Being Unmarked Always A Luxury?

In ÐŽ§Marked Women, Unmarked Men,ЎЁ Deborah Tannen discusses the topic of women are ÐŽ§markedЎЁ from the experience that she watches how the three other women dressed in one small working conference to extended evidence such as the language use also makes women being the marked ones. According to the reading, Tannen elaborates that women cannot be ÐŽ§unmarkedЎЁ because women do not have the luxury like men that each woman has to dress in her own style and wear makeup to create her ÐŽ§lookЎЁ. On the other hand, all men can dress in similar style of suit and slack and wear almost identical shoes that men will still be fine on daily basis. In short, men have the luxury to be unmarked. TannenÐŽ¦s point seems reasonable; however, it is not always true that the men are the only one who can be unmarked.

From TannenÐŽ¦s observation in the small conference, she feels that men do not have to set up their hair like women that men seem like having the option of being ordinary. For instance, she has described how the hairstyles of three women are very eye-catching compare to the relatively boring hairstyle of the men. On contrary, many male youngsters today have set up the hair in variety style, from crazy mo-hawk to stylish cornrows to spiky hair; however, once they graduate from school and go to working-force market, they will not have the luxury they once have to set up the way they like. Think of this, if a male professor having a cornrow on top of his head, how his students will think of him, and he might not even get hired by the university. Therefore, being unmarked is not always an option, sometimes the males are being forced to be unmarked in order to survive in the environment.

Furthermore, the professions that accept males to be marked in TannenÐŽ¦s view are very limited. There are only few professions that allow the males to dress the way they want to be dressed, such as pop-stars, professional athletes. Unlike women, men always have to be repulsive to dress in suits or uniforms like every other male in work in order to gain the trust of their employer or their customers while women get to dress in the ways