The Jill Biden furor is about more than titles. It touches on gender, race and civility.
It's simple: Call people by the title they prefer. I still have letters addressed to Mom as 'Mrs. Richard Petrow' — by her own mother! It steamed her.
Steven Petrow Opinion contributor
(
Detroit Free Press) Over the weekend I was angsting about how to address the last of my holiday cards. What’s the proper form for a same-sex couple? Or a modern widow, even a divorcee? And what about when one spouse has a professional title — like reverend, judge or doctor — like my friends, Dr. Amanda Cook and her husband, Ian Cook. Doing this correctly is not always easy or intuitive, which is one reason why titles have generally gone the way of dinosaurs. Then there’s the other reason: Americans like the fiction that all people are created equal. A title — or what’s also known as an honorific — only disrupts that fantasy.
In the midst of sealing and stamping the cards, the internet rightly blew up when Joseph Epstein, what my late father would have called an “agent provocateur,” attempted to humiliate Jill Biden, the incoming first lady, by recommending she drop the use of her title, which "sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.” “Dr.,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, should be reserved only for those with an M.D., adding, “A wise man once said that no one should call himself ‘Dr.’ unless he has delivered a child.”
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All this might seem like an arcane matter of manners, but considering the outcry against Epstein’s provocation, such questions touch on not only identity but the intersection of gender, race and civility. Just the other day Virginia Heffernan, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, posted her ire on Twitter, referring to Epstein as Joe:
“Joe, kiddo. I got my PhD when 2 ancient & 2 mod langs were required & 10y of bowing & scraping to men like you. So I use my title. Sure, It’s not for BAs like you mistaken for MDs, but for ppl like me & Dr. Biden who are mistaken for housewives.”
Similarly, Graeme Wood reminded us in The Atlantic this week that racial minorities “sometimes insist upon ‘Dr.’ for a similar reason,” that reason being that they prefer to use their title “if people have assumed you are a janitor or a common thief, just because of the color of your skin.” As an example, Wood wrote that Henry Louis Gates Jr., who teaches at Harvard University (among his many prestigious affiliations), once told a class: “Because this is a small seminar, you may call me by my first name, which is Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” ................(more)
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2020/12/18/jill-biden-doctor-furor-titles-gender-race-civility-column/3948476001/
