Higher Education

Can you trust us?

Firstly, I need to state my enduring love for Maggie Smith in all her roles. My mom and I watched many of her performances together and she has always been a joint favorite. Secondly, I’m not sure which movie this is because apparently I’m not as much of a geek as I thought, so … Copyright JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. (Please don’t sue me, I love your movies and books and stuff.) Also apparently Prof. McGonagall’s classroom is one of the rooms off of the Durham Cathedral cloisters. I did peer through the lock because shut up, of course I did and …. yeah, confirmed.

As I do regularly, I’m going to open with my personal experience. I hold a doctorate degree. My doctorate is from Durham which is one of the more respected UK schools. It’s basically an Ivy League degree. I’m not saying this to brag, but the reputation of various schools throughout the world is pertinent to this discussion. Anyway, none of this will come as a surprise to those of you who have seen my other social media handles because I’m usually quite out there and honest with the fact that I’ve been building up my education my entire life.

I do use my title, Dr., basically everywhere and if someone calls me Miss or Ms. I correct them. Now, the reason I do this is tied in directly with feminism. My academic title does not make any sense to use outside of a situation where we are actively talking about archaeology, osteology, or pathology. And arguably morphometrics but that’s another story entirely. The reason I insist on it is because any other title refers to my relationship with men. To me, that’s even less relevant. If I wish to tell you about my father I shall and if I decide to tell you the paternity of my children that is also my decision and is unrelated to the remainder of my identity. Regardless of how you feel about it you are getting more pertinent information about me using the title Dr. than you would using Miss, Mrs. or Ms. And of course there’s this and…