Preston Xanthopoulos: Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker was right about women, and men too
When I was a young woman, getting ready to graduate college, I periodically stressed about my future career, how I’d succeed or make a living. But, I fantasized happily and frequently about one day getting married, having a family, and learning to cook as well as my mother. Apparently, this is an incredibly sexist, misogynistic and 75-year-old philosophy. Except, it’s not.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is in societal hot water for comments he made in a commencement speech at Benedictine College. While speaking at the Catholic school, he mentioned many topics in his 20-minute speech about society today and his Catholic beliefs. I don’t agree with several things he mentioned, including his views on the LGBT community, but he ascribes his views to his religion and he is allowed to do that, particularly at a religious school. Those comments, however, aren't what people are going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs about.
The controversy isn’t just coming from Social Media Warriors, it’s made it to traditional news sources with hair-raising exasperation. A reporter even asked the White House if he’d be allowed to join his teammates there for the celebration of their Super Bowl win. Seriously? All because of this part of his speech to the female graduates: “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.”
Apparently, that translates into women should be barefoot and pregnant and not allowed to work a la 1950s Kansas. The memes are silly, the headlines ridiculous. People Magazine tackled it with, “Chiefs' Harrison Butker Criticized for Graduation Speech Attacking Working Women While Quoting Taylor Swift.” How is his statement attacking women? For most of us, he's absolutely right. He didn't say we shouldn’t work. He didn’t say a woman's role is in the home. He said young women are more excited about marriage and children than the daily grind. It’s true.
When I chatted with my friends in school, I showed them pictures of Audrey Hepburn in a wedding dress in Funny Face as the one I planned on wearing at my wedding if I could get my waste that tiny. My future bridesmaids-to-be all knew they were going to dress like southern bells with those floppy chiffon hats. Boy, were they happy I eloped. When watching our daily dose of General Hospital after school, do you think we told each other how we couldn’t wait to have the job character X had one day, or was it more likely, “I wanna marry a guy like that one day.” Or, more often, “I'd never marry a guy like that.” I named my favorite cabbage patch kid Cindy, because that would be the name of my daughter one day (didn’t happen). I must've liked the Brady Bunch. Sure, we’d discuss what we were going to college for or what we were doing after we graduated, but I assure you we weren’t as excited about that as we were when someone popped the question on one of our friends, or the first pregnancy of the group. “We’re all going to be aunts!” For the vast majority of young women and girls, Harrison Butker is correct.
It’s this weird belief that women are and should be defined by their jobs. Or, that men should be for that matter. Life is not work. We work to live. As a professional, working woman I say two things: 1. While I love my job and feel privileged to have it, I care about my family more. 2. If we win the lottery, I quit and will be a happy housewife. I’ll cook with fancy ingredients I refuse to pay for now and the house will be sparkling clean. Not that I’m going to clean it, if I win the lottery, I will carefully oversee the cleaning of the house from my porch with an ice tea in hand and a chiffon hat on my head. If this makes me sexist, have at it.
Mr. Butker is also in trouble for a comment he made about men in the same speech encouraging male graduates to, “be unapologetic in your masculinity.” They should be unapologetic in their masculinity. To be outraged at that comment suggests they should apologize for being masculine. That's a tad sexist is it not? Should women apologize for their femininity? Maybe we should be if we agree we are more excited by our families than our jobs, I guess. It’s really getting confusing to keep up with the dueling paths of outrage out there.
There is an insult to women and womanhood in this narrative, however and it’s not contained in Butkers speech − it’s in the response to it. It’s in the idea we aren’t, or shouldn’t be, more excited by our families, present or future, than by our jobs; that we don't or shouldn’t put our families first. We should be proud of that; we should encourage that. And just as with men and their masculinity, we should be unapologetic about that. I am.
Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos is a former political consultant and member of the media. She’s a native of Hampton Beach where she lives with her family and two poodles. Write to her at PrestonPerspective@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Preston Xanthopoulos: Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker was right
