Response to “There is No Unmarked Women”

I disagree with the notion Deborah Tannen put forth in the short essay “There is No Unmarked Woman” that women tend to be more marked than men. The only difference is the way that men and women tend to be marked. As Tannen described, women tend to be more focused on the physical aspects of being marked. Tannen describes herself closely inspecting other women at a conference that she went to. This demonstrates that women tend to value the physical more than men, but that does not mean that men are marked any less. For example, take collage and professional sports. Men overwhelmingly mark themselves as a fan of certain sports franchises. However, this is slightly harder to spot than the clothes and makeup that women tend to wear which leads to the perception that women are more marked than men. There are also many other ways that men are marked that can be slightly harder to see. For example, the amount of money that a man makes automatically marks him and determines many of his future opportunities. There are also physical aspects that mark men. Also, a man’s height determines how much respect he will receive and can also determine whether or not he is thought of as a threat which was seen in “Just Walk on By”. Furthermore, a simple walk down the halls of Troy High will expose you to all different kinds of men from the football players with their muscular physiques to the nerds with a backpack full of textbooks and homework. These things may not be as obvious as the ways that women mark themselves, but they undoubtably mark men. These differences do not represent that men are unmarked, but the simple difference between men and women that men tend to be more subtle than women in terms of their outward appearance. This demonstreats that to say that women are somehow mare marked than men is absurd.