Meet Mercedes Sarah, Author of “Covert Resistance to #MeToo: The Uptake of Social Change and Public Anxiety in the Men’s Lifestyle Magazine Cover Genre”

Mercedes Sarah is a sophomore at Oxford College of Emory University majoring in History and Creative Writing. Mercedes is the author of “Covert resistance to #MeToo: The Uptake of Social Change and Public Anxiety in the Men's Lifestyle Magazine Cover Genre.”

She was drawn to the topic because of its focus on social movements and change. She feels “[you] get to measure the impact of those movements and be able to see it in our everyday life.” Being her first extensive research article, Mercedes found it fun to apply specific rhetorical genres to something “really relatable to other people [and] to something we see in our everyday lives.” Before writing her article, she never considered applying these skills to other aspects of life. Her primary motivator was the goal for her article to better shape people’s lives by taking abstract ideas held by college students and making them relatable and understandable.

Although the topic does not directly impact her college experience, writing it helped Mercedes become aware of social interactions and ideology and furthered her knowledge on a subject of interest that is also discussed in many of her classes. In addition, she thinks ideology can often be abstract, so publishing her work in YSW helps her see her ideas and research tangibly.

Mercedes is considering a career in academics as a professor, and “this project played a role in that.” She loved the research process and culminating her data into a written piece with the help of YSW. It allowed her to realize her skills in critical analysis, and she is looking forward to applying this to other places in her life.

For others interested in submitting to Young Scholars in Writing, Mercedes explains that the most significant incentive is that “It’s extremely gratifying to see your ideas come into a big piece that you've worked on, and your work becoming whole is really nice. You feel like you really accomplished something, and you’re part of this meaningful network of thinkers.”

 

This post was originally drafted by students in Dr. Cope’s Fall 2022 WRT320: Digital Writing course and edited and updated by Alex Merritt.