Femininity as a Norm When asked to describe the average American the most common description given is of a white male. If you consult statistics 50.8% of Americans are Women, yet a men are still the representative. In her essay There is No Unmarked Woman Deborah Tannen claims that the preference for men as the norm, is both unreasonable, and harmful to women. She bolsters this accounts of her with personal experience, and a discussion of language and science in regards to gender. Tannen opens her essay with descriptions of women she met at a conference. Her use of connotative imagery in her descriptions, such as“dignity” “severity” “wild” and “flashed”, imposed the societal view of each of theses women's versions of femininity and contrasted them with each other. Then she proceeds to describe the men she met at this same conference, the men all looked different but yet she didn’t contrast or
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It highlights why femininity is so difficult for women to simply conform to, because there is no easy right normal way to be a woman, and every popular way is criticized, this furthers her argument by pointing out how unreasonable the lack of a norm for femininity is for women. Tannen continues on the path she laid out for herself by giving more examples of the lack of an acceptable norm for women by discussing language and how it interacts gender. In Tannen’s discussion she systematically goes through the choices women have when it comes to the language of their identities. She highlights how each option is not desirable which facilitates her argument by showing how all options for women to wish to identify themselves are negative and harmful to women. This appeals to both our sense of logic and our sympathy while furthering her argument, because it shows very
It highlights why femininity is so difficult for women to simply conform to, because there is no easy right normal way to be a woman, and every popular way is criticized, this furthers her argument by pointing out how unreasonable the lack of a norm for femininity is for women. Tannen continues on the path she laid out for herself by giving more examples of the lack of an acceptable norm for women by discussing language and how it interacts gender. In Tannen’s discussion she systematically goes through the choices women have when it comes to the language of their identities. She highlights how each option is not desirable which facilitates her argument by showing how all options for women to wish to identify themselves are negative and harmful to women. This appeals to both our sense of logic and our sympathy while furthering her argument, because it shows very