Editorial | Our “society” did not lie to the Benedictine College graduates — Harrison Butker did

Taylor Swift’s boyfriend’s teammate, Harrison Butker, addressed the graduating class of Benedictine College earlier this month in a commencement speech with a reception that was somehow more negative than Pitt’s. Following his speech, users across the internet dragged Butker for his misogynistic talking points.

He covered it all — from Covid lockdowns to “dangerous gender ideologies” — and left little to the imagination. The most shocking part of his speech for most, and the part that has received the most backlash online, is his address to the graduating women in the audience. Most of them, he says, are likely most looking forward to their marriage and the children they will bring into the world.

At the risk of saying what’s already been said — about his emphasis on women being homemakers, about his insistence that men alone set the tone of our culture, about bringing up the “murder of innocent babies” less than two minutes into his speech — it will be better to focus on a specific piece of rhetoric Butker used in his push for outdated gender roles.

Butker told both the men and the women in the audience that they have been lied to. The women, he said, have had the most “diabolical lies” told to them, but he never explicitly mentioned who told them the lies or what the lies are. The men, on the other hand, have been told the lie that men are not necessary in the home or in communities.

Neither of these statements are true, if they even say anything at all. The unfortunate reality is that Butker was using a fear tactic to push his ideals onto recent college graduates. He, like many conservatives faced with a social order growing gradually more progressive, cannot convince people to follow his worldview of their own volition and must scare them into it by telling them that they cannot trust what they thought they knew.

It is sad to hear a man announce that women should disregard their desire for a career and embrace their godly role as a wife and a mother. It is more sad to watch a man stand before a crowd of empowered, ambitious, educated graduates, excited to pursue the life they’ve dreamed of for the past four or more years, and resort to gaslighting to convince them that their hopes and goals were made under false beliefs.

Graduation is a time for people to celebrate their ability to accomplish anything. There are no restrictions and no wrong paths. Students should never be told the lie that there is one righteous, correct way to live their lives, because there simply isn’t. Commencement speeches should be empowering to everyone’s hopes for life, and we should never settle for less.

Butker did offer one worthwhile point early into his speech — “Suffering in this life is only temporary.” He proved it to be true by leaving the stage 20 minutes later.