In Every Choice A Woman Makes Sends A Message, Deborah Tannen makes the claim that women are marked. She also claims that while women are marked, men are unmarked. Dr. Tannen supports her claims using examples of clothing, hairstyles, makeup, and their identities. I believe that women do not have the same freedom of being unmarked as men do.
             The idea of being marked "refers to the way language alters the base meaning of a word by adding a linguistic particle with no meaning on its own." (Tannen, p.146) An example of this would be words like actor and actress. The English language simply adds suffixes to words to make them feminine. The unmarked concept can simply be put into the category as nothing outstanding or special.
             One example Dr. Tannen makes about how women are marked is their clothing.
             Most men cannot even remember what their colleagues were wearing on a given day. But if you ask a woman that same question, more often than not she could tell you everything down to the last detail. Maybe this is because most men choose to be unmarked so they do not notice everything that is indeed marked. Women are so used to being judged, they take note of others appearances and can usually remember everything from head to toe. This is because every clothing style we have tells someone else a little bit about us.
             If a woman wears baggy clothes, people may generally assume that she is lazy or that she does not care how she looks. If a woman wears tight revealing clothes some may assume that she "is tying to be attractive and that she may possible be single." "If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message, meaning that they could have been."(Tannen, p.147) I agree with Dr. Tannen that women are constantly judged by their appearances.
             In my own personal experience, when I wake up every morning and get ready to go to class, I take my time finding something to wear. I know that no matt...