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Activist Responsibility and Social Platforms: Analyzing Billie Jean King's Furtherance of Women's Athletics Through Liberal Feminism

This thesis addresses whether members of disadvantaged social groups who have access to an influential platform bear an activist responsibly for their respective community. In answering this overarching question, this thesis focuses on athletics as the platform in discussion and feminism as the mode of advocacy. Through analysis of hegemonic gender ideology in the American public sphere, brief history of women's athletics to the 1970s, and contention between second-wave feminism and women's athletics in the early years of Title IX, research supports the need for prominent female athletes to further feminist causes. Billie Jean King's relationship with both movements sheds light on the struggles faced by each, and an interview conducted for this thesis reaffirms athletes' unique social affordances and consequent social responsibility.