It’s been a rough year for angry men. During the pandemic, you saw audacity spring into the forefront with Karens attacking retail workers and grumpy old men attacking people for wearing masks. Over the past year, however, the pendulum has started to swing back toward civility and that’s gotta be making those who are perpetually angry even more peeved off.
The recipient of a ton of this anger and fury has been on women. Not any particular type of woman, mind you – just women. Women who work in retail. Women who have a modicum of success. Women who are down on their luck. Women who just… exist on the internet. Let’s face it, they get a lot of crap.
Just in the past year, we’ve seen fathers and daughters bond over the romance between a football player and a pop star. We’ve seen a tall white girl from Iowa catapult the sport of women’s basketball into the stratosphere. We’ve seen the first womens’ purpose-built soccer stadium in the entire world constructed right here in Kansas City. We saw a whole Oscar-nominated film about a toy Barbie doll attack the patriarchy one trope at a time.
Enter Kansas City Chief Harrison Butker. In a recent commencement address at Benedictine College, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker stirred up controversy with his views on women’s roles. While congratulating the graduating women, Butker expressed his belief that most of them were likely more excited about marriage and motherhood than their careers. His comments have ignited a heated debate about gender roles, feminism, and the evolving landscape for women.
He actually did a great job explaining this frustration. For women making dinner, this would not leave time for playing professional soccer or Title IX sports or owning a business or doing anything other than pumping out babies. Thanks for getting your philosophy out there, Harrison. I’m sure it will be well received.
It’s hard to generalize, obviously. There are tons of good men out there. Tons of great dads and tons of great fellas who realize that the “fairer sex” is starting to catch up to us boys and if you’re not on that train, you might be a little grumpy about it.
There is one through-line in all of these comments – they’re all being made by men. Are we men really the best ones to “tell” women how they should live their lives? How women seek medical care for their bodies? How women need to dress? How a woman should build a career? This sounds an awful lot like ordering women to honor thy husband without giving the fairer sex the option to have free choice in the matter.
In the meantime, women are going to be lawyers and basketball players and moms and homemakers and stand-up comedians and taco truck owners. I’m not sure they ever really needed permission to do so. If you’ve ever been in a relationship with a woman, you should’ve quickly learned that women are going to do what they’re going to do. End of statement.
But if you want to fight that flood, you’re going to be pretty disappointed men – and even angrier down the road.
Unless you’re a kicker. Then you can just say what you want.
(Follow Fake Ned, also known as Chris Kamler, on X where you’ll find him at @TheFakeNed)