There Is No Unmarked Woman

The piece “There is No Unmarked Woman” ignited a societal reflection in my mind about how even in “the most socially advanced era”, women are still treated differently than men. Women and men can be in the exact same places in life, doing the exact same thing, producing the exact same work, and yet a man will get a higher pay, or more praise. Deborah Tannen displayed this when in her piece she stated, “we women didn’t have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had” (556). 

Tannen shows how in everyday society, subconsciously or not, women are never going to be treated the same as men. One of the largest questions I posed after reading this piece was, why do men feel what women choose to present themselves as is for the men? In most cases, what a woman wears is for her, not anybody else. Not only in the business environment that was an example in the piece, but everywhere in society women are “marked” rather than “unmarked”. I can’t think of an instance where a man was marked and a woman wasn’t. Men aren’t thought of differently in a workplace based on their appearance, but women are seen as their appearance, rather than what they have to offer. Tannen spoke about how no matter what a woman wears, there is always a message that men will find in it that pertains to them. If a woman wears makeup, she is seen as trying to please men and trying too hard. If a woman wears no makeup, she is seen as “a hostile refusal to please [men]”, and not caring about her appearance (554). In today’s society, it is always a lose-lose situation like this. Both makeup and no makeup are marked. Revealing and baggy clothes are both marked. No matter what a woman does, she is marked. 

I found that the situationally ironic scenario described via dialogue in the piece was a perfect microcosm of the rest of society. The “poor man” held the common societal belief that how a woman was describing people fell under the category of “male-bashing”. When asked if he thought a scenario displayed male-bashing, he agreed; as it was ingrained in him that that was the correct answer. However, when asked if he thought what the woman described was true he replied, “Yes, that’s me exactly”. By agreeing, he showed how in society, one’s true beliefs can be lost by falling into “society’s beliefs”.