This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Joseph Epstein's Wall Street Journal op-ed was terribly sexist and patronizing. Epstein calls her "kiddo?" Give me a break! Why would the WSJ even publish a rant like this? As women in higher education, we work too hard for our titles to be demeaned. Yes, I agree with author Annie Reneau. She responded perfectly with cutting forthrightness to this horrible attempt to disparage her credentials.
Speaking positively, it is exceptional and refreshing to have someone like Dr. Jill Biden in the White House, as she is someone who can help direct public policy in research-informed directions.
If you missed the Wall Street Journal op-ed this weekend that set social media discussions ablaze, here's a brief recap:
Joseph Epstein, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University, penned an opinion piece titled "Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D." that was bafflingly sexist in both its premise and its delivery. After an opening line that read, "Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice..." he proceeded to explain how the doctorate that Dr. Jill Biden earned is not the same as having an M.D., and so she should cease using the title of "Dr."
The entire op-ed reeked of condescension (referring to a grown adult as "kiddo" is rude under any circumstances) and misogyny (imagine addressing an accomplished man in such a manner). It was also just a bizarre and cringe-inducing take overall. Epstein shared how he'd somehow fallen into a 30-year teaching job at Northwestern with just a B.A. degree, whined about the standards for doctorate degrees (which he himself does not have), complained about honorary doctorates (which he does have) and claimed that Dr. Biden using her title of doctor feels "fraudulent" and "comic," despite the fact that she literally has a doctorate in education and teaches at a university where professors with doctorates are generally referred to as "Dr."
People pounced in righteous outrage, and understandably so. Women with doctoral degrees of all kinds changed their handles to include their doctor title. Women and men alike explained why the piece was so incredibly problematic. Female former students of Epstein's shared their experiences in his classes, adding credence to the accusations of misogyny.
Epstein's article seemed more like a rant you'd read in the comments on a YouTube video rather than a serious op-ed in a well-reputed journalistic outlet. What was the point of publishing such a take? It almost feels purposefully designed to get a rise out of the of the left's "politically correct cancel culture," which is just dumb, but here we are. "Look at everyone losing their minds over an academic title, " as if this guy didn't manufacture the controversy in the first place. Seriously, nobody actually cared that she was using her "Dr." title before he made it a thing. Gaslighting at its finest.
While the public reacted as expected, Dr. Biden was quiet about it for nearly two days. Then she put out a one-sentence tweet that was honestly the best possible response she could have given. "Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished," she wrote.
While the beauty of her response is its dignified simplicity, it's also powerful in what it didn't say.
Dr. Biden didn't address, mention, or even allude to Joseph Epstein. While she could have, she didn't get caught up in the mess of debates over sexism, misogyny, mediocre white men failing up in academia, the WSJ editorial dumpster fire, etc., like everyone else on social media. She didn't take the bait or provide any oxygen to the op-ed. She didn't give Epstein any of the attention he seemed so desperate for. Without actually saying it, she basically said, "This drivel is not worthy of my energy," which is exactly how you should handle drivel that isn't worth your energy.
And yet, she did address it. When you are in the public eye and the topic of an article that everyone is talking about, it would be odd to pretend that's not happening. She just addressed it in a way that hit at the heart of the issue, cutting out all the b.s. and acknowledging the fact that women having their accomplishments diminished is something that needs to change. She made it about looking forward and building a future that's better than the past, which is exactly where we need to keep our focus.
Finally, she provided a contrast to what we've become accustomed to seeing in our public discourse, and especially from the White House. In a situation where she could easily have slam-dunked a guy who quite honestly deserved it, she went high. The class and dignity of her tweet highlight a sea change as we leave the era of embarrassing, insulting Twitter rants filled with constant grievances. The maturity is refreshing.
Well done, Dr. Biden. Not only have to earned your title, you've also earned the respect of the people you will be serving.
New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was verbally accosted this week on the steps of our nation's capitol by Congressman Ted Yoho, who represents the 3rd District of Florida (that includes Gainesville and Palm Coast). Check out his website and notice that there is no apology to her for him calling her a "fucking bitch."
These are his words, not mine or AOC's. A reporter heard him, too. Loudly and clearly.
