By DIANE DENISH
CORNER TO CORNER

I recently caught a clip of Charlie Kirk speaking at a Young Women’s Leadership Summit in Dallas, Texas. The event was sponsored by Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk co-founded at age 18 with retired businessman and Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery, who was 50 years his senior. The two met when Kirk spoke at Benedictine College.

Since its founding in 2012, Kirk has served as the public face of Turning Point, whose mission is to educate young people about freedom, free markets, and limited government—principles once considered pillars of the Republican Party.

Kirk is especially popular with Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2013, and has built a massive social media following. In 2024, NBC News reported that his podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show, was downloaded more than 500,000 times a day.

At the Dallas summit, Kirk addressed girls between the ages of 14 and 18. During the Q&A portion, one young woman said she hoped to study journalism in college and maybe become a political journalist. She asked Kirk for his advice.

Astonishingly, Kirk responded by asking the broader audience how many of them wanted to find a husband and have a family. A few raised their hands. Then he told the young woman she might be better off going to college to get her “MRS. degree.”

In case you’re unfamiliar, the phrase “MRS. degree” implies a woman goes to college primarily to find a husband—not to earn a professional degree or pursue a career. The comment was a throwback to another era.

For me, it was a “back to the future” moment.

In one of my first roles in New Mexico government, I served as chairwoman of the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women (1983–1985), appointed by Governor Toney Anaya. The Commission, established in 1975, was charged with advancing women’s rights and addressing critical issues like credit discrimination and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Tasia Young, the Commission’s longtime director, is compiling stories for a book due out in 2026. One chapter focuses on “displaced homemakers”—women who had spent years doing unpaid work at home and suddenly found themselves without income, employment, or a path forward. In 1977, the Legislature allocated $10,000 for a statewide needs assessment of this group.

Gloria Steinem once described displaced homemakers as “just one man away from welfare.”

One woman had been married for 31 years. When her husband died, he left her nothing—not even his life insurance. She had no separate Social Security benefits and didn’t know where to turn. Judges were rarely sympathetic.

Another woman, divorced after 24 years of marriage, was denied support by a judge who cited the Equal Rights Amendment as justification. She wrote to the Commission: “What good is my 34-year-old BA in the current market? My husband can retire at 58, and I’m expected to get a minimum-wage job—if that—at 60?”

I had my own experience. During my divorce, the judge suggested I didn’t really need half the assets from a business my husband and I had purchased together and where I worked along-side him. Because the judge knew my family background, he implied I should rely on them instead of asking for my fair share.

So, when Charlie Kirk—who never graduated from college and has little life experience—tells young women not to focus on education or careers, but instead on finding husbands, I say: beware.

That kind of advice may lead to a dead end.

Don’t be the next generation of displaced homemakers. diane@dianedenish.com