It doesn’t surprise me that the man whining that doctorates only count if they are in medicine has only an honorary degree himself. The people who rush to act as gatekeepers are often the ones who are most insecure about whether they themselves belong: the act of kicking someone else out of the clubhouse is meant to cement their own right to be there. The same man whines that honorary degrees don’t mean what they used to back in his day—again, feeling his own standing threatened, his impulse is to see who he can kick out to prove not only that he belongs, but that he is empowered to decide who is in and who is out.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about academia, the literary scene, the Jewish community, or politics—gatekeeping is a symptom of a poisoned system where people do not feel valued. A healthy system needs people with a variety of specialties in order to thrive. Therefore, there can’t be one single measure of success or belonging for everyone. In a toxic system, members feel their position, power, or identity is threatened, and that the only way to gain or regain security is to throw someone else out. The problem is that once you’ve thrown someone out, you’ve proven people CAN be thrown out, so ironically, you’re now even less secure.

Absolutely, Dr Biden should be addressed by her title. Absolutely, we need to have more conversations about how often we question the credentials of women and other people from marginalized groups. But I’d love it if we could also have conversations about how toxic systems encourage us to attack others when we feel squeezed out, because we need to fix those systems and stop letting the conversation be defined by the insecurities of people who see their privilege and status evaporating.