BY: DEBORAH TANNIN
Deborah Tannin, the author of this essay is a professor of linguistics at georgetown university and has written many books for scholarly and popular audiences. She explains the meaning of the word "marked", and how it distinguishes the male from the female She wrote this essay in 1993 and is different from her usual work. This essay focusses on the differences between how the men and the women present themselves in front of the world and what distinguishes them from one another. The author is correct on her thoughts about the question of woman being "marked" and the advantages to men with respect to this scenario. The author expresses the main difference that marks woman as "woman" and men as unmarked. The way she speaks in this essay does not mark her as a "male bashing" feminist but rather as an author who explains the true world today. She also cites many other examples that prove the fact of woman being "marked" and men being "unmarked".
Deborah Tannin basically elaborates on how woman are marked, despite their choice of being wanted to, and how men, are never and never will be termed as "marked". She begins her essay explaining about the style woman dress up from top to bottom. The woman's hair style, clothes, boots, make up etc. She compares the three woman at the table with each other based on their sense of styling. Suddenly she realizes why she only notices the woman and not the men. The men are always unmarked. All the men at the table are dressed up in the same way with no fancy hair cut, suits or shoes. The author describes that unlike the woman, these men had the option of being "unmarked". The author comes to think of how women can be considered "unmarked". She realizes that there is no style for woman that can make her term as an "unmarked" woman. For example, there is no hair style for woman which can be considered standard. A woman's hair with no style would be considered as shabby and may "disqualify her for