“Is there a doctor in the White House?” Not if you need a doctor. The title of this column, published in the Wall Street Journal December 11, seems very harmless. However, he sparked the first controversy around President-elect Joe Biden. The article, by Joseph Epstein, a regular contributor to the Opinion pages of the big conservative daily, targets the future First Lady, Joe’s wife: Jill Biden. Or rather, Dr Jill Biden. Because the Democrats insist on the use of this prefix (Ph. D., originally for philosophiæ doctor), quite common in the United States and which does not necessarily refer to a doctor but anyone with a doctorate.
The author of the article, also a writer, considers this practice obsolete and wonders if it is really necessary to precede each mention of the future First Lady with the title “Dr”. “Mrs. First Lady, Mrs. Biden, Jill, my little one [le surnom que lui donne parfois son époux Joe, NDLR] : a little advice concerning a problem which may seem trivial but which, in my opinion, is important: could it be possible for you to drop the “Dr” in front of your name? In journalism, we call it a good catchphrase. She unleashed social networks and made the democratic ban and backbench leap to the academic world.
Northwestern University immediately removed from its site the biography of Joseph Epstein, who taught there for nearly thirty years, until 2003. A spokesperson for Joe Biden immediately tweeted: ” The Wall Street journal Shame on printing this disgusting, sexist attack on the Opinion pages. If you have even a little respect for women, remove this disgusting display of machismo from your newspaper and apologize to them. ”
The main interested, Jill Biden, was then invited into the discussion, still via Twitter. “Together we will build a world where the achievements of our daughters are celebrated rather than diminished. Then it was the entire American left that gave its opinion on the issue, making the affair the first controversy between the future Biden administration and the press.
Her name is Dr. Jill Biden. Get used to it.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 13, 2020
“Her name is Dr Jill Biden. You will have to get used to it. »Hillary Clinton
“We see what happens to so many women who exercise a profession, whatever their title: Dr, Miss, Mrs or even First Lady. Too often our accomplishments are accompanied by skepticism, even derision. »Michelle Obama
An active First Lady
Jill Biden will be a highly educated First Lady: two masters and a doctorate in Education obtained in 2007 at the University of Delaware, the home of the family. Since then, she has been teaching English at a community college (the equivalent of a BTS in France) in the state of Virginia, not far from Washington. A job that she claims to want to keep even after January 20 and the inauguration of her husband as President of the United States. Proof of the importance she attaches to her profession, her professional career and therefore her training. She never wanted to be and still doesn’t want to be just Joe’s wife. This is indicated by the “Dr”, whose name she systematically precedes.
By digging through the archives of the White House site, we see that this was already the case under Barack Obama between 2009 and 2017, when she was Deputy First Lady.
In the United States, a good portion of the population can claim the prefix “Dr”. According to official figures, in 2020, more than 13% of Americans over 25 have a PhD, or doctorate. A sharp increase, they were only 8.6% twenty years ago. This is the argument used by Joseph Epstein to ask Jill and the White House to stop systematically preceding his name with the mention Dr. “The Ph. D. could at the time have a certain prestige. , but this has been diminished by the erosion of seriousness and a general relaxation of standards in the academic world, ”explains the author. Its use is now more associated with a form of snobbery.
The question – is it still relevant to use the prefix Dr? – can legitimately give rise to debate. Therefore, why such virulence in the reaction of the Democratic camp? asks Paul A. Gigot, vice-president of Wall Street Journal and editor of Opinion pages. “I think the Biden team sees it as a chance to use heavy artillery, identity politics, to send a message to its critics when it comes to taking power. Nothing stifles critics better than playing the racial or gender card, ”he explains, assuring that he never considered modifying or unpublishing the column. Because, according to him, the setting off line of the biography of Joseph Epstein of the site of Northwestern University is a perfect illustration of the phenomenon of Cancel Culture, which strikes all the American society and in particular its greatest press titles.
In the other camp, support for Jill Biden is growing every day. Now on social networks, especially on Twitter, there is a real upsurge in the profiles of women who have preceded their aliases with the mention “Ph. D.”. What if the affair had rather served to revive an old custom?
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