Kiddo
What was that we were just saying about men patronizing women? That Diana (formerly David) Thomas thinks it’s nbd as long as women get their own way?
He wouldn’t know, of course. He wouldn’t know how corrosive the effect is, because he still knows it doesn’t apply to him, even if he doesn’t fully realize he knows it.
Anyway, men patronizing women.
He obviously did it on purpose, with malice aforethought. It’s obviously calculatedly insulting, since he can’t possibly think she wants to be called either “Jill” or “kiddo” by a conceited condescending shit like him.
There was a time when I made an effort to find Joseph Epstein interesting. I found some of the same things irritating as he did (if you follow me), so I kept trying to read him, but I found him just not a good writer. Not a bad one in the sense of mistake-ridden or illiterate or anything, but just lifeless, and self-important and self-admiring with it. You can see it just in that short passage – “what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant” oh fuck off. And then “Your degree is, I believe” – if you’re not sure then look it up. If you are sure then don’t pretend you’re not. It was that kind of thing – pompous filler instead of getting to the point. Kind of like “Steersman,” if anyone remembers that Top Bore from way back then.
So he’s a crap writer, and he made a cold decision to express his contempt for the woman who is married to the president-elect who managed to defeat that sack of garbage Donald Trump – and to top it all off he pretends it’s “unpromising” for academics in education to research student retention at community colleges. That’s nice; that’s generous. Community colleges are a path to a better life for millions of people not born with a ticket to the Ivy League. Community college can be a step to getting a four-year degree and even scholarships, and they cost a tiny fraction of what the for-profit “universities” charge the students they defraud.
So…what’s his point? I guess that women should just be called Mrs. Mansname and leave it at that?
This condescending little pat on the head and sneer at Junior College is particularly out of place given that Jill Biden has announced that her pet cause as First Lady is “ to be a voice in the White House for making community colleges free.”
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/11/17/jill-biden-reiterates-support-free-community-college
This would make a huge difference in many lives.
Perhaps he’s just jealous and feeling threatened by a much more intelligent woman getting ahead?
I’m not sure how to read this, but it would appear that he doesn’t have a doctorate in anything himself, so he has no qualification to mansplain anything. Just a bachelor of arts from Harvard.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/epstein-joseph-1937-aristides
Oh, thanks, Sastra, I didn’t know that. Yes it would.
Yeah, if he wanted to just make the point that we should reserve “Doctor” for MDs (what about DOs?), he could have made that argument. Of course, the use of “Doctor” for learned individuals pre-dates the “medical practitioner” sense, but ok, language evolves. You can make that case if you want to. (I would be more sympathetic to “let’s just drop the ‘Doctor’ honorific entirely except in formal work situations — I’ll call you ‘Doctor’ when I’m in your consulting room describing my symptoms, but not if you’re just some stranger I’ve met at a cocktail party.” But whatever.)
But when your article focuses on one specific person, and it’s a famous woman, it makes the entire enterprise a little suspect. I don’t remember the WSJ running pieces mocking the pretentions of “Doctor” Henry Kissinger, of more recently, that buffoon Sebastian Gorka.
It’s like the phrase “the last time I checked.” I always want to ask, when was the last time you checked? Are you actually expressing doubt about the continuing truth of the statement? Am I supposed to be impressed by your epistemological modesty?
I’ve used it at times, too. I don’t regard it as some mortal sin, but it is a silly affectation that I’m trying to root out.
What do you expect of a clod who can’t even tell his American from his French honorifics? Madame? FFS, does he even know what he wrote?
There is a certain sub set of the population who cling to the notion that the only people entitled to “Dr” are medical practitioners.
In much the same way that Drs Goebbels and Mengele are not accorded much respect either.
Adding to screechy above
In South Australia from 1982 -88, the Minister of Health was Dr John Cornwall, a Dr of Veterinary Science.
The local newspapers often carried letters to the editor from those opposed to Cornwall, referring to him as Dr (non-medical) Cornwall. Amazing how willing some people are to parade their ignorance.
What a complete snot. Could you pack any more contempt into one paragraph?
Misogyny is alive and well . . . exhibit 27,253,027,109.
Actually, he went further. In his world, apparently only obstetricians and midwives can be called doctor.
