Attacking the next first lady of the USA - Dr Jill Biden

If someone has a doctorate I would expect them to be addressed as Doctor, style guides regardless. Surgeons are called Mr because they were originally not medically qualified, now it’s a mark of esteem to forego the Dr title.
Are Oxford graduates still able to claim a doctorate without actually completing one? My mother was very miffed when my brother said he wasn’t going to bother with his (he graduated in the seventies). It that the origin of medical Drs being Drs generally - were medical degrees originally only Oxbridge qualifications (I expect someone will tell me Edinburgh was awarding them centuries earlier)?
Anyway, that person is a nasty piece of work. Maybe the WSJ just published it to show him up.

Vets and dentists can be called Dr in the uk too.... no human babies delivered there either

I think this is one of those cases where the article says more about the writer, and none of it good, than it does about Dr Biden.

A genuine piece on the times and places that it might or might not be appropriate to use your title could easily have been achieved without being so mean spirited and patronising to Dr Biden. Clearly that was beyond Epstein’s capabilities as a writer and boring small man (love that Wiki entry ) what a tool. What were the WSJ thinking, publishing that?

Pleaser excuse Non-erudite use of ‘difference / differently’ in the same sentence 🙄

Debbie Cameron, @ word spinster on Twitter, is a linguistics professor and has written one of her excellent erudite, entertaining blog posts on the difference in the way men and women with titles are treated differently.

Meanwhile, it is nothing short of murderous to use the wrong title of a Transwomen.

I am actually Dr Europilgrim but only use the title Dr at work where it is relevant. However, stupid opinions like the one in this article make me want to insist on it at all times!

Far better to dissect how wrong-headed he is and address the historical failing of having employed an idiot. that would be far too reasonable, and require someone to do a bit of thinking

He hasn’t taught at Northwestern University since 2003 yet they felt the need to release two public statements condemning him - not just the article, but him - and scrubbing his name from their alumni records?

It's bizarre that they've decided now to do this. That article is very mild compared to his other views on women; he's strongly anti-feminist, referring to lesbians as ,'dykes' and 'pit-bulls'.

He was editor of The American Scholar for many years and was famous for a strongly biased editorial line.

This is from his most famous article:

I HAVE SAID I THINK HOMOSEXUALS CURSED, and I am afraid I mean this quite literally

I do think homosexuality an anathema, and hence homosexuals cursed......the importance, for me...of my defining a homosexual as someone who has physical homosexual relations, for it leaves room for my admiration for the man who is pulled toward homosexuality and resists

nothing [my four sons] could ever do would make me sadder than if any of them were to become homosexual. For then I should know them condemned to a state of permanent niggerdom among men

I would wish homosexuality off the face of the earth

mudcub.com/homophobia/homo_hetero.htm

Link included to show quotes are in context. I can't see you would want to read the 'article' except to reassure yourself he would never have achieved a PhD, no matter how much standards have declined.

Far better to dissect how wrong-headed he is and address the historical failing of having employed an idiot.

Yes especially when surgeons in the UK are referred to as Mr/Ms!!

History does strange things to our systems.

Dr Jill earned her title. End of.

So can I check I've understood this correctly?

In the US people who have completed doctorates are not entitled to be called 'Dr' by the media, but junior medical staff who have not completed doctorates are commonly referred to as Dr, so it's effectively an honorific which only applies to medical staff?

That seems very strange from a UK perspective.

But sure, go ahead and smear me for having a different opinion.

Using irony to make a rhetorical point is common on MN. PP doesn't really think you are JE.

I didn’t know that Northwestern did that! Horrid considering they have a well regarded journalism department and definitely know that US media outlets typically don’t use the Dr courtesy title unless they are a doctor! It’s absolutely not a controversial stance in the US!

Washington Post, for one, doesn’t use it unless the person is an actual doctor. Here’s a quote from the article I linked earlier:

mainstream news outlets generally refuse to attribute the “Dr.” prefix to anyone who is not a medical doctor

I’m not in the UK and medical doctors can only use the Dr. title here if they have a PhD. Otherwise they are just the equivalent of Mr or Mrs/Ms/Miss

No one should call himself a journalist unless he does his research... NOBODY should call themselves Dr as an honourific UNLESS they have a Ph.D. If they ARE a doctor (without a Ph.D., they should use Mr/Mrs/Ms.)

@NotBadConsidering you make good points. It's exactly like the Soviets removing people's entries from the National Encyclopaedia when they fell from favour. Terrifying and pathetic at the same time.

I am also tbh with the greatest respect OP surprised to see the title "First Lady" used here in the feminism topic. I find that really dubious. It's a made-up appellation (with no constitutional basis) given to certain women to say "Well done, look who YOU married." I find that more reteograde than anything Epstein wrote.

Eh. I would feel foolish using the honorofic in non-academic contexts.

I don’t agree with his article or his views. I think it’s fine to express such disagreement in response. Some of the reaction has been weird though. He hasn’t taught at Northwestern University since 2003 yet they felt the need to release two public statements condemning him - not just the article, but him - and scrubbing his name from their alumni records? This is a man they’ve had nothing to do with for 17 years and he publishes one controversial article and now they’re going to pretend he never went there.

What’s the point of that? It’s not possible for reaction to be completely rational anymore. It’s always a mixture of the rational - well-articulated counter arguments that destroy his views - with the overblown, that just virtue signal. Why don’t Northwestern, a university for Pete’s sake, publish a response highlighting the importance of doctorates?

So sick of playing fiddle to the Twitter outrage, even when it’s in favour of a view I also share.

“A wise man once said that no one should call himself "Dr." unless he had delivered a child."

Because it's the MEN who deliver the babies...right...of all the things medical doctors do, he had to pick the one thing that takes away from women's role of giving birth.

I hope Dr. Biden never stops using that title.

Apart from absolutely flim-flam doctorates...I believe one is being worked towards by a person who's been much discussed on MN over the last year or two?-the only dodgy ones seemed to be those at Cambridge, which I thought were awarded on application after a set number of years.
It seems that that's not actually the case. www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/your-course/examinations/graduate-exam-information/higher-degrees/higher-doctorates

I wonder what proportion of PhDs etc. generally use the appelation?

This guy, for one:

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/16/sebastian-gorka-likes-to-be-called-dr-gorka-he-gets-his-way-only-in-conservative-media/#click=t.co/RvyKt30CKU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/16/sebastian-gorka-likes-to-be-called-dr-gorka-he-gets-his-way-only-in-conservative-media/#click=t.co/RvyKt30CKU

But sure, go ahead and smear me for having a different opinion.