Like she says, violence against women is common. That's no surprise. What is ill-conceived, as she later said on the House floor, is that any man would, knowingly or unknowingly, give permission to another person to act the same way toward their own wife or daughter.
By the looks of it, Yoho had nowhere to hide. Que bien. Good. May this be a helpful lesson to you, Congressman Yoho, about the kind of evil spirit you release when you give yourself permission to be rude and disparaging toward any human being, let alone your formidable congressional colleague.
Shame on you, Congressman Yoho. And shame on anyone who would treat another this way. We, as women, women of color, do not have to accept this.
I urge all to read this story and then listen to her devastating rebuke of Congressman Yoho. View below the pertinent videos on this horrible episode that she fully redeems with her words and acumen. I've viewed her Congressional presentations over the years. AOC is an honest, caring, hard-working person who is courageous, gorgeous, and with a razor sharp intellect that might be what makes her, in Yoho's words, "dangerous."
Thank you, AOC for standing up to this nobody. Yoho's response amounts to fascist gaslighting, where he's telling you and the world what to believe, as opposed to what actually happened, to which a member of the press itself could attest. I am reminded by Hannah Arendt's famous quote:
“the greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.”
The dehumanization of "the other" that Yoho and Trump both enact is at the core of her brilliant rebuke and her refusal to be gaslighted.
AOC, you are a force of nature. God bless you. You are indeed, "dangerous." In all the ways that we and the planet need you to be. The world is in a such better place because you are in it. More power to you!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here in March, spoke on the House floor Thursday to address vulgar and sexist comments she says were directed at her by a Republican colleague.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Updated at 1:26 p.m. ET
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to the House floor Thursday morning to admonish the insults hurled at her by Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., earlier this week.
Yoho confronted Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said, calling her "disgusting" for linking poverty to crime rates in New York City.
"I was minding my own business walking up the steps, and Rep. Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me disgusting. He called me crazy. He called me out of my mind. And he called me dangerous," she said.
The congresswoman said she told Yoho his comments were rude and walked away to cast her vote. Then, as The Hill first reported, Yoho was overheard using a vulgar insult often aimed at women.
"There were reporters in the front of the Capitol, and in front of reporters Rep. Yoho called me, and I quote, a 'f*****g bitch,' " she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho was accompanied by Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, who did not interject on her behalf but instead joined in on insulting her. Williams has denied hearing or participating in the incident.
Ocasio-Cortez, a key voice in the progressive movement and a frequent target of Republicans, said that kind of verbal abuse isn't new and she's concerned about an increasing acceptance of dehumanizing and misogynistic language toward women.
"This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women and an entire structure of power that supports that," she said.
Yoho reflected on his comments a day earlier on the House floor. Without naming Ocasio-Cortez, Yoho apologized for the "abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York."
He said he "cannot apologize for my passion" over the issue of poverty, having experienced it himself.
On the allegation that he used a pejorative, Yoho said, "Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I'm very cognizant of my language. The offensive name-calling, words attributed to me by the press, were never spoken to my colleagues, and if they were construed that way, I apologize for their misunderstanding."
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho's comments on Wednesday prompted her to address the controversy. She described his remarks as making "excuses for his behavior."
"I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse, and worse, to see that. To see that excuse, and see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand," she said.
She reprimanded Yoho for using his family members as a "shield" for his foul language.
"Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize," she said.
"I am someone's daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter," she went on to say. "My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men."
Following Ocasio-Cortez's remarks, Democratic colleagues joined in condemning Yoho's comments and called on him to issue a formal apology.
"What my colleague from Florida did was unacceptable," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. "It was violent. It was sexist. And I do believe he needs to apologize. Not because it's going to make our colleague Ms. Ocasio-Cortez feel any better, but because he too needs to learn what unacceptable behavior looks like and rise to the level of the office that he has been elected to."
Speaking to reporters later on Thursday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he thought Yoho's response was sufficient.
"In America, I know people make mistakes. We're a forgiving nation. I also think when someone apologizes, they should be forgiven," he said. "I don't understand that we're going to take another hour on the floor to debate whether the apology was good enough or not."
Asked if his party had a "women problem," McCarthy said there are more women in the Republican Party running for Congress than at any other time in history.
In her weekly press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Yoho's comments a "manifestation of attitudes in our society" and noted that she has been called offensive names for the past 18 years.
