There Is No Unmarked Woman is written by Deborah Tannen, who has been studying genders for many years. She has her degree in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. The essay is about how women, no matter what they do, such as wear their hair, will always be marked, and men are not.
Tannen starts her essay with describing the style of 3 women she noticed at a conference. She describes each one's hairstyle, clothing, makeup and shoe choice. Just by looking at how each woman presents herself, Tannen can understand their personality. She then says, "I scanned the eight men at the table. And then I knew why I wasn't studying them. The men's styles were unmarked" (8). Tannen then characterized the men stating that they wore netural pants with a light colored shirt with closed, flat shoes. The men's hairstyle was nothing out of the ordinary, simply parted to one side or bald.
"Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't because there is no unmarked woman" (34). Tannen declares that no matter what a woman does to her hair or her clothes, someone is always going to make a preconceived notion because all women are marked.
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