Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who raised eyebrows for suggesting women should be homemakers, was raised by a mom who’s a physicist.
His mom, Elizabeth Butker, has been a medical physicist at Emory University’s department of radiation oncology since 1988, per her LinkedIn. She specializes in brachytherapy and Gamma Knife medical physics care, per a 2020 article by Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute.
Elizabeth received her master’s degree in medical physics from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1988 after attending Smith College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1985. Elizabeth’s father, James Keller, worked in oncology at Emory for 28 years before retiring in 2011. (Page Six was the first to report the news.)
Harrison, 28, sparked outrage when he served as the commencement speaker for Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, on Saturday, May 11, where he had a message for the women graduates who “have had the most diabolical lies told to you.”
How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?” he stated. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
Harrison — who claimed that his wife, Isabelle Butker, would be “the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother” — stated that “homemaker” is “one of the most important titles of all.” (Harrison and Isabelle, who exchanged vows in 2018, share two kids.)
Harrison also faced backlash when he compared the LGBTQIA+ community’s Pride Month to “deadly sins” and stated that men “set the tone of society, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction and chaos set in.