394 Comments
User's avatar
Old Man Shadow's avatar

"Ladies, there are over four billion of you with your unique minds, souls, dreams, backgrounds, experiences, hopes, and longings. And I'm here to mansplain to all of you that God has set just one path before you that you must all conform and adhere to."

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

From nearly all the women, dead and alive, maternal side 🖕

Expand full comment
Richard Wade's avatar

And Mr. Butker says that that one path is to make him a sandwich.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I have a very good recipe of knuckle sandwich with nuts.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Or like I read from someone yesterday on another post related to this Butker speech - serve him incorrectly cooked puffer fish. 🤣

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Wouldn't work, it can be eaten raw, unless it was incorrectly cut :)

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

He never said she was a good cook, perhaps she forgets to cut out the liver or remove all the skin......... "oh, opps, sorry officer..... I'm just a housewife, I didn't know any better, I was just trying to serve my man some puffer fish for dinner, oh my what have I done, dear Jesus help me". Turns head and silently laughs. Texts boyfriend on the side " it's done"

Expand full comment
E.A. Blair's avatar

If I had ever told my wife to make me a sandwich, she would have made me a sub.

Expand full comment
Straw's avatar

Both me and my spouse usually ask if we can make something to the other one when we are making something to ourselves. I don't feel like a slave, he don't feel like a slave. But we would not have stayed together for 40 years if it was expected and one-sided.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

If that one path was burping the alphabet, maybe he'd have a point. But mansplaining motherhood, of all things...

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Congratulations, Butker. You just demonstrated that you're so utterly out of step, not just with the general Catholic population but with the average Joe, that you appear to be dancing the waltz while everyone else is doing the Charleston. You would disempower women, shove the LGBTQ+ community back into the closet, and generally take America back to the days of Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver. You would insist on the patriarchy because why not? It benefits YOU, and you can't be bothered to notice that it dumps on everyone else who doesn't want to conform to your men-first-all-else-last paradigm. I can't imagine that you have any idea how much the US and indeed the world has benefited from the empowerment of women, people of color, and those of us who are LGBTQ+. I suspect that you don't see it because you don't want to see it. That would upset your apple cart.

How about you go back to kicking field goals. We can live our lives without your "help."

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

I'm still troubled by all the people that applauded including the women after his speech? Was this them just being polite, bowing down to social protocol?

Unfortunately there are a number of women who posted on his Facebook page that they agreed with his speech, but these obviously could be christo-fascist trolls who are trying to prop him up. Fake accounts.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I'm guessing there are a good number of women who agree with him, but I'm also willing to be a good number that supported him on his facebook page were Russian bots. They are designed to bolster the right wing nut jobs on social media to poison the algorithm in order radicalize more and more Muricans.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Yes agree with Russian bots. They are numerous on social media, including fake church pages, and during BLM.

Like MTG.....she's also a Russian bot! We should scan her for a heart.....she may be tin man. Lol

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

Tinman has more empathy in his little finger than MTG has ever seen, much less had.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

My paternal grandmother would have agreed with him. She was dumbfounded when my parents, the only time my father said no to his mother, told her they will send me to school after 6th grade.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Wow! Kudos to your parents....

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

It was all DM. With a wife from his social circle, my father would have agreed.

Expand full comment
Straw's avatar

Some years ago the payed leave for parents was changed here in Norway. A few weeks before and after birth was exclusive for the pregnant person. Good. A few weeks after birth was for the other parent as well as the birthing one. Good. The rest, 48 weeks, was split in 3 equal parts: One part for each parent and one part to split as they wanted to.

The thing is that the most religious mothers (not the fathers) did not want to give the father/spouse 16 weeks to care for their child. Idiots.

Expand full comment
Michael Donahoe's avatar

Yes, very good.

Expand full comment
Bill Lawrence's avatar

I wouldn't be surprised if Iran made him an honorary citizen!