"The word I use for them is 'condescending' in addition to being disrespectful," Pelosi said.
"There's no limit to the disrespect or the lack of acknowledgement of the strength of women and nothing is more wholesome for our government, for our politics, for our country, than the increased participation of women and women will be treated with respect," she said.
For his ultimate victory, it wasn't the case that Trump tapped into a benign, chivalrous kind of sexism that may be characterized as in the realm of "traditional values" with respect to women's roles in society, rather according to research cited below, "[he's] getting
support from people who are hostile toward women’s economic and legal
equality and who think feminism is making America worse."
Though the pertinent research referenced below doesn't break this down, this obviously also captures the sentiments of some women themselves who have patriarchal views. What's interesting is that we in the U.S. are often quick to thumb our noses in arrogance against other, frequently Islamist, countries for their systems of government and society where men hold the social, economic, political, and cultural power from which women are largely excluded, yet fail to see this happening within the context of our own country and society.
Clearly, men's loss of centrality is what is at stake here. While we clearly need a revived women's movement that keeps pushing forward for women's rights and equity-based policies and practices, the election itself is in part a reaction against what I think to be an inexorable progression of women's call for equality in U.S. society.
Sorry, sexists. The genie's out of the bottle and your own families are the better for it.
Since the start of the Republican primaries, hundreds of
thousands of words and hours of television airtime have been devoted to
one question: What do Donald Trump’s supporters want? The 42 percent of Americans supporting Trump have been studied and caricatured and psychoanalyzed.
But there’s another important factor that these analyses
have largely left out: sexism. Three political scientists who studied
the connection between sexism, emotions, and support for Trump found that the more hostile voters were toward women, the more likely they were to support Trump.
Researchers Carly Wayne, Nicholas Valentino and Marzia Oceno, who wrote about their work for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage,
conducted their research before the revelation of the secret recording
that captured Trump bragging about kissing and groping women without
their permission, and before more than a dozen women came forward to
accuse Trump of sexual assault in the aftermath of its release.
While it might not seem surprising now that Trump has
galvanized sexists, their findings suggest that sexism played a much
bigger role in his rise than most people realized or wanted to imagine.
How “hostile sexism” predicts support for Trump
Sexism has largely been overlooked as a major factor in
voters’ decisions to support Donald Trump. That would be understandable
if it were simply one factor among many — one prejudice among the many
that Hillary Clinton called the “basket of deplorables … racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
But Wayne, Valentino, and Oceno’s research, conducted in
June, found hostility toward women was a major factor, predicting
support for Trump more strongly than authoritarian attitudes and about
as well as racial prejudice. The political scientists used a
four-question survey to determine sexist attitudes, asking if people
agreed with the following statements:
Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.
Many women are actually seeking special favors, such as
hiring policies that favor women over men, under the guise of asking for
equality.
Feminists are not actually seeking for women to have more power than men.
Feminists are making entirely reasonable demands of men.
The survey also asked how strongly respondents supported
Clinton or Trump. The higher they were on the sexism scale, the more
likely they were to support Trump and the less likely they were to
support Clinton. Hostile sexism was nearly as good at predicting support
for Trump as party identification was.
Sexism — and particularly anti-feminism — isn’t
politically neutral. Many conservative women have come forward to say
they’re horrified by Donald Trump, but sexism has been correlated with
support for other Republican candidates as well. In studies of voters in 2008 and 2012, traditional beliefs about gender and hostility toward feminism were also linked to much lower support for Hillary Clinton.
“It’s the kind of sorting that people do to go into one
party or the other,” said Wayne, a PhD candidate in political science at
the University of Michigan. Republicans “tend to have attitudes that
are more traditionalist, more old-fashioned, less likely to want the
kinds of changes that feminism, for example, is pushing.”
Wayne said she couldn’t compare how sexist attitudes
nationally had correlated with support for Republicans in previous
elections, so she couldn’t say if Trump made the situation better or
worse. But Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, used the same survey as part of a poll in New
Hampshire, and found that sexism was a much bigger factor in the 2016
election than it was in 2012:
Clinton’s candidacy is another piece of important context
— it’s possible that strong support for Trump among sexists is in part a
reaction to the first woman who could plausibly be elected president —
but Schaffner’s findings back up the idea that Trump’s core supporters
are unusually hostile toward women and feminism.
