In the Article “marked women”, Deborah Tannen explains the social manner of judging women by their appearance or other factors, but not judging men for the same reasons. Tannen uses her observation during a conference meeting of four women and eight men to analyze how each woman in the meeting was marked while men were not. Again Deborah points out the issue of how one gender writing about the other is either portrayed as prejudiced or sexist.
The author explains that men have the freedom to wear what they want without much meaning being read from their clothes, but for a woman every style has a meaning. In the article Deborah Tannen says “There is no woman's hair style that can be called standard, that says nothing about her” further supporting her point. The author uses the different clothing styles of three ladies in her conference meeting as examples when she tries to attribute them? to their respective personalities. However, she noticed that the men were all dressed alike because they had the freedom to. In my opinion, the author’s evaluation is restricted. Tannen did not consider the formal setting of her case study so to say.In such settings, men are often restricted to corporate outfits and a plain haircut just like the ones she observed in her male colleagues in the article (page #) . For instance, it is inappropriate for a man to go job hunting or for an interview in a pair of shorts and plain T shirt, but in a casual place like a bar he has more freedom in his choice of outfits. This example shows that men are only unmarked in certain situations and settings.
Further on, Deborah also claims that every woman’s style has an implied meaning. In paragraph 12 she says “Each of the women at the conference had to make ...
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The article introduces a secondary argument about the society’s view of one gender writing about the other. A woman writing about the man is viewed by the society as a prejudiced person. This is true; in my opinion a female writing about a male is sexist. I feel a woman writing about for instance the flaws of the male character is sexist because both genders have flaws and why should only one gender be put to question.
In conclusion, I think the author Deborah Tannen had a reasonable argument but her supporting evidence were somewhat biased and they were not strong enough to fully support the arguments. Moreover, she did introduce opposing opinions; she just looked at the argument from a woman’s point of view. As far as my personal opinion goes women are judged alittle more than men, but that does not mean men are free this societal evaluation.
In “Marked Woman, Unmarked Men”, Deborah Tannen argues many points about how women are targeted based on their style choices, such as makeup, clothing and hair, as well as their last names, and titles they choose to take on. Tannen argues her stance when she says, “Each of the women at the conference had to make decisions about hair, clothing, makeup and accessories…. Men can choose styles that are marked, but they don 't have to… . Unlike the women, they had the option of being unmarked.” here you can clearly see that Tannen is illustrating her point by showing the difference in how men are looked at compared to women. She clearly believes that men don’t have to take their style, and lack of makeup, into consideration. In other words, this is a perfect representation of her argument in “Marked Women, Unmarked Men”
In today’s society, gender issues are often discussed as a hot topic. In literature, feminist views are used to criticise “societal norms” in books and stories. Two popular pieces by authors Kolbenschlag and Hurston paint two very different views on women. One common assumption in the use of a feminist critical perspective is that gender issues are central. Kolbenschlag who wrote the literary criticism “Cinderella, the Legend” would most likely disagree with this statement, she feels that women bare greater burdens in society and are more largely affected by social norms.
Beton discovers men’s anger toward women by glancing through an apparently well-known Professor von X’s book titled The Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex. The mere title makes her angry—outraged that the words could even form the title of a book, which, to Beton, is the natural response to “be[ing] told that one is naturally the inferior of a little man” (32). She does not know at first why men are so critical of women, but she does know that their arguments say more about them than they do about the women they write about. The books “had been written in the red light of emotion,” she says, “and not in the white light of truth” (33), meaning that the men Beton speaks of are responding to something—some feeling or condition that they, as a sex identifying with one another, are sensing, rather than merely expressing a natural fact as their rhetoric seems to suggest.
