles Times, Steinem was adamant that women’s pursuit of physical strength and participating in sports was one of the most important components of a feminist future.
“One place that [advances] are very important is sports and physical strength and fitness. Rich cultures, patriarchal cultures, value thin women, like ours; poor ones value fat women. But all patriarchal cultures value weak women. So for women to become physically strong is very profound. Title IX helped enormously, and sports and fitness have helped a great deal.”
Friedman’s book explores fitness trends through the decades, such as workout videos by Jane Fonda, the grand dame of the ‘80s trend; the rise of Abs of Steel in the 90’s; and one of the most recent fitness crazes, Soul Cycle, creating “a kind of religious experience via stationary bike.” She also recognizes what Steinem was saying as she writes: “In our culture, which still sells women on the idea that there is always room for physical improvement, I try to remind myself that what I’m seeking doesn’t come from molding my body … it comes from feeling free.”
So, So Gloria.
5. Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women’s Sports, by Kathrine Switzer
Kathrine Switzer, like Ludtke, was going for something only men were supposed to do.
“…no girl in her right mind would even consider doing a marathon, and that, along with all the old myths, meant that the authors of [the] rule book and the entry form couldn’t even conceive of women’s participation. Not in a million years.”
That marathon was the Boston Marathon, and no woman had run it—no woman was allowed to run it–until Switzer decided she would join the race in 1967. And not after the rules changed. No, she defied the rules, and, in doing so, changed the future of women’s participation in the running world.
Of her experience she writes, “If I quit, nobody would ever believe women had the capability to run the marathon distance.”
Switzer did not quit that day, and went on to be named the Runner of The Decade by Runner’s World Magazine. She won the New York City Marathon (women’s) in 1974.
All of these women’s stories exemplify boundless courage, inextinguishable commitment and endless optimism. All are so Gloria.
Rest in Power, Gloria Steinem.
