First blog assignment

I personally liked the article "There is No Unmarked Woman" by Deborah Tannen. I liked how she described each woman's ensemble in great detail from their makeup down to what kind of shoes they were wearing. Then, going on to compare their whole appearance to that of the eight men. This emphasized the point she was trying to make with the "marked" versus "unmarked" argument. Women are marked by how they choose to present themselves, whereas men lack many options in the professional world in terms of expressing themselves or "saying something" through what they look like. I thought this was the strongest part of Tannen's article because it depicted the exact point she was trying to make, that women are "marked." Another strong point of this article was when Tannen was describing titles. She says, "Checking 'Ms.' declines to let on about marriage (checking 'Mr.' declines nothing since nothing was asked)." This illustrates her point further because men do not have to worry about answering questions regarding their title, because it is not marked. However, women are subject to questioning through their title, whatever it may be. I thought a weak part of this article was Tannen's description of Ralph Fasold's points made in his book. I do not think it was necessary to include the parts about the insects and reproduction because the article focused on women in our society and how they are "marked," not on insects. I did not see the relevance in that. I think the main point in this article is that women are judged and analyzed much more meticulously than men are.