Man who kicks balls wants women to stay in the kitchen
Imagine for a moment that that you are a young woman who has spent more than $100,000 on your university degree. After four years of hard work it’s your graduation and Harrison Butker, a kicker with the Kansas City Chiefs, is the commencement speaker. During his speech the NFL star, who has made millions by kicking a ball, kindly informs you that your hard-earned degree was a waste of time and that your true role in life is supporting your husband. Imagine what that would be like.
Graduates of Benedictine College, a Catholic college in Kansas, don’t need to imagine. Last Saturday Butker – whose mother happens to be a respected physicist – gave a mind-bogglingly bigoted speech in which he bashed everything from career women to LGBTQ+ people. If you want to lose a few brain cells you can read the entire thing online, but here’s the gist of it:
“IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values in media, all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.” (This doesn’t make any sense, I know, but the entire speech is incoherent.)
Joe Biden has been “vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies”. (Which is certainly true if we’re talking about Gaza – but Butker was talking about abortion rights.)
Pride month is a “deadly sin”.
You can’t spread the antisemitic talking point that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus any more or you’ll end up “in jail”.
Women have been subject to “the most diabolical lies” and, while some women in the audience may go on to have successful careers the majority should be “most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world”.
His wife would be “the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother”. (This sparked long applause from the audience.)
We should fight against “the cultural emasculation of men”.
This 4chan post masquerading as a commencement speech apparently went down a storm with male Benedictine College students. According to a TikTok post from Susannah Leisegang, a female graduate who was in the audience, a lot of the men were “excited” by Butker’s comments and there “was a standing ovation from everyone in the room” except from Leisegang and about 10-15 other women.
The 28-year-old athlete’s speech didn’t just resonate with men at Benedictine, it’s generated a lot praise elsewhere – including from the wife of the Kansas City Chiefs chair and CEO, Clark Hunt. It has also generated a lot of criticism. And that criticism is, quite predictably, turning Butker into a rightwing icon. His jersey sales have gone up since his rant.
Butker, of course, is free to say whatever he likes. But my God is it boring to hear a man who makes $4m for playing with a ball complain that he is some sort of victim of wokeness. And while Butker should have the right to express his views, it’s alarming that he feels comfortable saying such ignorant things during a university commencement speech. As the writer Joshua P Hill has pointed out, Valentina Gomez, a woman running as a Republican to be Missouri’s next secretary of state, ran a short ad almost the same day as Butker’s speech in which she urges Americans not to be “weak and gay”. We are, Hill notes, “seeing a remarkably fast rollback of the consensus that you don’t say overtly bigoted things from any sort of important podium, let alone while running for office”.
It does very much seem like we’re going backwards. While bigots feel emboldened to express their views from university podiums, college students are getting arrested for protesting what many experts have described as a genocide. Meanwhile companies are dropping their DEI programs and scaling back their public support for LGBTQ+ rights thanks to rightwing pressure campaigns. Target, for example – which faced conservative criticism over its Pride-related merchandise last year – just announced that it will cut back its Pride month collection.
Butker himself seems to have noticed this paradigm shift. “The road ahead is bright,” the athlete crowed in his speech. “Things are changing. Society is shifting. And people, young and old, are embracing tradition.” By tradition, of course, he means we’re going back to a time when women were forced to give birth and LGBTQ+ people didn’t have any rights. The bullies and bigots are winning.
Taylor Swift trademarks female rage
Amid all the discussion of Butker’s speech, do you know who has been very quiet? Taylor Swift. The pop star, who is currently dating Travis Kelce from the Chiefs, is famous for being pretty apolitical but she has described herself as a feminist, and one would have thought she might have had some words about Butker’s misogyny. Particularly as the football player quoted Swift (who he charmingly referred to as “my teammate’s girlfriend”) in his speech – making a reference to Bejewled, in which she sings “familiarity breeds contempt”. One might also think she would have something to say considering the fact she just filed a trademark for “Female Rage: The Musical”. Instead of trademarking female rage, Taylor, maybe try channeling it for the greater good?
Gina Rinehart is learning about the Streisand effect
A week ago very few people outside of Australia knew who the mining billionaire Gina Rinehart was. Even fewer people were familiar with the extremely unflattering portrait of her that’s hanging in the National Gallery of Australia. Now that Rinehart is lobbying to get the portrait removed, however, it has become headline news. Suddenly there’s renewed attention on the fact that Rinehart has remained silent about her late father’s racist comments about Aboriginal Australians – including calls for those who hadn’t “assimilated” to be sterilized.
Karols against keffiyehs
Karol Markowicz, a columnist at the rightwing New York Post (which is constantly whining about cancel culture) recently tweeted at Amazon expressing her outrage that a delivery driver was seen wearing a keffiyeh. In what seems like a viral effort to get the Amazon driver fired (for wearing a scarf!), Marokowicz basically asked to speak to the manager. It’s because of bigots like Karol that I’m now nervous about wearing my own keffiyeh outside.
Nigerian activists condemn mass ‘forced marriages’ of 100 girls and young women
Nigeria’s women’s affairs minister is seeking a court injunction to stop the planned ceremony and establish if any of the girls are minors.
French celebrities call for law to crack down on sexism and sexual violence
In a petition, published in Le Monde, more than 140 public figures say France is “abysmally” behind when it comes to dealing with sexist and sexual abuse. “It’s unacceptable that the rate of dismissals of complaints of sexual violence reached the delirious rate of 94% in 2022,” the petition notes.
The tradwifes are making incredibly weird bread
There has been a lot of tradwife content, I know, but this really is food for thought.
Former teen models accuse magician David Copperfield of misconduct
He may be a magician but it’s going to be difficult for Copperfield, who had ties to Jeffrey Epstein, to get these accusations to disappear.
The week in pawtriarchy
Congrats to Max the Cat, a tabby who has just received an honorary degree of “doctor of litter-ature” from Vermont State University. Max, who lives near campus, has been socializing with the college crowd for years and likes to go on tours with prospective students. Let’s hope nobody asks Max his views on genocide in Gaza (where animals are also starving to death) or his degree might get clawed away.
