You've probably seen the screenshot of the sexist first paragraph of that wretched shitpile of a "column" in the WSJ by Prof. (not Dr.) Joseph Epstein. The whole thing is a smug fart into his hand and sniffing it. But check out the last paragraph.

So, basically, "shut the fuck up about your academic accomplishments, Jill Biden. And, by the way, you're pretty much living on welfare." The resentment gushes out of Epstein, who only has a B.A., which he thinks is some kind of signifier of something.

Epstein says getting a PhD is a cakewalk, unlike the old days. "Getting a PhD was then an arduous proceeding: One had to pass examinations in two foreign languages, one of them Greek or Latin, defend one’s thesis, and take an oral examination on general knowledge in one’s field."

Lemme get a little elitist on his BA ass: I had to pass exams in two languages. I had to take an oral exam in my field. And I had to defend my dissertation, not my thesis, which is for a Masters. (I had to defend that, too.)

Epstein offers that "In contemporary universities, in the social sciences and humanities, calling oneself Dr. is thought bush league."

Now, I'm no fancy Columbia BA at Northwestern, but my students told me that they wanted to know if I had my doctorate because, to them, that distinguished me from people who didn't have doctorate. One of them told me, "You earned it. You should say it."

The bullshit flow is raging when Epstein says that in "the few doctoral examinations I sat in on during my teaching days, where candidates and teachers addressed one another by first names and the general atmosphere more resembled a kaffeeklatsch."

And, once upon a time, women and non-white people weren't allowed in most institutions. How do the changes that shifts in culture and society bring about cast some kind of negative light on Jill Biden's EdD?

I would note that Epstein is also admitting that he wasn't allowed on dissertation committees because he's not a fucking PhD.

And, at his most absurd and pathetically self-revealing, Epstein says, "The prestige of honorary doctorates has declined even further. Such degrees were once given exclusively to scholars, statesmen, artists and scientists."

Honorary doctorates are a trophy. They have never, ever approached meaning the same as an actual doctorate. When someone calls you an honorary Canadian or something, that doesn't mean you're a citizen.

I'll stop here because, frankly, it's fucking sad, like Epstein looks in the mirror after an accomplished life as an academic and right-wing dickhead, and hates himself for never getting a doctorate so he's got to take it out on those who have them. Especially a woman.

(And I know plenty of people with BAs or MAs or any or no degree who are great professors and writers and everything else. I'm just shitting on this one guy, not all non-PhDs in academia.)