Expand full comment
Pope Buck I's avatar

His sister also went to med school and is a prominent OB-GYN. Think someone might feel insecure about their own intellect in a family full of doctors?

I'm also getting bitterness about how much attention Travis gets as a star MVP - as opposed to the kicker, who only ever gets attention when he screws up a game-ending field goal. Well, he's about to get all the attention he could ever want. Have fun, Harry!

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Funny thing. Travis Kelce sure doesn't seem to be threatened by Taylor Swift's success and accomplishments. Makes me wonder (though not much) about what's going on in Butker's brain box about that whole issue.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Kobe Bryant was not afraid of strong women either, he was proud of having a daughter following his path. Fucking helicopter.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Kobe Bryant was a mensch. Butker is a wannabe.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

We had our fucker too, david douillet. When asked if his children would compete in sports too, his answer was "if they want but only the boys, women are not made for sports".

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

"Women are not made for sports." Oh, BER-ROTHER! That guy needs to talk to Simone Biles ... or maybe Caitlin Clark ... or the US Women's Soccer Team!

Talk about CLUELESS...

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I may an inkling about his problem with women competing on sports. Olympic games 1992, judo, he got a bronze medal when not one but two women got a gold one.

Expand full comment
Tinker's avatar

Just because someone is rich, married and has groupies following him around doesn't mean that he can't get into the incel mindset if he gets jealous enough at his teammates.

Expand full comment
Pope Buck I's avatar

Among all NFL players, I'm not sure field goal kickers even *have* groupies. All the more reason to be jealous of star Travis.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

He seems enlightened but I'm not sure his relationship is the best example of enlightenment. After all, he pursued her, quite publicly. So far, the narrative fits very well as a 'knight wins the princess' sort of thing and is thus fully consistent with the way sexist men can view relationships. I'm not trying to throw shade on the guy or the couple. More power to them. But whether their relationship works in terms of two professional adults with the woman being a far bigger breadwinner than the man...remains to be seen. Now, to argue in his favor, if it *doesn't* work out that doesn't imply he's sexist or couldn't handle it either. There are any number of different reasons why it might not work out. Goodness, the logistics alone seem to me to be a huge barrier to a long-term 'win' for the two of them.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

His was a speech about patriarchal values. I do not for one minute doubt that the higher ups at that conservative catholic college gave him his talking points. Or, that he shares them. We have an ongoing battle in this country with the patriarchs trying to impose their values on the whole of society. Right now, they are close to winning. They have gerrymandered and cheated their way into dominant positions throughout the country so they can eradicate diversity and impose their MAN-on- top, woman-on-the-bottom, brown-people-in-their-place world order.

Expand full comment
MikeinSonoma's avatar

Yes it’s ironic that conniving is the leading character trait in their superstitions.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

Well, they believe in a cruel god and they are sure they need to be just as cruel to earn his approval.

Expand full comment
OwossoHarpist's avatar

"...brown-people-in-their-place world order."

Like the cotton fields and the ghettos?

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Or prisons

Expand full comment
OwossoHarpist's avatar

That too.

Expand full comment
Tinker's avatar

This is a typical right-wingnut, 'conservative', white male. This is a guy who got extremely lucky in life. Sure he thinks he got there by hard work and sheer will but the fact is that he won life's lottery in that his foot can kick a ball a long way. The part of this that confuses me is how someone like this can be a believer in God also. I mean does he really think that God loves him and ONLY him so much that God gave him this talent? If so, Wow what an ego! If not then why worship someone so unfair? Or maybe he really thinks that he worked harder than anyone else to get that job and God didn't have anything at all to do with it? Again though, Wow what an ego! Does he really think then that everyone can grow up to be a NFL kicker if they just work hard enough? Oh, I mean just the boys, of course. But that can't be all there is to it because people like this guy always seem to give props to God. The very idea that God picks his favorites and they are, more often than not, white, cis males is enough to show me that God is a bully himself and not worthy of worship.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

You know what ? As small as she is I would not be surprised if Simone Biles was able to kick his ass. I would love to see that.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

I would pay to see her do just that!

