Jaehyung Jeong
The article “Marked Women,” written by Deborah Tannen, strikingly points out how
women are treated unfairly. What surprises reader is that the article is unlike other articles
dealing gender inequality and problems. Deborah Tannen approaches to the issue in different
angle which on one expected. She argues women are living in unfair life with two evidences,
which are women giving more effort to make them more appealing than men and the way
how people address formally to different genders. She then explores scientific observation on
how women are not “Marked” (which is a term frequently used in the article, meaning word
alters the base meaning of the word by adding a word that has no meaning, according to
Deborah Tannen) but men are.
Deborah Tannen did not intend to have limited range of readers. This means that her
prospective readers are not only men but also women. Her article is trying to tell readers an
idea that both men and also women are doing things that makes women “Marked,” who
barely do anything than wearing clothes. But this doesn’t mean men are not her primary
readers. When Deborah Tannen finishes his article she wrote a comment made by the man
saying “Because she’s a woman and she’s saying things about men (Tannen, 1993, p. 397)”
which is clearly a comment filled with prejudice. From this readers know that the author want
both men and women to read her article.
As explained in introduction, Deborah Tannen made total three arguments. As first
argument, the author explained how our daily lives reflect the life of women that are not
equal as men. As second argument, the author examines how women are unfairly treated
linguistically. She used example of how people name different gender and how women give
up their family name after marriage. Both arguments are relevant and appropriate with the
main issue, the gender inequality.
Her first example was the way women dress. As appeared shortly in the
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introduction, she had given an example on how women work hard and think more than twice
to dress up and make up. However from men, Deborah Tannen couldn’t find anyone trying to
make them look better. Deborah Tannen explained this as one reason why women are not
treated fairly, since women are “Marked.” She complains that women need to choose from
one side from another, about their hair, clothing, make up, accessories, and all other choices.
This argument is convincing but there is one mistake author made. If Deborah Tannen
focused also on other sources, not only using her own experiences, this argument should’ve
been much more convincing to the readers. Moreover, the time when this article was written
was year 1993. This means that this article is outdated. In year 2009, even men do their best
to make their style more appealing, even with a makeup. Because of these two flaws, this
argument is not absolute. Moreover, this argument lacks outside research which makes reader
doubts about the argument.
Her second point is about how people address different genders. When people call
men formally, they use “Mr.” This word “Mr” refers to a male, either married or not.
However, there are two words that formally address female, which are “Mrs” and “Ms,”
whether they are married or not. She complains; by using this titles already provide
information about women on their marriage. Additionally, when women marry, they need to
give up their family for husband’s family name. Just like first argument, the author missed
few important points with this second argument. In this argument the author only focused on
North American and European countries. Some culture, South Korea for instance, newborn
child can inherit mother’s family if parents want to. Also, from some cultures the way how
people formally address people are not like how North American addresses people, simply
because women are not “Marked” linguistically from that culture. If Deborah Tannen wanted
her argument to be more persuasive, she should’ve used more background information on
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how people from other culture’s language “Marks” women.
Third argument, which is scientific observation on how men are “Marked,” not
women, certainly has the convincing outside research. Deborah’s explanation is quite
interesting, which is two X chromosomes make women when one X and Y chromosomes
makes a men. Two Y chromosomes make nothing. According to this research, Fasold, who
brought this to an issue, commented that grammar should use word “she” to include males
and females and “he” only for specifically male referents, which is not happening in our
world. This argument is not only convincing but also reliable because it is based on biological
fact, not ideas or experience. However this argument is slightly irrelevant with the main idea.
Both first and second argument was about people’s appeal and calling others, while third
argument suddenly went over to science region. Some readers might think this little awkward,
since they were reading with humanity region but suddenly changed to science region.
Scientific evidences were faultless but it was slightly off topic.
As a conclusion, this article is outdated and lacked convincing evidences. Sometimes
logic was missing too. However this doesn’t mean that this article is not worth reading it. As
a matter of fact, Deborah Tannen have made interesting approach to the gender issue and
pointed out how biologically our bodies were made. I’m not entirely with author’s idea, but
with scientific reasoning I was convinced. Moreover, this article will have a great impact and
change readers who have prejudice against women.