She also says that “[men have] the option of being unmarked” by simply choosing to wear the expected clothing and displaying the standard hair style (88). Tannen is incorrect in this statement because women have the option of being unmarked as well. For example, by simply following standard business attire for women (typically suit/blazer, skirt/pants), they can choose to be unmarked. As for hairstyle, having a long (around shoulder length) hair length is the unmarked case for women, but this would be marked as different if a man had such a hairstyle. For example, there were two young men in my Boy Scout troop who let their hair grow out past their shoulders. If they were girls, this difference would have been overlooked, but since they were men, this sent a message, and most of the other youth marked them as unusual. A woman with long hair is seen as the standard, unmarked case, a man with long hair is not. Just as Tannen says that “Men can choose styles that are marked, but they don’t have to” women also can choose to be unmarked
In her article “But What Do You Mean” Deborah Tannen, claims that there is a huge difference in the style of communicating between men and women. Tannen breaks these down into seven different categories; apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. With each of these she compares men to women by explaining the common misconceptions that each of the genders do. The different style of communication can cause some problems at the workplace and even affect the environment. The different styles of communication has been around forever and almost becomes a “ritual”(299). Tannen is effective with mainly women and not men. She is primarily successful with women due to the fact that her tone targets women, also the organization
Today, women and men are more socially equal then 1993 when Tannen had written this short essay. Through these twenty years women have accomplished many things in different areas that set them equal to the supposedly inferior, men. In my opinion there is no unmarked human being. You are marked by just saying you are male or that you are female. Men are marked just like women are just a little more discreet. I feel that men are noticeably marked in areas where they are the minority. In Tannen’s short essay she says “Some years ago I was at a small working conference of four women and eight men.” We can infer out of the group that the men were the majority and the women were the minority. Also that there was some bias in the information she shared. This is why I assumed Tannen moved towards the women in her observation because they were the minority. When people are the minorities they tend to be looked at differently and marked as so. For instance nursing and secretary jobs are held by more women than men. When you see a male nurse or a male secretary, he is marked. He is the one out of all the female nurses who is marked because he is the minority. It is vice versa for women as well. For example in politics and construction where men are dominating those work areas. You see a female governor or construction worker, you know that she is marked because she is the minority in this
Throughout most of literature and history, the notion of ‘the woman’ has been little more than a caricature of the actual female identity. Most works of literature rely on only a handful of tropes for their female characters and often use women to prop up the male characters: female characters are sacrificed for plot development. It may be that the author actually sacrifices a female character by killing her off, like Mary Shelly did in Frankenstein in order to get Victor Frankenstein to confront the monster he had created, or by reducing a character to just a childish girl who only fulfills a trope, as Oscar Wilde did with Cecily and Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. Using female characters in order to further the male characters’
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
conceptualizations of gender in literature are situated in a culture and historical context ; the
To begin this paper, I want to explain a little bit about Feminist Criticism. This category of criticism scrutinizes the means in which texts have been molded in accordance with matters of gender. It concentrates on social and financial disparities in a “male-controlled” culture that continues to impede women from grasping their true potentials. There are several perceptions and theories universally shared by feminist critics. One such belief is that our society is undeniably regulated by men. Another belief is that the concept of “gender” is mostly, if not wholly, a social standard that has curtailed from the never ending masculine biases that engulf our world. This male dominated philosophy is excessively abundant in most of the writings that are deemed exceptional literature. In addition, many feminist consider females, in literature, to be represented as destructive or docile objects, while most males are portrayed as being brave and resilient leaders.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
Throughout literature, authors employ a variety of strategies to highlight the central message being conveyed to the audience. Analyzing pieces of literature through the gender critics lens accentuates what the author believes to be masculine or feminine and that society and culture determines the gender responsibility of an individual. In the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, the gender strategies appear through the typical fragile women of the mother and the grandmother, the heartless and clever male wolf, and the naïve and vulnerable girl as little red riding hood.
Indisputably, roles and characteristics of opposite genders have been ubiquitous, since historical evidence proves so – dating back to when the practice of oral tradition was favored over written language. This historical evidence is especially apparent in literature from previous time periods. In these works of literature, men and women often have very different social and economic positions within society. Particular duties, or tasks, are practiced depending on the gender of these individuals. However, in the advancing world we are currently living in, these duties are beginning to intertwine in an effort to allow equal rights amongst opposite genders. This effort to break the sexist barrier, which encompasses our world, has already begun rattling the chains of politicians and the like. However, with the progressions made thus far in retaliation to sexism and unequal gender privileges, the United States of America is heading in a positive direction towards gender equality. Nonetheless, the female gender is perceived as a lesser entity in society while the male gender is dominant and controlling. The masculine individuals in literary works usually govern, or direct the feminine individuals. These characteristics are often evident in various literary works – including “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “A&P” written by Ernest Hemingway and John Updike, respectively. The slow and steady transformation from a sexist society to one that allows inferior genders to perform similar tasks, if not the same as their superior counterparts, may disturb the ideological mindset of figures with authority; however, it provides inferior genders with the opportunity to branch out socially, economically, and politically.
Being a Feminist and having a Feminist point of view in observing every cultural, social and historical issue had been translated as having a feminine centered and anti-masculine perception. Unlike the general and common knowledge about feminism, it is not only an anti-masculine perception towards social and individual issues. Feminism according to Oxford dictionary is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes that more commonly known as the pursuit of equality for women’s rights. On the other hand, in studying literary books as it will be in this paper, the mentioned definition is not applicable. Therefore, in this paper Feminist criticism will be used in order to study some characters’ lives in “Like water for chocolate” and “Season of Migration to the north” novels. Feminist criticism according to Oxford dictionary is a type of literary theory that points out different genders, races, classes, religions that are depictured in literature and will be used in this paper.