> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. I had become an environmental studies professor, a member of the East Coast liberal elite, a daughter he was ashamed to introduce to his friends at the Post.

It's pretty clear from the context that it's a "badge of shame" label from the point of view of her father, applied since she went down the path of academia instead of becoming a housewife.