An Idaho professor who is a contender for delivering the greatest number of sexist statements in a single speech just got a big job working with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In a 2021 talk, Scott Yenor of Boise State University said women who have careers are “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome.”
He said society should stop thinking of a girl “as a future worker or a future achiever, and start thinking of them as future wives and mothers.”
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And, he advised, “if we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers. Not finding every reason for young women to delay motherhood until they are established in a career or sufficiently independent.”
If that isn’t alarming enough, Yenor also declared that great nations “are ultimately built by strong, responsible, sacrificial male leadership.”
Feminism? He sees it as a dire threat to the American way of life because “it teaches young boys and girls that they are motivated by much the same things and want much the same things.”
Those were just some of the loathsome fulminations that Yenor managed to pack into a 15-minute talk at a National Conservatism gathering in Orlando, Florida.
These undeniably sexist remarks were widely reported and even just one of them should have required repentance at the very least before he was allowed to continue as a professor at Boise State University.
BSU students protested. Teens walked out when he spoke at their school. But the university never sanctioned him. And right-wing think tank the Claremont Institute allowed him to serve as a fellow with its Center for the American Way of Life.
Last Wednesday, Claremont—whose stated mission is “to save Western civilization”—installed him in Florida as a Tallahassee-based “inaugural” senior director of state coalitions opposed to “woke leftism.”
The appointment was announced by Claremont President Ryan Williams after he met with DeSantis in Tallahassee. Williams afterwards praised “the bold executive and legislative leadership in the Sunshine State,” adding that DeSantis had established “the first template of any red state in America.”
How could she?
DeSantis’ wife, Casey, went on Twitter and announced, “Thrilled to welcome @scottyenor from the Claremont Institute to his new home in Tallahassee.”
Casey Desantis’ mother is a speech pathologist. Casey herself has a bachelor’s of science degree in economics and was a TV news reporter and host before she married Ron DeSantis. She is a particularly hard-working first lady and mother of two young daughters and a son. But that was all she said publicly about a man who would have her girls relinquish any career dreams and bend subserviently to male leadership.
The Florida governor’s office did not respond to a query regarding Casey DeSantis' feelings regarding Yenor’s views on women. Claremont did not respond to a Daily Beast request for the particulars of the “state coalitions,” but DeSantis’ where woke goes to die doctrine is the template. And the coalitions will be handy, pre-existing, state-level organizations should he run for president, as everybody expects.
But in allying himself with Yenor, DeSantis risks alienating voters who actually believe in gender equality. You have to wonder how a man with daughters fails to challenge Yenor’s benighted views. DeSantis’ sister was in finance before her untimely death. His mother was a nurse. His maternal aunt is a nun and a former parochial school principal, as well as a volunteer with a progressive center that helps immigrants and the homeless.
Wake up, governor.
