Time To Redefine Feminism: The Choice That Harrison Butker Is Suggesting Couldn’t Be More Pro-Woman | Opinion

If the feminist movement was truly inclusive, and championing all women, perhaps Harrison Butker would still have the everyday name recognition of most NFL kickers.

As in, almost none.

I’m sure he’d love to return to those days, after having been thrust into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons last weekend. 

Butker has taken a beating.

Harrison Butker, kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas last weekend that has the entire country talking. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)

You’ve heard the anti-woman analysis, I’m sure. But I’d like to flip the script on the Butker narrative here. I’d like to look at his highly criticized commencement address at Benedictine College, a Catholic school in Kansas, from a different perspective.

In my opinion, Butker, kicker for the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, wasn’t insulting career-driven women who have been celebrated by the feminist movement for decades. 

Instead, he was paying tribute to, and encouraging the women, including his wife, who want to focus on their families and children, the women who have essentially been left behind by that exact same feminist movement.

We’ve been telling girls for decades that they can do anything, that they should dream big, that they should reach for the stars while breaking through the glass ceiling, that they should be whatever it is that they want to be.

And that’s awesome. A great message, and it definitely resonated with me when I was in my formative years. A small-town Indiana girl, I dreamed of graduating from college, landing my dream job, working in an amazing skyscraper in the big city and becoming financially secure.

Dreaming big…(Getty Images)

Some of those things did come true, and I am still to this day "being what I wanted to be" in high school: a sports journalist. Have been for nearly 30 years.

But, the "be whatever you want to be" idea within the feminist movement is kind of like how the left defines inclusion. It’s inclusion if you belong to the pre-approved groups, or have the acceptable thoughts/opinions. With feminism, it’s "be whatever you want to be"…as long as you do that in a girl-boss career.

Stay-at-home moms and wives, they seem to not count. They’re practically a betrayal to the sisterhood. They are what feminism strove to forever break free from in the late 1960s and 1970s. 

"Girls, you can be so much more than THAT!"

Getty Images

Of course, in reality, the most pure form of feminism should be the choice for women to be whatever they want to be, no matter WHAT that is. Even if that is a (GASP!) stay-at-home mom and wife, like Harrison Butker’s wife.

We have been programmed as a society to think of the real (and only) successes of feminism to be the women who choose to crush the corporate ladders, to ascend to incredible heights in traditional careers. And, they are, of course, successes.

But that’s why there is such outrage about Butker’s speech, in which he said that his wife’s life "truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother." Because modern women have been indoctrinated to believe that being anything other than a professional success – and heaven forbid - "just a mom," or "just a wife," is somehow underachieving in life. Settling. Falling short.

Women march in support of equal rights during the inaugural ceremonies for President Nixon in Washington DC, mid-January 1969. The two signs in front read 'Judge women as people not as wives' and 'Distinguished ladies, when are you going to do your thing?' (Photo by David Fenton/Getty Images)

So when a man, like Harrison Butker, encourages women at a commencement address to be mothers and wives (although it is important to distinguish that he did not say, be ONLY mothers and wives), he is somehow insulting them, I suppose. He is somehow diminishing them and their achievements and their potential for future achievements as feminists. And that sparks widespread outrage.

It’s outrage misplaced and misguided.

This Working Mom Has A Different Take On Butker's Speech 

I am one of the many women who have done all three – career, marriage and motherhood. 

Although being a mother meant making significant sacrifices in my career (like not pursuing open positions that would have kept me moving upward through the industry), I am happy with what I have achieved professionally. I managed to extend my writing career to include radio and television work, on my own time, and above and beyond my regular job, while still being very involved with my children. It’s been fun and rewarding, but it hasn’t been easy. It's been hard work, it's been a crazy juggle, and I am very proud of the fact that I made it work.

Getting ready to call a Chicago Sky game with partner Matt Schumacker. (Photo: Patricia Babcock McGraw)

That being said, I am even prouder of raising two of the most beautiful people, both inside and out, that you’d ever want to meet, my son Matt and my daughter Kelsey. Having that as my perspective on life, I saw Butker’s speech in a very different way than many.

My kids Matt and Kelsey with me at a Chicago Bulls game when they were much younger. (Photo: Patricia Babcock McGraw)

A more recent photo of me with the kids at the Willis Tower (we'll always call it the Sears Tower) Skydeck in Chicago. Photo: Patricia Babcock McGraw

I honestly don’t think Butker set out to offend women. I don’t think he’s some backwards-thinking caveman either. I think he, particularly as a devout Catholic speaking at a Catholic school, genuinely believed that his comments would be uplifting to women, especially to those who might cautiously (and even secretly) have different ideas from what they have been conditioned to imagine for themselves through modern feminism.

I bet he is sitting at home right now shocked by this cutting backlash.

