Lately, there has been a lot of buzz in the MSM that there aren't many women bloggers. Of course there are women blogging. And blacks, and old people and teens. But the norm, the default in many peoples' minds in this culture is white, male, straight (heterosexual), able-bodied, middle class. The internet is a metaphorical mirror, in which you see what you expect to see. The old New Yorker cartoon caption still applies "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Because no one is expecting a dog on the internet, and the MSM isn't expecting women bloggers.
Plenty of bloggers have ambiguous names. It can be as simple as "Chris" or "Leslie", names given to both females and males. Or it can be nicknames and handles that say nothing about gender. Nobody can be sure who is male, who is white, and thus, who is privileged. I will admit, I have uncovered racism in myself because of this. I assumed people were white who were not, because the norm in my mind is white. I think the MSM has an even stronger bias than many of us, and don't see women, or blacks, or poor people unless it becomes blindingly obvious.
In a way, the internet is the flowering of Martin Luther King's hope that someday, people will be judged not by the color of their skin, but the contents of their character. On the internet, we don't have those markers of race and the like, only character and intellect. And still, the overculture wants to resist it. They want to say, men are smarter, more technologically adept, therefore, men are bloggers. But ultimately, no one can know who a blogger is, except by the content of their blog. (I realize that you can glean a lot from someone's blog, figure out their gender and race and sexual orientation, if they choose to let slip information.) That makes the MSM and indeed, many people, uncomfortable. They are used to judging people by gender and color, by sexual orientation and age. That is how it has always been, so that's how it should be.
I hope we can change this. The internet gives us a fresh start, to create who we would like to become, as individuals and as a society. We stand at a crossroads, we can become a society where skin color and gender, age and orientation truly does not matter. But is this what we want since it also means a lessening of the importance of racial and gender identity? Can we construct a culture without prejudice, and if so, how? We have images in our mind of the generic "other". Can we construct this "other" in such a way as to not look like the social norm? Can we have a mental "other" as diverse as the human race?
I'm hoping this starts a useful discussion.