Oh yes, all she has to do is "pregnancy" which she can and will do on command! Phones are not your only weak suit, my friend.

Absolutely. I'm so glad Jez has hired a woman of color to write about these issues, but THIS woman of color seems more interested in getting into weird petty fights with commenters then insisting she is right because she can "just tell" what the commenter is like. Super-derailer.

I perfected this in my early 20s when I had a despicable boss who rambled, and I discovered that if I just stayed quiet he would inevitably trip over himself to reveal something awful and then he'd be afraid of me. People will try to fill up a silence with anything, and its a good way to learn what's up.

"Welcoming and hiding"? Hiding from whom? The gender-police? Scary stuff.

In our house likewise. We're always saying "Carcetti wouldn't do that! He was ethical!"

It's basically a mad lib a la "we found this impossibly _____ heel that is just the right kind of ____y for a brunch with your most stylish friend" and always they discovered it at a French flea market or something but just happened to find a good substitute for only $300. The repetitive and banal writing is just a…

I most definitely want everyone to know who's right, because people who are unhappy when they become aware they are wrong instead of taking it as an opportunity to learn are losers, and I want to stay away from them.

I'm not saying they SHOULD feel guilty about it, just that they're terrible people if they don't! Why's everyone picking on me?

Let me quote you to you: "It just seems like people are much more callous than I would have imagined." And this was not you summarizing the anti-choice dogma, this was your own feelings. So, unless you mean something value-neutral or positive in calling someone "callous," you are being highly judgmental. I'm curious…

LOVE IT. Yeah, he's sick, but he's not gonna get better, and in the meantime he's taking up the space of people with something valuable to say and being given a huge platform. Let's ignore.

I heard that God Will But I Won't was a Julia response (not really, but it should have been).

Isn't it? I don't even know why I'm replying, except to say: IT IS!

Well yes, that's exactly what it does. It doesn't make you an MD, no. But I would disagree anyway—when you're deciding whether a suicidal person needs a higher level of care, as a psychologist, it can be life-or-death. By your logic very few MDs would even qualify for the title doctor, as they aren't frequently in…

Could you give me a more concrete example? "Medical advice" is pretty vague. If he's giving people life-coach kind of advice ("you need to stop letting other people run your life!" etc), well, that's within the scope of all humans, especially humans with talk shows. Is he telling people that he's a licensed…

In what way does he "act" like it?

Then you, beautiful person, are a true friend to all the non-MD doctors, so often dismissed!

You don't have to be licensed to be called doctor, if you have a doctorate. That's how it works.

Of course it qualifies someone. I REALLY don't like Dr Phil, but I'm a clinical psychologist and the idea that we aren't "real" doctors is full-on bullshit. It's not easy to get a doctorate. (BTW, I'm not mad at you, just frustrated!)

He IS a real doctor. He may be an unlicensed, incompetent fame whore, but he earned that PhD and the right to his title.

Oh God, yes. I always want to say, look, this is a distraction if you think that you're gonna keep yourself safe by being a cool girl who embraces misogyny (the boys will like me, I'm one of the good ones!), you are deluded. But then I would sound like an old grandma from the early 90s!