TikTok Might Not Agree with Harrison Butker’s Speech, But Guess Who Does
Just how controversial are the NFL star’s comments about women?
Can you believe these media reports about what an NFL star said about women?
During a commencement speech he gave at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, Kansas City Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker told women “to stay in the kitchen.”
That’s according to a USA TODAY headline; other headlines echoed that phrasing. No wonder scribes and others have called his remarks misogynistic and hateful. A Chang.org petition that demands the Chiefs boot Butker has amassed more than a quarter-million signatures.
Even Flavor Flav is calling out Butker. And when you’ve lost Flav, it’s really time to pause and reflect.
So let’s do just that.
Misogyny is serious business, so falsely accusing someone of misogyny is also serious business. Are the outraged among us accurately representing Butker’s views and how such views are received by the general public?
Let’s go to the speech.
Butker’s comments about women represent a small part of his 20-minute speech, and here’s how they begin:
For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. 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, 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.
I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.
First, let’s note that Butker isn’t ordering women to do anything, let alone to stay in the kitchen or home. Not only does he place his remarks within the context of free will, but he appeals to women’s happiness.
And does he simply assert that family will make all women happy? No. He appeals to the testimony of women, and does not claim a spouse and kids will deliver happiness to all women.
He notes how his wife sacrificed her career aspirations for the sake of her family. Butker says that choice ultimately made her happier: “[I]f you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, ‘Heck, No.’”
Butker also appeals to what he ventures “to guess” is the opinion of the “majority” of the women in attendance (not necessarily all, social media mobbers!).
So is Butker’s guess a good one?
Consider the context. He delivered his speech at, not just a Catholic college, but one that takes its Catholic identity seriously. Students at Benedictine College choose to abide by a code of conduct and may attend Latin mass and all-night prayer vigils.
Reporters eagerly hunt for dissenting female students to quote, but it seems clear that most women in attendance stood with Butker. His “homemaker” line sparked a 16-second applause break and, at the end of his speech, the audience gave him a standing ovation—one that, from the looks of the short clip below, included just about everyone in attendance.
To its credit and unlike plenty of other outlets, The New York Times acknowledges the audience’s enthusiastic reaction. But it does so only in passing, and then quickly falls in with the herd and devotes lots of ink to separating Butker from those on “The Right Side of History.”
Times readers learn about the Change.org petition, that the NFL’s chief diversity and inclusion officer wasn’t pleased with Butker, that the Los Angeles Chargers piled on, and that the kicker is hated on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Is TikTok Real Life?
Skimming TikTok to gauge public opinion is something I’d expect from Jezebel or Teen Vogue, but The New York Times should aim higher.
Did the most prestigious name in news even consider venturing outside the outrage bubble? After all, a large and representative survey could help us determine how well the howlers’ opinions overlap with public opinion in general.
Enter sociologists Brad Wilcox and Wendy Wang.
They turned to the General Social Survey (GSS)—the nation’s preeminent social barometer—and this is what they found:
[M]arriage and family are strongly associated with happiness. The GSS shows that a combination of marriage and parenthood is linked to the biggest happiness dividends for women. Among married women with children between the ages of 18 and 55, 40% reported they are “very happy,” compared to 25% of married childless women, and just 22% of unmarried childless women.
In other words, the high value placed on family life stretches beyond a small Catholic college in Kansas. A Pew Research Center global survey shows just how far it stretches: When asked what makes their lives fulfilling, men and women of all ages around the world ranked family first, ahead of wealth, work, friends, and health.
And the fact that women were usually “more likely to mention family as a source of satisfaction in their lives than men” will be unsurprising to those who don’t spend their lives online or on campus. Maybe what the Eight Percenters want for women isn’t what many women want for themselves.
What They Said He Said
My wife is a filmmaker, consultant, professor, and mother. She’s had to deal with plenty of piggish men, but she’s also encountered plenty of good men, including beloved mentors.
My wife took no offense at Butker’s comments about women. That’s because she listened to what he actually said as opposed to what social media and the rest of the monoculture said he said.
To her, Butker is merely saying women should not be pressured into pursuing a career. She says it’s misogynistic to force a woman to be a homemaker, but it’s not misogynistic to praise her for choosing to be a homemaker.
So let’s return again to Butker’s words.
He didn’t order women to the kitchen, and he didn’t assert that being a homemaker is the only role a woman should assume. He said being a homemaker is “one of the most important titles of all” (emphasis mine).
That line was even misinterpreted by an order of nuns affiliated with Benedictine College. In a statement criticizing Butker’s speech (which was gleefully amplified by CNN, NPR, and others) the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica write: "One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman.”
The sisters go on to note their important contributions, contributions Butker would almost certainly laud (he acknowledged religious orders in his speech).
One of the worst sins in the breathless Butker coverage was a sin of omission. Butker salutes the sacrifice his wife made, but he also calls on men to sacrifice. “You might have a talent that you don't necessarily enjoy,” he tells the fellas, “but if it glorifies God, maybe you should lean into that over something that you might think suits you better.”
Give up on my dreams? Can you believe this misandrist jerk!
Actually, Butker’s call for men and women to be less focused on their own happiness is a very Catholic thing to say.
Happiness Paradoxes
My wife and I are practicing Catholics who spend a good deal of time mentoring young men and women of all faiths (including mischievous secular Hindus) who are interested in careers in film and entertainment.
We’re honest with them about the many ways the entertainment industry can pressure people into becoming narcissistic monsters. And such monsters are rarely happy.
But there’s a funny thing about focusing less on your own happiness—it often makes you happier. Take parenthood.
Having a child interrupts your own happiness in countless ways. Yet somehow having less money, less freedom, less quiet, more noise, and vastly more stress makes my wife and me deeply happy. As much as we love working on film projects, our most cherished production will always be our son.
Will everyone see themselves in our experience? Of course not. Many people have no interest in getting married and having kids. That’s fine. But the more we understand happiness, and the more we discuss it frankly, the better off we’ll all be.
Last October, I attended the raucous Free Press debate that posed the question: Has the sexual revolution failed? The packed house of thousands, many of whom were young women, suggests that lots of people hunger to chew on this question. As many have observed, women’s happiness has fallen during the same decades when women’s freedom has shot up.
In the 1970s, women were happier than men, but now that’s reversed. Men aren’t doing great on that measure either. Although they’re now happier than women, their happiness is down overall too. It’s only natural to want to investigate what’s going on.
Yet the monoculture wasn’t in the mood for serious engagement. It just snarked away at Bari Weiss and the four female debaters. With the Butker brouhaha, the monoculture switched from snark-mode to witch (warlock?)-burning mode.
Both responses are shallow, and neither will do much to make women (or men) any happier.
Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here.
The twisting of everything- context, intent, facts, and accompanied bullying, by MSM and social media, is so typical that it isn’t even disappointing anymore. The left has become exactly like the far right in a different uniform. Quick to judge, demonize, and punish- no thoughtfulness, pondering or inquisitiveness, because they are always correct.
Nicely presented discussion and facts, thanks very much! I don't follow football but, these days, it's a fairly safe bet that any headline or highlight will misrepresent the non-insane among us. My hunch is that it's going to get a lot worse, information-wise, before it gets better. We all should have been more critical of news and reporting many decades ago, but starting to triangulate alternate sources and resources now, or yesterday, or 2020 or 2008 -- any time really -- is the next-best move.
Personally I give very little attention to 'breaking' news, regardless; I like books, on paper: much more challenging to stealth-edit!