Excellent, excellent points. I've been contemplating the "credentials" bit too for several days, ever since reading one of Jessica's latest essays. I write about stuff that I am qualified to write about. But if I listed all of those qualifications here publicly, they wouldn't fit into my writer blurb, and — let's face it — no one would be interested in reading such a long author bio anyway.
For example, I write about relationship issues, emotional intelligence, equality (usually with a feminist focus), spirituality, and travel. What are my qualifications? I have a social sciences M.A. in one of the world's top-ranked Ph.D. programs for its field, where my research focused on intimate relationship dynamics, family dynamics, and migration. While there, I also took some credits in writing from professors of what was (at the time) one of the top writing programs. Apart from this, I was trained and spent years as a volunteer in the mental health field. I've been a sex educator at a university. I have double-majors and double-minors, with a heavy emphasis in (yet more) social sciences and in area studies. I've lived on 3 different continents, beyond the one where I was born. I have first-hand experience of phenomena such as migration, poverty, trauma, gender violence, living as a racial minority (depending where I was in the world), and so much more — and I have the academic background to critically examine these experiences in a way that goes well above and beyond mere anecdote and emotion. I'm an ordained interfaith minister, too, which explains the spirituality content.
Oh, and I'm a copyeditor for Ph.D.-level, professional researchers to boot. So, simply by virtue of my job, I am constantly broadening my (peer-reviewed) knowledge.
But I'm not here to peacock to my readers about What I'm Capable Of, or about How Oh-So-Very-Much I Know. I'm here mostly to share digestible, life-enhancing insights for the average person.
If that means I must impart feminism-by-listicle? Mental health insights by sex essay? Then I will do that. Because THIS — delivering value and education without alienating readers — matters more than stroking my own ego. Meanwhile, I'm afraid that if any of the Powers That Be read my stuff (given the current climate), they'll just dismiss it as Woman Writing About Her Feelings, when it's way, way, WAY more than that. (But who is actually even bothering to ask us what makes us qualified anyway? Do we need to deliver a CV now before the platform gives us its blessing?)
Long story short: just because it doesn't LOOK like journalism, doesn't mean it's vapid and unsubstantiated, much less that it has no life-enhancing value for a reader. I wish Medium realized this. I really, really wish Medium realized this by now. I'm beginning to lose hope that it will.
