Deborah Tannen’s work, “There Is No Unmarked Woman,” begins with her thoughts and observations of a four-woman and eight-man academic discussion. Tannen realized she was passing judgment on women while entirely ignoring men. Tannen ads that women’s styles and wardrobe choices elicited a plethora of inferences and assumptions about their personalities, even though they might have chosen to be more individual in their styles, which would have resulted in a character judgment. Whereas men’s styles and attire, which were nearly indistinguishable from one another, did not evoke any suggestive ideas or assumptions about what kind of person they were. Because society has evolved and molded its ideals and even language around a single gender and how the other reacts, Tannen, says that there is no unmarked woman.
Tannen succeeds in incorporating a technical analysis because she goes into detail about why these situations happen to women in a way that gives the reader a more scientific perspective and helps them interact and comprehend it better. Her thorough commentary implies that her logical information and facts are for the benefit of the intended audience’s understanding. She is able to correctly prove her thesis as well as persuade the reader of her marked and unmarked claims by using examples and facts. Deborah Tannen’s personal experiences reinforce the case regarding marked and unmarked people because they allow her to change her writing style to one that is more emotional.
The intended audience for this essay is adults of both genders since she tried to explain that she was only reporting her observations about one example of gender discrimination and trying to express a controversial idea in an independent tone. Tannen states, “While I thought that I was simply describing what I observed – something I had learned to do as a researcher – merely mentioning women and men marked me as a feminist for some” (447). However, since her work was written a long time ago, she does not refer to the younger generation, which should be taken into consideration.
Tannen begins expressing her claim slowly with lengthy descriptions of observations and thoughts and then hooks the reader with a controversial idea involving men and women’s society. Tannen diverges from her opening observations with a definition of a word that brings together her whole claim. Tannen explains, “The term “marked” is a staple of linguistics theory. It refers to the way language alters the base meaning of a word by adding a linguistic particle that has no meaning on its own” (445).
She later clarifies that most English words tend to be present tense and centralize around the “male” gender, making “male” the unmarked case. Tannen illuminates the thought that they can make even titles of professions that women are involved in the marked case with these linguistic particles. Tannen uses an example about medical practitioners and how if technically a woman was a doctor, she would have to be called a doctorate. This makes the woman in that situation marked differently from a male who would just be a doctor.
Tannen’s essay is even more relevant today. As society advances and women become more aware of the challenges surrounding gender disparities, more women are seeking to break down gender expectations. For example, when a woman strives to walk out in public without a bra, this can be interpreted as provocative. Men begin to sexualize them, destroying the concept of females breaching social mores, and leading men to assume that women should constantly be covered up and follow the mores that have been imposed on them. Men associate a woman’s attempts to break social conventions with unfavorable opinions whenever she does so. As a result, Tannen’s essay is still relevant today, as many men and women are unaware of the differences between an unmarked man and a marked woman.
Work Cited
Tannen, Deborah. “Wears Jump Suit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband’s Last Name.” The New York Times Magazine 20 (1993).