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

No one reaches 'success' (salaries/net worth in the multi-millions/billions) through just hard-work and sacrifice or even talent. Luck plays a huge part. For every football/pop star who makes it, there are a hundred others who worked just as hard and are at least as talented.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Don't forget success relies heavily on other people's labor. Whether they be employees in your business, or your parents, siblings, spouse or friends doing menial tasks required of life so you can focus on cultivating the talent, and many other people in between. No man is an island.

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

Known effect of drinking Jesus Kool-aid.

Expand full comment
Openly Fae's avatar

It has to be weird living 70 years behind everyone else.

Expand full comment
Matri's avatar

Nah, they’ve been living 280 years behind everybody.

Expand full comment
Joe King's avatar

1700.

Expand full comment
painedumonde's avatar

I bet he has to be reminded that the forward pass is not illegal before every game.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

More like a Millennia...

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

"degenerate cultural values."

Hey, Butt-ker: In studying Christian history, particularly Catholic history, we find the Inquisitions, the Crusades, Medieval Witch Hunts, Conquistadores and convert-or-die missionaries. Add its misogyny, anti-LGBTQ stances and its appalling molestation/rape of children by its clergy and it becomes crystal clear just who has the degenerate culture values.

Your are a projector and a hypocrite.

EDIT to add content

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

You and Val need to collaborate on an op-ed in response to Butker speech, Val has astute comment above as well.

Expand full comment
Bagen Onuts's avatar

"Holy Hatred" and "Holy Horrors" by James A. Haught.

"Beyond tghe Crusades" and "Mostly Harmful" Paulkovich. All 4 are compendiums showing the murders and where the bodies are buried.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

"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."

You are totally incapable of regular human activities, that's what you are saying here.

If homemaker was so important to folks like you, you would do more to make it possible for women, or men for that matter, to do it. There would be support for homemakers, skills taught as a priority on homemaking, medical access for pregnant people and early childhood, or even medical research into women's health and safety, wages that grow faster than inflation (rather than shrink at a faster rate), men would be clamoring to do it rather than turning their noses to the simplest of homemaking tasks, and on and on. If women were truly supposed to be the submissive, housewife, homemaker, why must you constantly push the narrative that this is their one true and only calling? If it were their one true and only calling, they would not be constantly doing other things. Women are whole people before they are married or have children, and continue to be whole people after.

NO, you call homemaker one of the most important titles, then shit all over homemakers for depending on men. You remove what ever supports there were in the past for a romanticized version of what you want it to be. And you use your rhetoric to enslave women to husbands who do not have anyone but their own interests in mind.

I hope his wife has dumped this loser on his ass for using her as a prop to devalue women overall.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

Love the fact that both his sister and his mother are high octane professionals. As Hemant and multiple posters have pointed out, his lifestyle and marriage seem to be a reaction to either mommy issues or some deep-seated familial insecurities.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Even DM's older sister who have a husband who earned enough to support their family and is not exactly a feminist would have been angry if a man told her she wasn't allowed to work (she was a licensed nanny, and could watch over up to five children at her home).

Expand full comment
Krumblekitty's avatar

I think what people like this Butker need is a big heaping helping of Mind Your Own Damned Business. If you don’t like the way other people live, Eff off. Try taking care of your own life. He’s not supposed to judge others you know, since he’s so religious.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Butker is so certain that he's got it right that he has to convince everyone else that he does. It amounts to variations on cognitive dissonance, otherwise.

