Just riffing on Sheila Kennedy’s blog post about that WSJ column that criticized Dr. Jill Biden’s use of the title “Dr.” I didn’t read the column – because when’s the last time I found something useful in the Wall Street Journal opinion pages? but I heard about it because my wife definitely recognized the sexism at the root of the column. (Short version – as I understand it – she shouldn’t go by “doctor” because she holds a Ph.D. instead of an MD. Which is nonsense.)
Anyway, it made me think of a more or less conscious decision I made at some point to go by “Doug” in my professional career as often as I can. There are some pretentious gasbags in the legal profession (but not as many as you might think), and I didn’t want to be lumped in with them. Mr. Douglas J. Masson, Esq., JD or whatever, just isn’t my style. And, I kind of roll my eyes when someone has an email signature with a bunch of letters indicating certifications and credentials appended to the end. I’m glad you have expertise that will inform your work, but I’m going to have to see the expertise in action. The credentials themselves are not going to impress me. I’ve never been one to be awed by people with a lot of education or to conclude someone isn’t smart for lack of an education. (The “aww shucks” farmers will often fleece you faster than the guy with the MBA.)
That said, over the years I’ve become more aware that my ability to pull off the “just Doug” thing as a professional is something that, to a certain extent, comes from a place of privilege. Almost everything about me conforms to traditional notions of what it means to be a professional: I’m an upper middle-class educated white male with a neutral accent and (pre-COVID) often dressed in a coat and tie. I can be slightly transgressive by using my first name with no credentials because that’s not going to stop anyone from taking me seriously. (And, I guess for the few who will treat me dismissively on account of not putting on airs, I’m happy enough that they won’t see me coming.) When I was a college student, I was a work-study employee in one of the departments, and there was a professor who — at the time — struck me as being a little more insistent than everyone else about making sure everyone called her by her title. I generally went out of my way to call everyone Mr., Mrs., Dr., Professor, or whatever was appropriate just as a matter of course. But seeing her correct others on a few occasions was, nevertheless, a little off-putting. What I had no appreciation of at the time was the context in which she was doing this. I’m sure she had to fight a little harder for respect than the men in her field.
I don’t have a huge point to make here. Just noting a bit of the cultural context in which the discussion of titles is taking place.
You may think you have a neutral accent – move to Minnesota and they’ll ask you what part of the South you’re from…;>)
Ya sure, you betcha!
Haha.
Crick instead of creek, wush instead of wash grew up in Milwaukee – moved to Elwood Indiana when I was 11. I was wondering what part of the South we moved to.
The most irritating professor I had in undergrad was the one who was overly insistent on having everyone call him by his first name. Which made me – and pretty much everyone else in that first year class – kind of uncomfortable. Basically because he was requiring us to call him by a term we reserved for friends and peers…and he wasn’t one of those; he was an authority figure. Who was also 30 years older than we were. Neither I nor anyone else I knew at the time perceived using titles as being any any way demeaning – we called professors “professor” because that was the custom; it wasn’t really a sign of respect or lack of respect…it was just what we called them.
As lawyers are roughly peers with other lawyers, I would, of course, balk at any convention requiring, say, big firm partners to be addressed as Mr. or Ms.., while public defenders had to go by their first names. Although all-in-all I’d rather everyone use Mr./Ms. vs. everyone using first names. Not because *I* want to be called Mr., but because I prefer the distancing that I get by being allowed to call other people Mr. or Ms. X.
I do hear you on that. There have been some friends of parents over the years who have asked that I call them by their first name once I became an adult. It’s almost impossible for me, so I tend to thread the needle by not calling them anything.
I’m in the same boat with parents of the friends I’ve known for 30+ years now. I try to respect their request, but old habits are hard to break and I think that’s understood.