My interpretation of the speech was that Butker was trying to provide a reminder to young women, that there is absolutely nothing shameful or lesser about choosing the path of marriage or motherhood. Whether it’s a year from graduation, five years or 10 years. Despite what feminism tells us, those "vocations," (Butker’s word) can be just as noble and just as important as the most dynamic and successful careers.

Some criticized the timing of Butker’s message. Why "discourage" the women in the audience from pursuing the dreams they’ve studied for and worked for and financed over the last four years…at their graduation ceremony of all places? 

But, think about it. What better time to lay out big-picture options, as a commencement speaker, than when graduates are sitting right there, quietly pondering how they want their futures to turn out? Unless, that is, you don’t see marriage and motherhood as legitimate and worthy options. Then you see the timing (as well as the commentary itself) as insensitive and insulting and demeaning.

Let’s summarize: There’s nothing wrong with women taking that exciting job offer, climbing the ladder, going on big business trips, networking with the power players and doing great things professionally. There’s nothing wrong with them doing this as a single or childless person either…for years, or forever. 

But, don’t forget that marriage and motherhood are incredible and fulfilling options, too. Consider it.

That’s what I got from Butker’s speech - not that he wants all women in the kitchen with a baby on their hip, their hard work and college diplomas be damned.

If we are being honest, we know that Butker wasn’t saying that. Not at all.

Butker's Tribute To His Wife Was Touching

We also know that Butker couldn’t have been more sincere when talking about his own wife, Isabelle.

Harrison Butker, Isabelle Butker and their children. Photo: Jamie Squire (Getty Images)

What an emotional tribute of gratitude that was, perhaps the part of Butker’s speech that I appreciated most. Because I could somewhat relate.

I’d be willing to bet young Isabelle Tehrani (her maiden name) had big dreams, like we all do, in middle school and high school and college. 

She graduated from Rhodes College in Tennessee with degrees in computer science and Spanish. She was also on the women’s basketball team. She was accomplished in her own right.

Maybe Isabelle had a career in mind. But she also wanted to be a wife and a mother. 

Many women who want both career and family do both at the same time, often out of financial necessity. Of course, they make personal sacrifices along the way. Maybe they don’t advance as fast or as far in their careers because they have too many responsibilities at home with their children. Maybe they don’t spend quite as much time with their kids as they want because they have too many responsibilities at work. There’s a lot of stressful push and pull there. 

I’ve experienced that dynamic firsthand, but was luckier than many of my working mom friends because I was fortunate to be able to work mostly from home for 25 years. That made the juggle between motherhood and career much easier, and I was always so appreciative of that.

Because finances probably aren’t an issue for the Butkers, Isabelle has been profoundly fortunate to be able to focus exclusively on her path of choice: marriage and motherhood.

But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t made her own personal sacrifices, and put aside some of the things she had once dreamed of doing.

In fact, Butker specifically acknowledged that in his speech, and was even brought to tears by it. 

There was a palpable humility in his commentary and body language because Butker understands what his wife’s personal sacrifices allow him to do: focus on a demanding, dream career that requires significant time away from home…while still having the privilege of being a father.

Harrison Butker says he can succeed professionally in a demanding job that frequently takes him away from home and still experience the joys of being a father because his wife Isabelle has committed to being their children's primary caregiver. (Photo by Jason Hanna/Getty Images)

That was the case in my household. My husband at the time and I were in the same industry. Journalism. But he was able to take a higher-end, higher-profile dream job that included a lot of time away from home, and a lot of out-of-state travel.

He was able to do that, and still experience the joys of being a father, because I stayed in a job in which I could work mostly from home, and be on-demand available for our children, particularly when they were young. 

It was the best choice at the time for our family. But should I feel bad about that, like a sellout to the feminist movement? In the eyes of feminists, am I an underachiever because my sole focus hasn't always been career, career, career?

If the answers to those questions are no, then why are so many people upset that Butker told women to consider marriage and motherhood?

Said Butker, with visible emotion: "I’m on this 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."

It's so important for men to acknowledge this about their wives, and the mothers of their children, especially if the balance of career opportunities in the marriage isn’t quite equal, or even close to being equal. With children, one of the parents (and sometimes it's the dad) is likely going to have to make a sacrifice. 

I’m so glad that Butker said that part out loud. 

Well, except for the "homemaker" part, that is. Yes, that term would have benefited from a re-write. I can see why some people would be ruffled by that. The term does sound a bit antiquated. 

We Need A New, More Inclusive (!), Definition For Feminism

But does a misplaced term, or an opinion/outlook on life that may be counter-cultural in our feminist-sensitive society make Butker a chauvinist and a misogynist, as he is being portrayed? 

I don’t think so.

The bottom line is that Butker was supporting, celebrating and encouraging his wife and other women like her who, like all feminists, are using their power to make life choices that work for them.

It should be OK for those choices to include marriage and motherhood.

Let’s re-define feminism to be more inclusive in that way.

Feminism and girl power can mean different things to different women…and that's OK. That's what feminism should be about. The power to have a choice - no matter what that choice is. Photo: Vector illustration for Getty Images.