Dear Wimbledon,
As you can imagine, the whole of Australia is over-the-moon proud of our girl, Ash Barty for her epic Wimbledon Single’s win.
My Facebook feed is buzzing with pictures and memes of Ash in all her glory. But I recently came across one photo of Barty in front of the Wimbledon Roll of Honour Board that made me cringe.
In the pic she’s holding her Wimbledon trophy, grinning like the champ she is, and placed in front of the names of other tennis female greats.
Mrs R. Cawley
Mrs. J.M. Lloyd
Miss S. Williams, even.
Wait, what? Who the hell are these women?
Where’s 1980’s champ Evonne Goolagong-Cawley? And 1981 champ Chris Evert? Why is Serena, and every other female Wimbledon champ being referred to as Miss or Mrs?
And, more importantly, why are the married winners being referred to by their husbands first initial and surname?
Take Evonne Goolagong-Cawley. Her title is “R. Cawley” for her husband’s name, Roger.
And for our married winner in 1981? This was Chris Evert, but, at that time, she was married to John Lloyd. And hence, we’ve got Mrs. J.M. Lloyd.
Now, let’s head over to the men’s honour board, shall we? I mean, surely we should see something similar, right? Oh, wait. Nope. No titles insight.
Wimbledon. Come on. It’s 2021. Get it together.
I totally get that back in the day it was cool to reference married women with not only the last names of their husbands but their initials too. But, can we please step into 2021 and look at rewriting the women’s Honour Board? It’s outdated and insulting.
I mean, imagine if Serena won this year? Would the board honour her husband? Congratulations to Mrs. A Ohanian. The champion formally known as Miss. S. Williams.
Making a new honour board wouldn’t take that much effort, really. And I’m not saying bin the old female Honour Board. No way.
But perhaps it’s time to retire it to a trophy case or something and design a new one. One that doesn’t come with these anachronistic instances of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’. And ones that don’t honour the husband’s first initial. ‘Miss. R. Cawley’ should be ‘E. Goolagong-Cawley’ and ‘Miss. J.M. Lloyd’ should be ‘C. Evert’. No ifs, ands or buts.
Wimbledon. You can do better. And it’s about time.
Sincerely, the World.