J.K. Rowling has deemed a Serena Williams cartoon as “racist” and “sexist”.
The author hit back at an artist who drew a cartoon of Serena jumping on a racquet, with an umpire behind her, asking her competitor: “Can you just let her win?”
The drawing comes after Serena deemed an umpire at the US Open “sexist” as he docked her points during a match with Naomi Osaka.
The tennis player was fined $17,000 for three code violations during the match: Being coached from her trainer in the stands, smashing her racquet and verbally abusing the umpire.
The 36-year-old went on to do a press conference after the match and stated that the umpire was sexist, as he would never have docked a male contestant points for calling him a “thief”.
There has since been a lot of controversy surrounding the incident and J.K. Rowling has taken the iconic tennis player’s side.
“Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop,” the author tweeted along with the cartoon.
Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop. https://t.co/YOxVMuTXEC
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 10, 2018
Many celebrities have backed Serena’s sexism claims and Steve Simon, head of the Women’s Tennis Association, even released a statement that said: “The WTA believes that there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men versus women.”
“We do not believe that this was done last night.”