I was told in college that doctor is really only appropriate for people who had done original research – Ph.D. for instance. Most medical doctors, according to this person (a J.D. explaining why we should not call him doctor), didn’t really meet that requirement, but were called doctor anyway, out of respect.
I have no problems with calling people with doctor’s degrees Doctor. I use it at work, because I decided not to allow my students to call me by my first name when I realized they called all the male instructors Mr. or Dr. even when given permission to use first names – a mark of respect. They treated me with literally no respect. Once I stopped allowing first name usage, they were a lot slower to try to take advantage of me, but I do not like any of the titles for women. Mrs. indicates someone else possessing me. Miss is inaccurate. Ms – well, I just hate it. It sounds too Southern, and I admit, I am prejudiced against southern accents. I have been violently abused by people who had (and some who affected) southern accents, and I cannot help it. My students call me Dr. X (Not x, but using my correct initial would perhaps be doxxing myself). I don’t use the doctor usually outside that setting, unless I am writing to the insurance company to appeal some stupid decision they made. That works, strangely enough.
Epstein: “A wise man once said that no one should call himself ‘Dr’ unless he has delivered a child. Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.”
Historically, i believe that ‘Doctor’ was originally a title conferred on someone who had done original research. The members of the self-employed medical profession, rising from origins more in the butchering trade than science, hit upon the bright idea of applying the title to themselves, independent research be buggered. They were duly followed in the 20th Century by self-employed professional dentists, veterinarians, etc; possibly in places including such as aromatherapists and astrologers..
So if Dr Jill, a doctor in the classical sense by the look of it, were to take Epstein’s advice and “think about it”, she would likely and quickly reach the conclusion that Epstein could do no better than wank off.
Dr. Iknklast has a nice ring to it.
‘I found some of the same things irritating as he did (if you follow me)’ I am also prone to this willingness to give some people the benefit of the doubt that aren’t entitled to it, for that same reason, and am learning to say to myself ‘the enemy of my enemy is not my friend’.
After getting a couple of degrees from a prestigious university, I taught at a community college for a few years, and the students at the latter were diligent, motivated, and determined, as well as demonstrably eager to learn what I had to teach them. I know they will put their learning time to good use, to improve their lives, their families’ and their community’s. I loved it. (I did, later, go back to a more traditional and highly-ranked university, and had a few years interacting with phenomenally good students there, but am really glad I had the community college experience.)
I actually just had a thought while writing this out–my ‘top university’ students were from all over the world, and would be heading back to their places of origin, or elsewhere, when they completed their studies, while although my community college students may not all have originally come from where they were living they now did live, work and raise their families in the area. Teaching and investing in community colleges benefits your local community in a way that teaching and investing in universities doesn’t.
Also, while Epstein is older than Dr. Biden, she will be the oldest serving First Lady when Joe Biden gets sworn in.
I find it interesting that he could have used any number of medical procedures to illustrate what a “real” doctor is, and yet he chose “delivering a baby” as the thing that makes a man (not person, mind you) worthy of holding that title. Considering that giving birth is not just something that only women do, but also a natural process that will mostly just occur without anyone else needing to be be present, let alone a doctor.
(I’m not saying giving birth alone would be a picnic, but no woman has ever continued a pregnancy for 11 months for lack of a man with a medical degree)
@Omar #12 Historically, the oldest usage recorded in the OED is for “the Doctors of the Church” – that is, the early Church Fathers (1303). “Doctor” for physician was recorded later that century, and has historically probably been the most common meaning: when George Eliot referred to a “common country doctor” in Middlemarch she wasn’t talking of a theologian or academic. In England doctorates have been bestowed for original research only for the last hundred years or so – Oxford 1917, Cambridge 1921.
I tend to think the title should only be used within a professional context. My friends who are doctors through whatever route would think it odd if I address their Christmas cards to “Dr So-an-so”.
Ah well. There you go.
As one whose book-learning is also piled higher and deeper, I only doctor when doctored at. I recall a work colleague introducing a visiting scientist as Dr. Fulano, and I said pleased to meet you Dr. Fulano, I’m Dr. Zutano. My colleague did a double-take before he recalled that my amazing skillz were acquired in the school of hard books.
I taught at a few universities, and I much preferred teaching at a state university over the more highly ranked university up the road. I found the students more engaged, more serious, more respectful, and more likely to actually use what I was teaching. Apparently the feeling was mutual, as the dean offered me a tenure-track position when it opened up, but I had already pivoted to a more exciting and remunerative career.
