2008 Woodie Awards
Boys Will Be Boys... But Will Girls Be Women?
Kai Allen
Issue date: 3/18/08 Section: Outside the Bubble
In life, one must make decisions. Tough decisions, like: should I opt to colonize Mars or dedicate my days to filing news tape? Ah, free will! As she leans forward into the tendril of steam wafting from her Styrofoam coffee cup, Sarah Jennings Wray seems to weigh her options, past and present. She could have been an astronaut. She had done all the research on outer space's effects on the female reproductive system; she had prepared to apply to the Air Force Academy and had her family's support behind her. But as an 18-year-old high school graduate with a boyfriend of three years, Jennings-Wray decided rocketing at light speed through an endless, black and star-studded abyss just, well, wasn't for her. Now, as a young 20-something married woman in the process of buying her first home, she could settle down, buy that German shepherd, Siberian husky mix she's been dreaming about, and have a kid or two. But, much to her parents' dismay, she doesn't want that right now either. She's got enough to do-she's a journalist. A news journalist. A news journalist for NBC.
So she's a young female journalist-how hard can it be? As an entrance level employee of NBC, Sarah, on a typical day, walks into the studio, waves hello to the producers (networking, you know), and pulls file tape for the reporters of the 12 noon news broadcast. She spends the rest of the day filing tape and preparing tape and eating brown-bag lunches fastened shut with tape and taking in feeds from reporters and and and and. "It's entry level," she repeats, "so you try to do a little bit of everything, whenever
someone asks you to. I edit my own tapes, I help edit other people's tapes, I send out tapes for review and possible promotion. It's all about working up the ladder."
So she's a young, female, married journalist? That doesn't mean that she gets fewer breaks in the male-dominated media industry than the plethora of hair-flipping, un-attached, entrance-level woman at NBC- right? According to Sarah, where men out-number women, whether in the workplace or at a frat party, boys still feel the need to be boys in all the most appealing senses of the word. "Older men who have been at the station a long time like to help younger women so that they can show them off around the office. They like to walk with a young, pretty girl now and then so that they can look around like, 'hey, she's with me.'" Apparently, things don't change for the average man's man after high school. Or college. Or marriage vows, or anything silly like that. While the male higher-ups of NBC love to walk around with young ladies, they do have some standards. They don't go much for the married ones. Or at least the married and faithful.
So she's a young female journalist-how hard can it be? As an entrance level employee of NBC, Sarah, on a typical day, walks into the studio, waves hello to the producers (networking, you know), and pulls file tape for the reporters of the 12 noon news broadcast. She spends the rest of the day filing tape and preparing tape and eating brown-bag lunches fastened shut with tape and taking in feeds from reporters and and and and. "It's entry level," she repeats, "so you try to do a little bit of everything, whenever
someone asks you to. I edit my own tapes, I help edit other people's tapes, I send out tapes for review and possible promotion. It's all about working up the ladder."
So she's a young, female, married journalist? That doesn't mean that she gets fewer breaks in the male-dominated media industry than the plethora of hair-flipping, un-attached, entrance-level woman at NBC- right? According to Sarah, where men out-number women, whether in the workplace or at a frat party, boys still feel the need to be boys in all the most appealing senses of the word. "Older men who have been at the station a long time like to help younger women so that they can show them off around the office. They like to walk with a young, pretty girl now and then so that they can look around like, 'hey, she's with me.'" Apparently, things don't change for the average man's man after high school. Or college. Or marriage vows, or anything silly like that. While the male higher-ups of NBC love to walk around with young ladies, they do have some standards. They don't go much for the married ones. Or at least the married and faithful.
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