¡Ya basta! It is daily that many women are mocked for being accomplished. It is especially disheartening after having striven hard to do so, become so– often having raised children, held a job and going to school all at the same time.
If I had a cut for every put down, every mockery, every slam, every slur, every exclusion, every devaluation, every ‘cant you take a joke’ faux cover, wanting to un-name me, tame me- shame me… I would be one continuous walking head to foot laceration.
You hope it will stop. You pray and work toward a better day. You strive to return gentle but strong response to those who are careless in tossing off who you truly are, via their brand of harshness. You hope that everyone will grow into kindness. Not look down on others. That you and all others will be seen for the heart carried, the skills and talents brought to earth and worked hard to hone.
But, we’re not there yet. Every day there are hundreds and thousands of reminders:::
Viz: Today a Wall Street Journal opinionizer went after Dr. Jill Biden, saying she ought to drop the title Dr. as she ‘only’ has a doctorate in Education, and he said, amongst other things, [excuse me for giving the vata hand and warning growl, lol] that if one wants to carry the title Dr.– they better have delivered babies.
Dr. Jill Biden is a Community College professor, dedicated to helping educate souls at Community College, offering oppty for a door into higher education to many.
The WSJ opiner, mocked her doctoral dissertation [opiner has a B.A.] which was about retention of students at the Community College level– one of the most critical aspects of higher education anywhere; an entire economy and sets of services to the students that must be built and rebuilt critically for every age, every group.
Thus Dr. Biden serves many, who like me when I started out to try to go to college for the first time in 1976 at 27 years of age [way too old according to certain opining people back then], could in no way, with a little baby on my hip [You cant go to college carrying a baby. {I did}], and renting in the rundown part of town [you want a degree? What’s wrong with your waitress, bakery, delivery jobs?} — I couldn’t afford a four year college.
But I found Community College and the big day came; I’d saved my money but could only afford to take one set of classes… It was alright. It was an exciting start to a true future for us, I thought.
But… after tearfully literally being unable to find the front door to the school, trying door after locked door on the outside of the building, weeping, with my baby in a little carrier on my back… a wonderful elder gent who was a janitor showed me the front door. The door was recessed under a long tunnel alcove. He said with such smiling soft eyes, ‘Leetle babie go to colich too?’ I love and thank him still, even though he is in heaven now, having walked onward long ago. Thank you Santiago!
And from there, at community college, we were received with a warm and wondrous welcome — we so often the cast-offs, the neglected, the overlooked, the kicked to the side… those deemed not able to do better. We became friends: Vietnam vets in chairs, persons with cerebral palsy literally on their stomachs on gurney, persons with double arm brace crutches, mothers, fathers, elders, young people, mid aged persons, all persons with dreams and all hoping so very much to learn and to go forth into the world, heads held high.
We made friends with our community college professors — several are still my friends 44 years later. A couple decades after my graduation from community college, I was highly awarded by Red Rocks Community College [at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains] where I’d graduated before searching, searching and eventually finding my way to finish my B.A at a four year, then graduate Doctorate, then post-Doctoral diploma as a certified psychoanalyst by charter of Zurich, Switzerland.
I sewed my and my little child’s clothes back then, and bought from Goodwill. Now all these decades later, I buy at Ebay. lol. The striving was harsh and I was determined. No one helped. There were no scholarships of merit for women back then. Raising dear child, school full time, full time work, federal loans. It can be done. And by age 54 I was able to pay off all my humongous loans completely.
It is good to recall that Dr. Biden obtained her doctorate from the University of Delaware in 2007 at age 55 after 15 years of school and work while raising her three children. Huge effort over many years with so very serious responsibilities. No breeze.
As role model, Dr. Jill Biden thereby gives students that kind of head start for souls of all ages to learn, to keep going, to succeed, to rise up. I cant think of any thing that is greater help/ equalizer/ than a blessed education. To be ‘walked with’ especially at the beginning, when one has little confidence and is often unsure. To be walked with is so holy. That Dr. Biden does.
So after WSJ published online the opiner’s attack, Dr. Jill Biden’s spokesperson, Mr. Michael LaRosa, put on his actually graceful ‘let’s rumble’ voice and shot back at the opiner at Wall Street Journal. As did other prominent Ph.D’s, Psy.D’s, D.Ed’s, etc. on Twitter, all of whom earned and use the title Dr. Anthropologists, Social Workers, Educators, Researchers, Psychologists, Sociologists and many more who’d worked for their doctorates in diverse in-depth studies.