My mother also disliked being called Dr., because she wasn’t a medical doctor. But, like iknklast, it was the only way she could get any respect from some people. Did you know there are parts of this country, or people from them, who will insist on calling a fully-grown woman Miss Firstname? If being called Dr. Lastname bothered her, that was nothing compared to being called Miss Firstname. So Dr. Lastname it was. I made her a plaque in shop class that said Dr. Lastname, and it traveled to every desk thereafter.
It’s too bad there’s not a parallel to “Miss” for men, because nobody deserves to be Mirr Josephed more than this withered peduncle. Perhaps he needs to be called “Joey” more often. Like this:
Anyone who’s been to graduate school knows the “I’m the REAL doctor!” argument is really just an adolescent game, usually lighthearted and well-intentioned, especially when there are a mix of MDs and PhDs in the discussion. It also doesn’t tend to come up very often once someone actually *has* earned a PhD, since (as Tom Nichols said on this topic recently), that’s the *start* of an academic career, and hopefully their best achievements are still ahead of them. Nobody I’ve ever met on the PhD side of things takes the “argument” *that* seriously, and most are usually lightly embarrassed by the few sticks-in-the-mud who insist on being called by the name of “Doctor” and pretending it means something other than “I sacrificed the most productive years of my youth to join an ivory tower competition which most people would not understand and, if they did understand, would laugh at me for taking so seriously”.
But this is an inter-academia thing, with norms of prestige and collegiality that have shifted drastically over the past century. It does not really apply to PhDs in “industry”, such as Jill Biden. There is no point in Dr. Biden self-effacing in the way that is currently popular among tenured professors nearing retirement, since she is not playing any part of that game, especially in her scope (whatever it shall be) as First Lady. And insisting she does is rather facile and should be much more than lightly embarrassing to the conspicuously-not-a-doctor Epstein.
(Of course I meant “intra-academia thing”, but I haven’t been in grad school in years and I studied math and CS anyhow, so my Latin can probably be scoffingly forgiven.)
Dr Mengele is not one of my favourites, but I think he would have satisfied Joseph Epstein’s criterion of people entitled to call themselves doctors, as he had medical training, and probably delivered a baby or two.
I read
and my first thought was that is a very promising title.
“Meeting Students’ Needs” is the whole purpose of a community college, and students dropping out would seem to be a clear indication that the college is not meeting their needs.
Does anyone have a matchbox? It’s for collecting what’s left of Joey after Papito is finished with him. No need to take out the matches first.
Tigger #2: Surely, you must know that a BA from Hahvahd is equivalent to a PhD from a mere state school!
Except for the southern aspect (I’ve never thought of it that way), I agree with Dr. Iknklast completely,
Miss and Mrs. have the obvious problems. Ms. is…weird. It has an ugly sound and articulating it with a name often feels clumsy. It also only exists in abbreviated form, and that form doesn’t seem to match its pronunciation (yes, s can often be pronounced as z, but I wouldn’t expect that here). On that subject, Miss doesn’t have a common abbreviation. Also, there was a convention that Ms. is only used with maiden names, so women taking their husbands’ names weren’t “allowed” to use Ms.
What a disaster when compared to the simple Mister/Mr. for males.
Our kids went to a preschool that had the (unwritten) rule that all the female teachers went by “Ms. Name” in writing but it was pronounced “Miss Name” (rather than “Mizz Name”) in speech. At first I thought this was kind of weird, but eventually I kind of liked it. Miss/Ms. as the female version of Mister/Mr. would be nice and simple. Just dump Mrs. and the “Mizz” version of Ms. and we’re all set.
(Postscript: When the kids switched from private preschool to public elementary school it was back to Miss, Mrs., and the occasional Ms. Now we were back to having to remember which title to use. The kids usually called everyone Mrs. at first since that was the most common. What a mess.)
guest @ 12 – Yes. My sister-in-law (brother’s wife) started her academic career teaching (history) at a community college in a rusting industrial city, and that was her experience too.
That was in the days before travesties like “the University of Phoenix” came along to charge naive students grotesque sums for a worthless degree.
Seattle is a big industrial city, and it has 3 community colleges. Community colleges matter!
[…] a comment by Papito on […]