Trump isn’t just tapping into “traditional values”
Trump’s support among sexists doesn’t seem to be a
function of the traditional, old-fashioned “family values” usually
associated with the Republican Party.
In a survey in August, Wayne and her co-authors measured
the impact of a different kind of “old-fashioned” view about women’s
roles: the belief that women are different from men because they’re
physically weaker and more morally pure. They asked survey respondents
if they agreed with the following statements:
In a disaster, women should be rescued before men.
Women have a quality of purity that few men possess.
Men should be willing to sacrifice their own well-being in order to provide for the women in their lives.
Every man ought to have a woman whom he adores.
The questions measure “benevolent sexism” — a
traditional, chivalrous view of men and women’s proper roles. Benevolent
sexism can still undermine women’s equality because it paints women as
weaker and more in need of male protection. Unlike its more hostile
counterpart, though, benevolent sexism didn’t correlate much at all with
support for Trump, at least before the leaked Access Hollywood
tape. (Unlike the study on hostile sexism, the researchers didn’t use a
representative national sample but rather an online survey. But the
results were weighted for partisan identity, and Wayne says it was a
high-quality sample.)
“The hostile sexism is highly correlated, but the
benevolent sexism really is not,” Wayne said. “I found this result
particularly interesting in the aftermath of some of the fallout from
Trump’s tape. … There were a lot of Republicans saying they were against
Trump’s statements because of their daughters and wives.”
Trump, in other words, isn’t just drawing from a base of
people who have traditional views about women’s roles. He’s getting
support from people who are hostile toward women’s economic and legal
equality and who think feminism is making America worse.
Trump’s sexism was hidden in plain sight
It shouldn’t be surprising that Trump is the candidate of
choice for people who believe that allegations of sexism are mostly
made up and that feminism is really a ploy to get men on the losing side
of a zero-sum status competition between the sexes. Trump’s misogyny has been a core part of his public persona for a long time.
Long before many of the sexual assault allegations
emerged, Trump made clear, in public and private, that women matter to
him not as people but as sex objects. Even with women whom he supposedly
likes and admires, he’s made clear that he values their looks above all
else. He turned his attitudes into discriminatory policies in his
offices, at his resorts, and on his TV show, harassing women he found
attractive and urging his employees to fire those he did not.
In the vast American soul-searching
over why people might want to vote for Trump, sexism has gotten short
shrift. That might be because Trump’s blatantly sexist remarks were
generally not a part of his political campaign or preferred policies,
unlike his hostility toward immigrants and Muslims and his constant
reiteration that African Americans live in a wasteland of crime and
violence.
But even if his misogyny was more muted in the early days of the campaign, it appears to have found a receptive audience.
Since the start of the Republican primaries, hundreds of
thousands of words and hours of television airtime have been devoted to
one question: What do Donald Trump’s supporters want? The 42 percent of Americans supporting Trump have been studied and caricatured and psychoanalyzed.
But there’s another important factor that these analyses
have largely left out: sexism. Three political scientists who studied
the connection between sexism, emotions, and support for Trump found that the more hostile voters were toward women, the more likely they were to support Trump.
Researchers Carly Wayne, Nicholas Valentino and Marzia Oceno, who wrote about their work for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage,
conducted their research before the revelation of the secret recording
that captured Trump bragging about kissing and groping women without
their permission, and before more than a dozen women came forward to
accuse Trump of sexual assault in the aftermath of its release.
While it might not seem surprising now that Trump has
galvanized sexists, their findings suggest that sexism played a much
bigger role in his rise than most people realized or wanted to imagine.
How “hostile sexism” predicts support for Trump
Sexism has largely been overlooked as a major factor in
voters’ decisions to support Donald Trump. That would be understandable
if it were simply one factor among many — one prejudice among the many
that Hillary Clinton called the “basket of deplorables … racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
But Wayne, Valentino, and Oceno’s research, conducted in
June, found hostility toward women was a major factor, predicting
support for Trump more strongly than authoritarian attitudes and about
as well as racial prejudice. The political scientists used a
four-question survey to determine sexist attitudes, asking if people
agreed with the following statements:
Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.