I do sincerely hope that SOMEONE has personally gotten in his face about his speech at Benedictine, less to wake him up (not bloody likely) than to let him know that he pretty well screwed the pooch with the noise he spouted.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

Well...the college invited him to speak at commencement. So I blame them more than him for the fact that he shared his opinion with the world. They basically asked him to do that. I think the lesson here is google your nominees before you invite them. Yes, even if they are famous and you know what they are famous for, 90% of the time that doesn't mean you know what sort of statements they are going to make given a podium. They assumed football alum would talk about football. Bad assumption on their part.

Expand full comment
Pope Buck I's avatar

I would also imagine that the list of "Local-ish Catholic Celebrities Who We Can Get" to address a "small, conservative Catholic college" couldn't have been very long. I'll bet he was still pretty far down on that list, too.

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

He can go fuck himself.

Up the ass.

With a pineapple.

Grenade.

Sans clip, pin, and spoon.

Expand full comment
EllenThatEllen's avatar

I'll defend the pineapple. That's not the best use of a pineapple. Everything else-- no comment. I do get it!

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

Read it all as one sentence. ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_2_grenade

Expand full comment
Kay-El's avatar

Buttkick can fuck right off, then fuck right off again and then keep fucking off til the end of time. No woman about to graduate college needs to hear his thoughts. You can have a career that is meaningful and be a mom too, if you want. It’s not mutually exclusive. My dad wanted us to have a degree and career first and then if we decided to get married and stay home, fine. His thought was a divorce or hubby’s death and you have something to fall back on*

*As liberal as he was with his kids, it didn’t always extend to mom, until she put her foot down and got a job she loved. Dad learned to run a vacuum cleaner. 😂

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

It was the same with one of my cousin's in laws. They were the black sheeps in a deeply patriarchal culture by making their daughters go to school until they had a reliable diploma.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

John Lennon took 5 years away from making music to raise Sean while Yoko ran the business.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

To add: He described himself as a "house husband" during this period of time. I'm pretty sure he didn't want to make the same mistakes with Sean that he did with Julian.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I did comment on a Facebook post about his speech asking when Laura Ingraham was going to tell him to "shut up and dribble". However, I also made note that she agrees with him (despite her not fitting into his mold) but I did not (and should have) note that she has no problem with this guy using his athletic platform for political influence because he's white. Her issue with Labron James was his blackness and not necessarily his politics. (well, yeah his politics because it was supportive of black people)

Anyway, why isn't there right wing pundits decrying his statements telling him to stay in his lane (ironic that he tells politicians to stay in their lane regarding political positions) or treating him as they treat other athletes and singers. He is a concussionball player, they are notoriously damaged. It's like RFK Jr. telling folks not to get immunized, the buddy in his head died, probably from malnourishment.

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

I want to know what Laura Ingraham is doing, spouting off on Faux Noise when she should be back at home, cooking for her man and tending to her babies. I can't help but notice that noisemakers like her conveniently ignore 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 while they preach to others.

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

Trumps 1:1: "They let you grab em by the pussy."

It's right there in the Trump Bible.

Expand full comment
Pope Buck I's avatar

They're always so pathetically grateful when they get anyone even distantly approaching "cultural relevance." He's the best NFL player they could get, just like Ted Nugent and Kevin Sorbo were giants in their fields.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I never heard of pungent outside of here. OTOH, Tarja Turunen, Simone Simons and Floor Jansen are well known in Europe.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

I'm not seeing it as directly analogous. This guy said what he said as an invited commencement speaker. Ingraham might love it, we might decry it, but either way it's not like he sought out a public outlet in order to promote his opinion to the entire US public.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I just refreshed my memory on the Ingraham/James comments. He was invited to do an interview on television and was asked about the things he spoke on, and, as I said, many of which were personal to his experiences. So, a commencement address may be different from a televised interview, but not in any way that would make the situations not be analogous. James was prompted to speak about politics, just as a commencement address expecting advice on life is a prompt.

James is an expert on the politics of growing up black, Butker is not an expert on the politics of living as a woman. Just because James makes a lot of money now, does not mean he is inexperienced in poverty, which was part of Ingraham's statement.

