I thought a lot about writing this post today. First, earlier in the year (see "A brief hiatus") I made a decision to try to avoid, if at all possible, making any significant political statements to avoid giving offense. Second, I believe in the right to free speech, though at times I personally question how far I am willing to go to support that right. Third, I fully recognize that at times it's difficult to take someone else's statement out of context. After thinking about it further though, I asked myself how could I not comment on what has gone on in the past few days? I have written posts on this issue in the past (see my three part blog post on "A life of privilege"here, here, and here, as well as "Word choice matters" and "What's in a name?")- and until something changes, I will continue to do so.
A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial piece with the title "Is There a Doctor in the White House?", written by someone named Joseph Epstein that starts out with the following opening paragraph:
Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden ” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.” 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.
I won't repeat the rest. As you can imagine (and rightly so), there was a huge backlash against Mr. Epstein (not "doctor" by the way) all over social media, as well as the regular media. The article was appropriately called "highly offensive," and a number of individuals asked whether the article would have been written about a man who used the title "Doctor." Several individuals said that the Wall Street Journal should have never published the piece, calling on the publishers to retract it (the publishers declined, by the way).
It's disappointing that, as far as we have come, we still have a long way to go. A recent survey by the American College of Healthcare Executives suggested that women healthcare executives with 5 to 20 years of healthcare experience were significantly less likely than their male counterparts to perceive their employes as gender-neutral, when it comes to hiring, promotion, evaluation, and compensation. More worrisome is the fact that these perceptions have changed little in the past decade. And of course, it's not just healthcare. It's a sad fact that women have to work harder in today's business world to get the same opportunities, the same positions of leadership, and the same pay as men (and technically, the data suggests that they don't even get the same pay for the same position as men).
Perhaps it would help to explain the origin of the word doctor. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the word comes from the Latin docēre, which means to teach. The original doctors were not physicians - they were teachers. The title was conferred on theologians by the Roman Catholic Church when individuals were deemed to be qualified to explain church theological doctrine to laypersons. It was only later, during the Renaissance, that the title started to be used more broadly to those individuals who were qualified in some academic discipline, including medicine. About the same time, the term physician came into use to describe one who was skilled in the the art of healing. In other words, physicians started to be called "Doctor" only after they became noted experts in the art of practicing medicine. Based on the origin of the term then, not only is our soon to be First Lady deserving of the title doctor, one could argue that she is perhaps more qualified to be called doctor than I am (her doctorate degree is in Education).
If you've done the work and earned the degree, you deserve the title. The title signifies a certain level of expertise and signifies that an individual has enough knowledge that she or he can pass that knowledge down to others as a teacher. "Doctor" is a title, not a profession. It is an important distinction that gets lost all too frequently.
I am truly sorry that Dr. Jill Biden had to put up with this kind of malarky. She certainly didn't deserve it. How did she respond? Here is what Dr. Biden said on Twitter:
"Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished."
I couldn't agree more.
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