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There's a conversation going on at BlogHer that I've been having with myself for more than a year: Where are all the middle-aged women bloggers? | BlogHer? Cecelia over at MetaFootnotes started
it several weeks ago when she introduced herself to BlogHer. She wrote
about trying to find "a voice that I want to hear." That voice is of a
woman in her midlife (fill in the age range yourself; these days when
60 is the new 50 and 50 is the new 40--who knows).
"I'll
admit it. I envy the mommybloggers. Twenty years ago . . . I would have
found those sites a lifeline, a very Godsend. But, despite the obvious
fact that theirs are among the most powerful and prolific voices on the
Web, the Mommys don't speak to or for me. I have different issues now,
and I'd like to talk about them and hear others talk as well."
Cecelia finishes by putting a call out:
"If
you are a woman of a certain age (and doesn't that sound better than
middle-aged?) and know of blogs that talk comprehensively about this
wonderful, frustrating stage of life, please let me know."
Almost four weeks later, we're still talking and the topic is getting
stronger and stronger. I'm going to link at the end to all the women
who have (thus far) taken part in the conversation, but in this post, I
want to highlight a few voices, as well as my own experience.
I've
been blogging for, I dunno, four years now (see how the memory goes!)
and for much of that time I've felt like I am swimming upstream.
Or--here's another metaphor--battering on a door, saying 'Let me in. Hear me. Speak to me.' The
problem isn't ageism. There are blogs out there that speak eloquently
to and for the Elders. BlogHer has a subcategory just for them and Denise, who's the Community Manager at Blogher,
point to that site." However, I am not an Elder. My interests have
nothing to do with issues of getting old and infirm and living on a
fixed income.
My interests are more in line with Tanis, who doesn't have a blog yet (but should!):
"I'm
looking for an arena to be heard and to listen. A place to discuss
teenagers, new relationships and a not so new body, a busy career or
lack of one. Self discovery, confidence, what to wear, family dynamics,
alone time and what comes next in life."
I too want to see
myself on BlogHer. I brought it up last year at BlogHer '07, and I was
told that someone was going to be doing it. But someone isn't. Debra
Roby of A Stitch in Time
says that's because it's too broad a topic. Middle-aged women don't
blog about their issues "any more than young bloggers specifically blog
about what it's like to be a college student, or a quarterlifer." Well
actually, Debra, young bloggers do blog about exactly that.
My
sense is that the reason we midlifers aren't seen and focused on as a
viable community within BlogHer is that the powers that be, the
decision-makers of BlogHer aren't in our demographic. That's somewhere down the line, when I get older, but definitely not now, is what I imagine them saying. Now I'm about getting and doing and being and making and--wow! there's the whole world out there to conquer.
A
good part of that conquering the world is making BlogHer a respected
entity, building it into a viable player within the world of commerce.
The Mommybloggers are at the top of the mountain, an acknowledged force
to be reckoned with in terms of business, and an advertiser's dream. So
in selling BlogHer, it's probably easier to sell them. Except--we, the
midlife women, are a big, big piece of the advertising pie as well.
We're the ones with discretionary income; we're the bigger spenders. So
says Marti Barletta, who's known as the "First Lady of marketing to
women" in her book PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders. This
was the pitch that I made last summer after BlogHer, and this was the
pitch that I guess was a dead ball. But I'm at it again.
As is Gena, from Out On The Stoop, issued a challenge to someone to "whip up a sample post and show folks what's needed." Karen from MidLife's A Trip, took her up on it. You can read her post as part of the comments here.
She said something in one of her comments that really resonated with
me. "I'm usually one of the
