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I’m a Teacher, Letters Matter
Why respect for women in the workplace is still an ongoing battle
An 83-year-old man wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, mansplaining to the world at large that an educated woman, more accurately Dr. Jill Biden is not really a Doctor. And these words, these out of touch scathing words still offend me as an educator and as a woman.
As a daughter of a “Dr.” with an Ed. D that taught at a Community College, I am well aware of the subtle change in someone’s demeanor when they learn he works Community College and not an Ivy League institution. As if there is something less than, or not as when working in a local college. As a teacher in an inner-city school, I am acutely aware of how people’s attitude changes when I tell them I am a teacher. Once again, a subtle cue, a shift of the eyes, society still deems these vocations with contempt — and this needs to change.
The question arises in a recent rebuttal to this piece in The New York Times, raised by the future first, second Gentleman of the United States, Douglas Emhoff, would this story have ever been written as about a man? Of course not. The question is then, why was it written at all? Why was a man without a Doctorate…
