On Doctorates, Language and Debates

Wow, that could’ve gone much better. I feel compelled to give Animal Person readers a bit of backstory, here. When I launched Animal Person in May of 2006, I didn’t have my name on it at all. It simply read: "Deconstructing the language, blah, blah, blah." And when I commented elsewhere, I set up all initial accounts (google, wordpress, whatever) as animalperson.

But then five things happened:

1. I realized that when people see "animalperson" they make assumptions. I don’t know if those assumptions are correct or not, but I know they make them. They might even be biased against me because they don’t consider themselves animal people.
2. I started to think about "animal person" as not that different from "anonymous," and I don’t like that idea, as I don’t want to hide and I don’t like when others hide. I find it dishonest. But that’s me.
3. I discovered that the phrase "animal person" is often used in a derogatory or mocking way. In fact, every time I read Gary Francione and he speaks of "animal people" (and he does always put the phrase in quotes), I cringe ("animal people" and I, "animal person," aren’t really on the same team).
4. I learned more about traffic and blogs, and associating your name is a good idea. HOWEVER, in the event you are a youngin’, let me tell you something about my name. Mary Martin was an actress who first played Peter Pan. I spent my entire childhood telling grown-ups I didn’t know where Tinkerbell was and though I was able to sing and dance, I wouldn’t do so on demand. Mary Martin was also the mother of Larry Hagman, who played Major Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie, and later, JR on Dallas. I spent much of junior and senior high school telling people I did not, in fact, know who shot JR. If I wanted to increase my traffic or ranking, I would have to do something to differentiate myself from Peter Pan. Finally, because Mary Martin is such a common name, it is often already taken as a user name, so I have to use another moniker, and adding the Ph.D. usually does the trick.
5. I turned 40.  My doctorate was never a big deal for me. I got it because it was interesting, not because I planned to be a professor (everyone else in the program did, and now is). I was the square peg who was in it for the fun. I didn’t go to graduation (or my M.A. or B.A. graduation), I didn’t tell anyone I had a doctorate, no one ever calls me Dr. (and they shouldn’t, in my opinion), and when my husband found my dusty diploma a couple of months ago in a closet, he framed it for me. That’s how much I didn’t care about the actual Ph.D. part.

Around the time I was turning 40 at the end of last year, I was bombarded (in my own head) by all of the reasons the title "Animal Person" was a bad idea. But changing it didn’t seem like the best solution. So I added my name and my degree to the banner and I started using Mary Martin when I commented on other blogs if the name was available. Sometimes you can put any name you want and don’t need any kind of account. Believe it or not, the reason I sometimes use Mary Martin, Ph.D. is sheer laziness. It’s the first name that comes up when I type "m," as I use it for business, and if I don’t scroll down it comes up automatically. The ironic part of yesterday’s ridiculousness is that I didn’t put Mary Martin, Ph.D. intentionally!

But because my doctorate is actually relevant, I figured explaining it a bit wouldn’t hurt. With that said, if Applied Linguistics had nothing to do with what I do on my blog, it would indeed be strange or misleading to use it.

Here’s what I learned: Some people do not react kindly when they see a Ph.D. Perhaps they feel as if the person with the Ph.D. is attempting to stake a claim of expertise and they resent that. And because my intention is to raise awareness, educate and help people think critically, using Ph.D. (intentionally or not) may not be beneficial. It may even hurt my cause as the mere presence of the letters makes some people hostile. After nearly a decade with my doctorate in the closet, to dust it off for less than a year, I just might put it back in the closet for some arenas.