Anyway, I still think it was a fair comparison.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Commencement addresses are not invitations for political discourse, even if they have been trending that way. James was looking at something that did affect him personally, and using his platform to do something about it. I would say James had more reason to speak on politics than Butker. So, it isn't completely analogous, but not in the way you say.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

Commencement speeches are traditionally advice the speaker is giving to these newly-degreed young adults about to head out into the world. "Womenfolk, stay home and have babies" is sexist, regressive, even hurtful...but exactly in this vein. IMO the fault here lies completely with the college. If you don't want sexist 1930s advice given to your female graduates on how to spend their next few decades, don't invite a sexist.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Oh, I blame the school as well. But then, I would have never considered attending a school like that in the first place.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

I suspect he may have thought that he was preaching to the choir ... and I wonder if any of the graduates would have had the cojones to walk out on him.

Expand full comment
Holytape's avatar

Punters should not talk in public. It's in the bible.

Timothy 2:12-14

I do not permit a punter, kicker, or long snapper to teach, or talk or to exercise authority over other players; rather, they is to remain quiet, for they are useless. 13 For Jim Kelly scored first, then Scott Norwood missed wide right. 14. For the quarterback was not a loser, but the kicker choked and became a loser.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 ESV / 292

The punters should keep silent on the field and in public. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to say, then they should just keep their useless mouths shut. For they are not real football players.

Proverbs 21:9 ESV

It is better to live as Browns fan than to be a punter.

Expand full comment
ericc's avatar

When asked to give the commencement address, he should've punted.

I'll be here all week.

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

That's not his role.

Expand full comment
painedumonde's avatar

Whatever anybody else has to say, you have won this comment section in my eyes.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Hey, the Browns were 11 and 6 last year, and that was mostly without Deshaun Watson. I'll take that any old time. Just hope we can keep it up with the schedule we're likely facing this year.

Expand full comment
Holytape's avatar

It is false hope. See, ever five to ten years, the browns have to have a good, but ultimately fruitless season. If they lost all the time, then the fans would get completely numb. Just look at bear fans.

Expand full comment
Pope Buck I's avatar

Pigskin isn't kosher. Therefore your entire argument is moot.

Expand full comment
oraxx's avatar

I suspect he played too much football without a helmet. He's about a century behind the curve, and I cannot imagine what qualifies him as an expert on anything.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Let's please not give him a permission slip/excuse as to why he said that......Troy Aikman doesn't say this stuff and no one's had more concussions than him.

Expand full comment
Die Anyway's avatar

> "he played too much football"

He's a kicker...he doesn't really play football.

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

Where do you think 'foot' comes into play in the game. It's otherwise running or throwing the ball. That's more the use of hands.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Yeah, he's the guy on the team that does actually play FOOTball.

Expand full comment
DrShell's avatar

Oh, another privileged Christian man mansplaining to me. Just what I need...

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

We always need a good laugh.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Sharing an observation from another commenter on another substack which I thought was relevant:

Her comment: "What will his black peers on the field think about this, he can't be this openly misogynistic, anti-gay, anti-women and not also be a full-blown racist at the same time"

Of course, Butker could be an outlier like Mark Robinson from North Carolina who thinks these exact same things but is black.

Expand full comment
Len Koz's avatar

I'm pretty sure Mark Robinson from North Carolina is racist as well. He may be like Ginny Thomas' husband who looks in the mirror and sees a white man looking back at him.

Expand full comment
Joan the Dork's avatar

They're the racist who says "I'm not racist- see, I have a Black friend!"

It's just that, in their case, that token friend is their own damn self.

Expand full comment
Julie Duggan's avatar

Yes, Clarence is definitely a racist against his own color- I agree that's likely with Mark too...... he's a fluke anyway that he even got into politics....pure accident. Hopefully the tragic accident ends at the next election when he loses to Josh Shapiro.

Expand full comment