When Serena Williams, the greatest female tennis player of all-time, said she’ll be retiring from tennis soon, it caught more than a few of us by surprise. The move prompts questions about who will fill the void in tennis and athletics (she is after all the GOAT in that arena) and about women and motherhood.
Williams made the announcement in a Vogue September issue cover story. Dressed in a Tiffany blue fishtail gown, the Wimbledon and US Open champion, looked gorgeous with her hair pulled back from her face, posed on a beach. The hem of the gown’s train is coyly held by her daughter Alexis Ohanian in a fold-over cover shot by Annie Leibovitz, who also shot the magazine’s previous cover which created a buzz, featuring Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Williams raised an issue that arises with growing frequency in the public sphere: women and the challenges of having a baby.
For some women it may seem the easiest most natural thing in the world; for others, it’s complicated by work, biology and finding the right partner.
In her brilliant story on Rihanna, Chioma Nnadi, the editor of Vogue.com, signed off by sharing with Vogue readers that she was going to try to have a baby. One of the biggest and perhaps most meaningful revelations of former first lady Michelle Obama’s bestselling 2018 book Becoming is that she and her husband President Obama struggled to conceive their two children.
Publicly Kim Kardashian and actor Gabrielle Union, wife of basketball superstar Dwyane Wade have chosen the surrogate route.
Williams shared that it was hard to even contemplate adding another chick to the nest after what she and her husband millionaire tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian went through to have their first child.
If these couples with so many resources at hand, are in difficulty, imagine the plight of other women. Frank and open discussion on the issue is sorely needed. In England, women are given some (not a lot but something’s better than nothing) government support to freeze eggs and otherwise address present or potential infertility. There is no such program in the United States.
Yet, the community of women has only gotten bigger as women wait longer to get pregnant as they look for the right man to father their child (jokers need not apply) and they pursue post-secondary education and their careers. I wonder too about environmental factors that may affect women’s health and the general lack of attention and dollars devoted to anything to do with women’s health vs billions thrown at men’s issues over the years from heart attacks to sexual libido.
One of the myths that it’s high time we shatter is that becoming and being a mother are easy and a given.
One of the gifts of Williams’ announcement is the reminder that this is not always the case. Just ask MSNBC anchor Katy Tur, who in her new book Rough Draft literally makes you want to scream with her in pain, as she delivers her first child via induced labor. Then she seriously thinks about returning to work five days after giving birth by C-section. Such are the pressures women face around work and motherhood.
Years ago, I remember seeing Serena and her sister Venus, exiting the New York Times building, where I worked, on 42nd Street in New York City, beads dangling from their braids. They were superstars even then, Venus being the taller and bigger superstar of the two, at the time.
I was well aware of who they were. I was a Black woman and a young woman after all, more interested in culture and style than sports, yet I had suddenly become interested in tennis. Previously, I saw it as boring and irrelevant, in the same way millions of Black men and young guys, regarded golf. It was a big yawn until Eldrick Woods aka Tiger Woods came along.
Sadly, I suppose Williams’ exit also means no more fashion fabulousness on the hard court? I sure hope not. But Williams is one-of-a-kind. She has an obvious love of fashion. Serena and Venus ushered in an era of personal style never before seen on tennis’s big stages and Serena took the whole show even further.
On her fashion ecommerce site, S by Serena, she is both designer and model serving up a black unitard – and other hot streetstyle and runway ‘lewks’ – like she served up years ago on the court, scandalizing the tennis establishment.
And remember the pink tutu? The glamorous one-shoulder tennis dress? The Puma sneaker and girly athleticwear line she and her sister fronted early on?
Big sister Venus is still the taller one. Serena’s won more championships. It says a lot about the barriers they broke and their accomplishments that I don’t know that in the African American community at least – one will ever be considered more beloved and historic than the other. But even if this trailblazing woman does step off the court for good in favor of another try at motherhood, we say: Keep serving it Serena.
