Locker Room Talk: A Woman's Struggle to Get Inside

Baseball locker rooms, women sportswriters, male nudity, equal access, and gender discrimination are elements of Ludtke v. Kuhn, my 1978 lawsuit against Major League Baseball. Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was the first black woman federal court judge in the U.S., ruled in my favor in this case. In "Locker Room Talk," my narrative social history of the case, I invite readers into the courtroom to see how my lawyer, F.A.O. “Fritz” Schwarz Jr., argued our case and secured the access I needed to interview players in their locker rooms. The decision in this case led to a surge of women entering into sports media.

Reporting for Sports Illustrated, I was the only woman assigned full-time to Major League Baseball in the mid-1970s. After Commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned me from locker rooms at the first game of the 1977 World Series due to my gender, I took him and baseball to court.  When Judge Motley, who was the only woman judge on the Southern District Court in Manhattan, ruled in my favor in September 1978, she based her order on Kuhn’s infringement of my Constitutional equal protection and due process rights to perform my job as the men performed theirs. After her ruling, girls realized they could perform jobs in sports media that previously had seemed out of reach. Since then, tens of thousands of women have worked in sports media, leading to many firsts for women as in-booth broadcasters in baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer, to name a few.

In the decades since then, attitudes about women as athletes and writers have shifted for the better with a huge assist from Title IX, the 1972 federal law regulating gender parity in educational institutions receiving federal funding, including sports programs. In major sports competitions, women have fought and won equal prize money – a battle first waged by Billie Jean King in tennis. Yet, the social media taunts directed at women sportswriters and athletes provide stark reminders about the long road ahead in achieving equal treatment of women in sports. Stubborn strands of sexism still run deep.

In my forthcoming book, "Locker Room Talk: A Woman's Struggle to Get Inside," to be published by Rutgers University Press, I describe what it was like to be the 26-year old woman swept up by the societal hurricane spinning around my lawsuit against Major League Baseball. Living in the bulls-eye of sexist commentary exacted a high emotional toll on me, as those who wanted to protect the well-fortified bastion of male privilege argued against my legal claim, often by mocking me. To them, I was a terrifying symbol of women's liberation during a time of revolutionary change in women's lives. Still, my legal case carved pathways which generations of girls followed.

As the much-maligned plaintiff in a case about which most Americans had a strong opinion, I leaned in and paid a personal price. Forty-five 45 years later, I'm writing about my experiences to share insights with younger generations of women and men. Today, I admire the young women who push back against misogyny on social media, individually and collectively. When I was their age and on my own, I didn't respond to those who mocked me, however, I resisted and I persisted by confronting the punishing treatment and attitudes that I encountered as I worked to overturn unjust policies meant to hold women back in the 1970s.