Venus Williams is continuing to fight for gender equality.
In a recent essay for British Vogue, the five-time Wimbledon champion wrote about how she’s using her platform to advocate for equal pay.
The piece opened with Williams looking back at her first Wimbledon win in 2000. The tennis star recalled how she was “struck by the inequality,” writing that the men’s singles champion received £477,500 while the women’s singles champion received £430,000. Ever since then, Williams has been calling for change.
In 2007, Williams won her fourth Wimbledon tournament and became the first female tennis player to receive the same amount of prize money as her male counterparts. Today, equal prize money is awarded to men and women at the majors and combined events in tennis. However, Williams knows there is still a long way to go.
“I firmly believe that sport mirrors life and life mirrors sport,” the athlete wrote. “The lack of equality and equal opportunities in tennis is a symptom of the obstacles women face around the world. While Nordic countries such as Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland demonstrate some of the lowest disparities in pay between men and women, Turkey, Bahrain and Nigeria are some of the highest. In the US, women made 82.3 cents for every dollar men made in 2019.”
