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Portraying Women In Media: Does It Even Matter?

By The Onion
WASHTINGTON - Are women misrepresented as working-class citizens in the
media? Is there anything wrong with the way they are portrayed, and the response it
gets from viewers? Is there anything that should be done to alter their image? Nah,
probably not. But Joan Sangster seems to have a different view, and a deadly feminist
agenda.
In Sangers academic journal article Bomb Girls, Gender, and Working Class
History she examines the plight of the factory-working women in the media. Through
her analysis of the television show Bomb Girls, she claims that they have not been fared
well in television, that we seldom see the blue-collar working woman, and that they are
often depicted as professionals instead (Sangster 200). The only time these women are
represented are in wartime set productions, with women laboring on assembly lines in
hazardous conditions. Bomb Girls was cut off the air after two seasons, and we say, who
cares?
We set out to find out if this even was a relevant issue. I could literally care less
about this TV show or whatever they did to women. Whats it called again? says a
random male we asked on the street.
In this day and age, this is no longer an apparent issue. Its 2015, by now
prejudice of all kinds is nearly extinct. Its rash to think that blue-collar women are
underrepresented in media just because they are only present in a specific time period.
Its an outdated concept, literally. Its not necessary for women to be represented other
ways, whether its in a historical or modern context.

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Chloe Anderson
Wilson
Writing 2
7 December 2015
WP3
Feminism is seen as a cringe-worthy word these days. Women are hesitant to admit that
they are feminists due to the stigma that they are women who are hell-bent on destroying men.
Because of this, when someone brings up the issue of women being oppressed or discriminated,
there are those who agree and those who will simply brush the notion off. Another unfortunately
overlooked womens issue is representation in media. In the case of Joan Sangsters analysis of
Bomb Girls in her academic journal article Bomb Girls, Gender, and Working-Class Women,
she explores how the blue-collar female is portrayed in media, and why theyre depicted in the
same historical setting. I decided applying a satirical approach to an academic article that had a
feminist tone allows it to poke fun at those who dont believe in or care about womens issues,
and the best way to do this was translating Bomb Girls into an Onion article.
TheOnion.com is home to satire articles on the topic of politics, sports, to entertainment.
Satire is ironic humor used to criticize or shed light on a particular issue, action, or type of
people. Reading it in its satirical context is crucial to understanding it, and theres a discourse
community of readers that do. That discourse community includes a younger audience, since its
an online-based publication. An older generation may not have access to it, or may not know
how to access it. In contrast, scholars, professors, and experts typically read academic articles. In
order to write to the appropriate audience, I had to pick and choose pieces to include from the
original article.

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My translation comes from the first two pages of the article, where Sangster explains her
argument and provides some background. I included a quote from the original article to
strengthen my supposed argument against it. In terms of rhetoric, Sangster primarily uses logos
to persuade her audience. She states her evidence as facts and logical points. In my translation, I
had to focus on the ethos part of rhetoric. My writing had to have the reader questioning my
ethics and their own to discover my argument under the satire. A piece that especially plays on
ethos was Is there anything that should be done to alter their image? Nah, probably not.,
because it asks the reader to consider whether my argument is ethical. All these decisions were
not made easily, and I came across several obstacles along the way.
Challenges that came along with this translation were understanding Sangsters argument,
and mimicking the style of a real Onion article. At first, I found it difficult to focus on the fact
that the authors point was more about the historical context of women in media. After making
sure I had the correct argument in mind, I read several articles on The Onions website to
familiarize myself with their genre conventions. One article that I come across called Second
Amendment A Little Creeped Out By How Obsessed Americans Are With It helped me with the
humorous part of the translation. The title is hilariously personifying the second amendment and
the article includes quotes from the second amendment claiming how Americans obsession with
it was flattering, but at this point, its getting kind of weird(theonion.com). This quote is
commenting on Americans tendency to cite the second amendment on gun issues, and its this
convention of social commentary that I wanted to make I included in my translation.
In preparation for this writing project, I revisited How to Read like A Writer, and
Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources. The Read Like a Writer (RLW)
strategy teaches the reader to consider the authors choices while reading to decide whether to use

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them in your own writing. According to Bunn, in writing we see the choices the writer has
made, and we see how the writer has coped with the consequences of those choices (Bunn 75).
The reading like a writer (RLW) technique helped me think about how these choices would
affect my audience. Another reading that helped me was Reading Games: Strategies for
Reading Scholarly Sources by Karen Rosenberg, in which she provides pointers for staying
focused while reading dense academic texts. A tip the Rosenberg mentioned was pay close
attention to the conclusion. This is because conclusions include limitations of their work,
unanswered questions, the horizons left unexplored (Rosenberg 218). These readings help make
a daunting task of translating text into a different genre less intimidating.
The process of translating an academic article into a satirical article was challenging, but
it allowed Sangsters work to be brought to a new audience. The unique style of an Onion article
seemed like an appropriate way to shed light on Sangsters argument, while adding a bit of
humor. Considering audience, genre conventions, and the writing choices that Sangster made all
contributed to my successfully translation.

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Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. How to Read Like a Writer. 75. Print.

Rosenberg, Karen. Reading Games: Strategies for Reading for Reading Scholarly Sources. 210.
Print.
Sangster, Joan. "Bomb Girls, Gender, and Working-Class History." 11. Print.
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=5e2a8c6c-a168-4e30-8dbb73ec5b6358d7%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbG
l2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=102839890
Second Amendment A Little Creeped Out By How Obsessed Americans Are With It." The
Onion- America's Finest News Source. The Onion, 3 Dec. 2015. Web.
<http://www.theonion.com/article/second-amendment-little-creeped-out-how-obsessed-a51942>.