Almost every day, someone new mocks ABC broadcaster Dr Julia Baird on her Twitter feed for her use of the honorific ‘Dr’.

Just this week twitter user Louise Christensen let rip: “A doctor should only ever be associated with the medical profession. Every other doctor is just a wank certificate torn from the top of a cornflakes packet. Yours especially Julia [Baird].”

Dr Baird, journalist and host of ABC’s The Drum, who received her PhD in history from the University of Sydney in 2001, only started using the Dr title on her feed as an experiment – to see how much hate it would generate.

She explained this on June 28 in a piece for The New York Times.

“It had never occurred to me to add ‘PhD’ to my name on Twitter until I was slammed for mentioning that I had one,” she wrote.

Just changed my twitter title @bairdjulia https://t.co/yGyhvR1Jlc

— Dr Catherine Hanrahan (@CathHanrahan1) July 5, 2018

Dr Baird believes male academics don’t get as much stick for wearing their honorifics as women do.

As she told The New Daily: “There’s been a strong reaction from women around the world on this specific question. It’s quite fascinating.

“There’s a lot of women who have been discouraged or even shamed about using the title doctor. It’s quite weird.”

Dr Baird doesn’t require people to call her doctor. She doesn’t use the honorific in her journalism. And otherwise rarely uses it. Still, the pile-on continues.

Doctorate-shaming is a thing…for women. Dr Baird’s experience is far too common among female-presenting #GlobalHealth academics — in their work online and inside the academy. #Globalhealth5050 https://t.co/WYhEoKHFQO

— Benjamin Mason Meier (@BenjaminMMeier) June 30, 2018

Mark Latham, former Labor leader and endless source of goodwill and cheer, mocked her piece forThe New York Times: “Another classic Julia Baird ME, ME, ME whinge about nothing.”

Maybe not. In 2009, Jill Biden, wife of former US Vice-President Joe Biden, was mildly roughed up by the Los Angeles Times for carrying the Dr title in White House press releases.

She earned a PhD in education from the University of Delaware in 2007.

As the LA Times noted: “This strikes some people as perfectly appropriate and others as slightly pompous, a quality often ascribed to her voluble husband.”

The Dr issue is a contested one, even among academics.

My favorite version of this (which happens ALL the time) is when on a panel, my male colleagues are referred to as “Dr” (even happens when male colleague doesn’t have a PhD) and I’m referred to simply as “Alina.” https://t.co/ZgHxCkkMou

— Dr Alina Polyakova (@apolyakova) June 30, 2018

A few dozen learned souls have thrashed out whether “Is it obnoxious to use the title Dr if you have a PhD” on question and answer site Quora.com.

“After years of study I was very proud of myself for earning a PhD at first, but this wears off after a while,” Bruce Johnstone, an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Management at Monash University, confessed.

“I decided to use Dr on my bank and airline profile in the hope I might receive better treatment. But I doubt it really makes any difference.

“As a university lecturer, I am Dr on email signature and business cards. But my students are expected to use my first name, as I call them by their first names.

“When I worked at a big advisory firm in London I never used the title Dr at all … Socially I am happy to be Mr or Dr and avoid mentioning it.

“Insisting on the title of Dr socially? I am afraid that would be a bit obnoxious,” Dr Johnstone said.

Jane Fynes-Clinton runs the journalism program at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

She uses the title at work – as do her fellow academics – but finds almost constantly, outside the university, she’s greeted with a raised eyebrow.

“With something like a PhD, it’s very hard-earned. Yet there’s this derision that you’ve been navel gazing for several years and now they’ve given you a piece of paper,” Dr Fynes-Clinton said.

Still, she makes the point that using the title is best reserved for use in a professional context.

Both Dr Baird and Dr Fynes-Clinton observed that the dissing of the Doctor is but one more sign of a broader erosion of respect and civility.

“The only people being called Mr and Mrs these days are school teachers by their charges,” says Dr Fynes-Clinton.

Social researcher David Chalke agrees.

“There has been an undermining of confidence in all elements of the establishment: politics, church, the media, all have lost status and credibility in the community. And with that has come the sense that to call yourself ‘doctor’ or ‘professor’ is an affectation.

“The general mood has gone that way: we’re wary of pretension, experts and overblown promises.”