I generally don’t pay attention to movie stars and professional athletes when they out blabbing their views of the world. I usually just hear Charlie Brown’s teacher and disregard it in kind. I mentioned this several times in the past that these folks live in a different reality than the real world most of us live in. Right on cue, Harrison Butker steps up to the microphone.
Mr. Butker is the place kicker for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. He decided at the commencement address at Benedictine College to tell the graduates about his view of our country and how we should be more like the Handmaid’s Tale. In case you don’t know that analogy, it’s a TV series that’s plot features a dystopia following a Second American Civil War wherein religious, totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called “Handmaids“, to child-bearing slavery.
Harrison took this opportunity to express his disdain for abortion, Pride month and Covid-19 lockdown measures. He then let us know what and where he thinks women’s place is in this country. Harrison claims that women have been told “the most diabolical lies”, he went on to say “How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world,” Butker said. “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.” He went on to tell the graduates that his wife would agree that her life “truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” It is her embrace of this role, he said, that made his own professional success possible.
There are several things that bother me about this speech. It’s a commencement speech, you’re trying to motivate these graduates into the real world with a little pep talk, not your backwards view of the world. I have worked next to plenty of capable, intelligent, strong women in both my military and civilian job. These women were outstanding leaders and role models for the folks they led. My two daughters work in the corporate world, one is a mom, and the other is a so-to-be mom. They both have had a great deal of success in their careers while hitting out the park as moms. Women today can multi-task better than some men I know and I’m pretty sure they can see through a “diabolical lie” when they hear one.
As far as wife & motherhood as their vocation, that’s’ a lovely thought, one problem though. Most folks out here in the real world, don’t have a $20,275,000 contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, including $3,500,000 signing bonus, $9,100,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of 4,055,000, for working a few minutes each week in an NFL game. Out here in the real world, the common folk must have both parents working, and generally parents pull this off quite seamlessly.
Now, before all you social media Constitution experts jump on me, let me just say Harrison Butker is certainly entitled to his opinion. Our freedom of speech guarantees his right to express his view without prosecution, but it doesn’t prevent any of the consequences that rise from this ridiculous speech. If the NFL is interested in expanding its female fan base or any other marginalized group, it might be wise to keep Harrison away from a microphone.