Mrs. Butker’s Husband and the Right’s Lost Boys
On the Harrison Butker Commencement Speech
This week, we bring you the definitive take on the commencement speech that sent the country into a frenzy. Lane Scott—who attended a college notably similar to the one where Butker spoke—takes on America’s lost boys, and the women they’ve left behind.
Mrs. Butker’s Husband and the Right’s Lost Boys
Lane Scott
The devil is in the details. The part left unsaid is that women must wait around for men like Butker to propose. Even if they would indeed be happy as homemakers married to multimillionaire NFL players, women must come up with some sort of contingency plan should that scenario fail to materialize. The majority of female graduates—even those who do find a virtuous young man with whom to build a life—will find a particularly punishing economy and astronomical cost of living awaits them, making it difficult for a family to get by on one income, even if they want to.
Butker’s simplistic view of the challenges that women face obscures the complexities of female happiness. The different virtues needed to produce both a successful family and a gratifying presence outside the home are very difficult to cultivate simultaneously, yet they are nevertheless desirable. Women’s desire for honor and a role in the public sphere is not the fruit of modern feminism and lies. It is borne of the human desire for excellence.
This Week: The Maternalists, Partisan Gender Wars, and the Growing Divide Between the Sexes
This week: Amber Lapp on the maternalists, Eliza Mondegreen on the partisan split on youth gender transition, the growing divide between the sexes, problems with IVF, the false work-home dichotomy, what Associate Editor Rose Elvidge is reading—and more!
From the Archives:
Phyllis Schlafly would never have called herself a “feminist.” But Featured Author Holly Lawford-Smith takes on five promising definitions of “feminist”—and finds that Schlafly deserves the label in four of the five.
Was Phyllis Schlafly a Feminist?
Holly Lawford-Smith
“Every type of feminist thinks the others are getting things wrong. Criticizing feminists is no barrier to being a feminist.”