As I read Timothy A. Pychyl's insightful post, How Does personality influence blog writing and reading?, new questions arose for me. Tim suggests that readers can begin to construct a portrait of a blogger as they read a series of posts. I began to wonder what a visitor to the Psychology Today blog home might construe about the site. I suspect the visitor would believe that if the PT site had a persona, it would be Caucasian, married with or without kids, partnered with or without kids, straight, obsessed with adultery, sex and romance; and comfortable financially.
I earned my degree in the mid-Seventies. It was a time of radical change in the discipline of Psychology. Women, minorities, gay women and men, people living in poverty, old women and men - all of us who lived on the margins of America - had begun to demand visibility. Researchers began to study a broader range of diverse populations beside white males. The marginalized demanded new texts - and when there weren't any, taught classes using the media of the time: film clips, magazines, advertisements, television segments. Colleges and universities created Women's, African-American, Hispanic-American studies programs and more. I taught Behavioral Analysis of Women's and Men's Roles. My students worked in small groups, interacted with panels of single moms, gay people, women and men of color, old people, sex workers and people living with disabilities. I was one of many teachers working to show our students a reflection of who they and their country really were.
What has happened in twenty-five years? How can a popular website like Psychology Today count only 7 Hispanics, 7 African-Americans, a handful of Asian-Americans and not one Native-American among its 520 bloggers? (I deduced my figures based on blogger names and photographs.) Where are the voices of gay women and men, the voices of those living at poverty level; the views of women and men who have chosen (or not) to live single; the perceptions of women and men choosing not to have children? Where are the voices of bloggers who live on the edges of the "culture"? I know there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women and men who have eschewed what passes for success in this decade. I meet them all the time here in Bend - artists, musicians, restaurant workers, writers, communards, people like my friend Zoey who shares her car with friends - "I call it our Community Car," she tells me.
Minorities represent one third of the American population. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Latin-Americans are the largest "minority" groups. There are roughly five million Native Americans. So why are the demographics of PT bloggers so skewed? Do the numbers reflect the demographics of people with degrees? Do they reflect an unconscious bias on the part of PT? Whatever the reason (And, statisticians, feel free to respond - I admit that my Stat professors were usually brought to tears by my efforts to understand the negative hypothesis or whatever it is.), it's time to take a look at the homogeneity in our blogger ranks. Our readers deserve a mirror that reflects us all.