Some few didnt care one way or the other, but I’d suggest esp those who were first in family to graduate high school let alone doctoral studies, those who came from near nothing, those who had many challenges whilst going to doctoral studies re health, family, economics, pragmatics … seemed inclined to use, as I think they ought, for they’ve done the long hard work… the appellation Doctor.
This is part of WSJ’ opiner’s words at WSJ
“Madame First Lady — Mrs. Biden — Jill — kiddo,” … “A bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name? ‘Dr. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.”
Mr. LaRosa tweeted to James Taranto, the Journal’s editorial features editor, who oversees the op-ed pages at WSJ
[Y]ou and the @WSJ should be embarrassed to print the disgusting and sexist attack on @DrBiden running on the @WSJopinion page,” LaRosa tweeted. “If you had any respect for women at all you would remove this repugnant display of chauvinism from your paper and apologize to her.”
Then… Northwestern University weighed in within hours of the WSJ article, writing the facts about said opiner’s time teaching at NU, which amounted to it seemed, far less, and not tenured nor constant, contrary to what opiner inferred as heavy time at NU, in his article.
Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, hit opiner head on: “This story would never have been written about a man,” he tweeted.
Back to my laughing/snarl: the opiner’s idea that delivering a baby is = to dr. title.…
Viz Opiner says “A wise man once said that no one should call himself “Dr.” unless he has delivered a child. Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.”
I have only two things to say re opiner at this point:
Don’t be silly. WE HAVE delivered babies vato, our OWN children!
AND supported and assisted other women who have given birth.
The ultimate! The truly hard work.
And also, re Dr. Biden, for my part, the word Warrior righteously goes before her title Doctor.
So it goes.
Sometimes it’s a 1950 freeze in some people’s minds
even though we have evolved seventy years forward since then
to now near 2021.
Let us pray.
And continue to act toward best parity, best opportunities for all.
For most of us, all we want is opportunity
and some part blessing, thus we run strong.
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Reyés,
Diplomate Psychoanalyst by charter of Zurich Switzerland,
Post-trauma recovery specialist, beginning at Hines Hospital VA in 1965.
Helper/healer in our mestizo Chicana traditions.
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Reyés isa mestiza Chicana activist in service of the voiceless; as a post-trauma recovery specialist, psychoanalyst of 50 years clinical practice; and as a journalist covering stories of human suffering and hope. Her doctorate is in ethnographic-clinical psychology, the study of diverse cultural, political, corporate, and religious groups with emphasis on world indigenous history.
She is an author, poet, storyteller, a recognized world-wide initiator of the return of healing stories. As post-trauma recovery specialist, she served at Columbine High School and community for three years after the massacre. She continues to work with 9-11 survivor families on both coasts, and is known internationally for her Estés International Post-trauma Recovery Protocol used to deputize citizens quickly to help in the aftermath of disasters.
Her books are published in 42 foreign languages. She is Managing Editor and Columnist writing on politics, business and culture at the political newsblog, The Moderate Voice. She occasionally writes for the Huffington Post, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and an archive of her columns on culture and social justice can be found at National Catholic Reporter online, under her work called El Rio Debajo Del Rio, “The River Beneath the River.”
She was Governor Romer and Governor Owens appointed Chair of the Colorado State Grievance Board for thirteen years for the Department of Regulatory Agencies. She made her premiere in spoken word with Dr. Toni Morrison and Dr. Maya Angelou at Carnegie Hall in 2000.
She is currently writing post-trauma recovery protocol in Spanish, English, and with translators’ assistance, 3 Mayan languages for the thousands of beleaguered children kidnapped from their families at the southern border of the United States. She just completed, with a translator, the translation of the Estés Post-trauma Recovery Protocol into Arabic for the people of Beirut who are suffering the aftermath of the huge explosions there recently. She is completing the ‘rape recovery and re-blessing of the soul’ manual from English to Lingala [via translators] for the Congolese people who have suffered heinous intrusions during the ongoing wars. The Post-trauma Recovery Protocol is also in the midst of translation into Luo, for Ugandans striving to help those who were once child soldiers, now in their thirties.
Her two forthcoming books: La Pasionaria: A Manifesto of the Creative Spirit [Sounds True Press]; and La Curandera, Healing in Two Worlds [Texas A & M University Press]
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