Ah, the commencement speech. A time-honoured tradition in which people of varying degrees of fame address a bunch of mortarboard-clad college graduates on the precipice of their lives. The person at the podium is there to motivate, to inspire, to congratulate and to offer some (ideally lightly humorous) pearls of wisdom.
This gig is pretty hard to screw up, is what I’m saying. Unless, of course, you’re Kansas City Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker.
In a now-viral 20-minute speech delivered to the Class of ‘24 at Benedictine College, a private Catholic school in Kansas, Butker managed to pack a lot of misogyny and homophobia into a fairly economical package, taking aim at everything from abortion rights to Pride month.
Harrison Butker (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press files)
Butker wanted to speak directly to the women in attendance — women, and I cannot stress this enough, who were about to collect degrees they’ve worked four years for — “because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.”
The “diabolical lies” being, best I can tell, that women can have aspirations and lives beyond their reproductive capacities, or that they can prioritize their careers and have children later via IVF or not at all, or that there are many ways to have a rewarding life that don’t include a husband.
“Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
This guy sounds like famous cartoon sexist Gaston from Beauty and the Beast: “It’s not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas, and thinking.”
He goes on (I know!).
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” he continued, which is weird, because based on the contents of his speech, I could swear he believes her life truly started at conception.
He goes on to laud Isabelle for shelving her own dreams and embracing “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
Bit rich coming from a guy whose own mother, Elizabeth Keller Butker, is an accomplished medical physicist (and uses both of her last names, a fact that surely haunts him).
Then he referred to Taylor Swift as his “teammate’s girlfriend” while quoting one of her lyrics. Cute.
Yes, Butker is a relatively unknown (at least until this week) player who made these comments at a small, conservative Catholic institution, but it would be a mistake to think his comments exist in a vacuum.
Reproductive rights are being taken away in the United States, a country that still has among the highest maternal mortality rates among developed nations in the world.
TikTok has ushered in the rise of the #TradWife, which is short for “traditional wife” or a woman who embraces traditional, family-values gender roles and submits to her husband (despite the fact these women are also often influencers who work). Anti-LGBTTQ+ hate is on the rise.
In this climate, an NFL player saying things such as, “Let’s be honest, there’s nothing good about playing God with having children, whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive” and essentially reducing a bunch of 22-year-old women to their ability to reproduce on their literal college graduation day is music to a conservative lawmakers’ ears. He’s a perfect mouthpiece for conservative propaganda. Why else would he hit all these points during, again, a comencement speech?
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As for the men in attendance, Butker counselled them to “be unapologetic in your masculinity” and “fight against the cultural emasculation of men.”
The subtext is clear: educated women are dangerous women. Autonomous women are dangerous women. Child-free women are dangerous women. Women who want to be mothers and have ambitions outside of the home are dangerous women. Queer women are dangerous. They are all dangerous because they threaten the status quo on which guys like Butker depend.
If I could speak directly to the women of Benedictine College, I’d say this: congratulations on your huge accomplishments at this most exciting time in your lives, lives that can look however you want them to. Don’t let this guy, or any other guy, tell you otherwise.
And as for the men? Don’t be this guy.
Only Zoratti
Columnist
Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen.
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2024-05-17 22:53:07
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