Many women are actually seeking special favors, such as
hiring policies that favor women over men, under the guise of asking for
equality.
Feminists are not actually seeking for women to have more power than men.
Feminists are making entirely reasonable demands of men.
The survey also asked how strongly respondents supported
Clinton or Trump. The higher they were on the sexism scale, the more
likely they were to support Trump and the less likely they were to
support Clinton. Hostile sexism was nearly as good at predicting support
for Trump as party identification was.
Sexism — and particularly anti-feminism — isn’t
politically neutral. Many conservative women have come forward to say
they’re horrified by Donald Trump, but sexism has been correlated with
support for other Republican candidates as well. In studies of voters in 2008 and 2012, traditional beliefs about gender and hostility toward feminism were also linked to much lower support for Hillary Clinton.
“It’s the kind of sorting that people do to go into one
party or the other,” said Wayne, a PhD candidate in political science at
the University of Michigan. Republicans “tend to have attitudes that
are more traditionalist, more old-fashioned, less likely to want the
kinds of changes that feminism, for example, is pushing.”
Wayne said she couldn’t compare how sexist attitudes
nationally had correlated with support for Republicans in previous
elections, so she couldn’t say if Trump made the situation better or
worse. But Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, used the same survey as part of a poll in New
Hampshire, and found that sexism was a much bigger factor in the 2016
election than it was in 2012:
Clinton’s candidacy is another piece of important context
— it’s possible that strong support for Trump among sexists is in part a
reaction to the first woman who could plausibly be elected president —
but Schaffner’s findings back up the idea that Trump’s core supporters
are unusually hostile toward women and feminism.
Trump isn’t just tapping into “traditional values”
Trump’s support among sexists doesn’t seem to be a
function of the traditional, old-fashioned “family values” usually
associated with the Republican Party.
In a survey in August, Wayne and her co-authors measured
the impact of a different kind of “old-fashioned” view about women’s
roles: the belief that women are different from men because they’re
physically weaker and more morally pure. They asked survey respondents
if they agreed with the following statements:
In a disaster, women should be rescued before men.
Women have a quality of purity that few men possess.
Men should be willing to sacrifice their own well-being in order to provide for the women in their lives.
Every man ought to have a woman whom he adores.
The questions measure “benevolent sexism” — a
traditional, chivalrous view of men and women’s proper roles. Benevolent
sexism can still undermine women’s equality because it paints women as
weaker and more in need of male protection. Unlike its more hostile
counterpart, though, benevolent sexism didn’t correlate much at all with
support for Trump, at least before the leaked Access Hollywood
tape. (Unlike the study on hostile sexism, the researchers didn’t use a
representative national sample but rather an online survey. But the
results were weighted for partisan identity, and Wayne says it was a
high-quality sample.)
“The hostile sexism is highly correlated, but the
benevolent sexism really is not,” Wayne said. “I found this result
particularly interesting in the aftermath of some of the fallout from
Trump’s tape. … There were a lot of Republicans saying they were against
Trump’s statements because of their daughters and wives.”
Trump, in other words, isn’t just drawing from a base of
people who have traditional views about women’s roles. He’s getting
support from people who are hostile toward women’s economic and legal
equality and who think feminism is making America worse.
Trump’s sexism was hidden in plain sight
It shouldn’t be surprising that Trump is the candidate of
choice for people who believe that allegations of sexism are mostly
made up and that feminism is really a ploy to get men on the losing side
of a zero-sum status competition between the sexes. Trump’s misogyny has been a core part of his public persona for a long time.
Long before many of the sexual assault allegations
emerged, Trump made clear, in public and private, that women matter to
him not as people but as sex objects. Even with women whom he supposedly
likes and admires, he’s made clear that he values their looks above all
else. He turned his attitudes into discriminatory policies in his
offices, at his resorts, and on his TV show, harassing women he found
attractive and urging his employees to fire those he did not.
In the vast American soul-searching
over why people might want to vote for Trump, sexism has gotten short
shrift. That might be because Trump’s blatantly sexist remarks were
generally not a part of his political campaign or preferred policies,
unlike his hostility toward immigrants and Muslims and his constant
reiteration that African Americans live in a wasteland of crime and
violence.
But even if his misogyny was more muted in the early days of the campaign, it appears to have found a receptive audience.
