Marked

Upon finishing the short story "There Is No Unmarked Woman," my eyes were really opened up to the fact that women are marked in daily life. Over the course of the essay, she discusses the fact that women really don't have the freedom to do anything they want without being judged. The descriptions she made of the women at the start of the essay reminded me of dress codes. In our school, and in the majority of others across the country have absurd dress codes centered around calling out girls. Although it's possible for boys to be dress coded too, it's more likely for females to be sent to the office for showing too much skin. In my opinion, it's really unfair that we're treated differently, because it's very obvious that all the rules are geared towards girls--no short shorts, no off the shoulder tops, no crop tops, and no leggings. We just want to express ourselves, but our freedom is stripped away from us, making us feel lesser than the guys around us. Deborah Tannen asserts, "...we women didn't have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had (556)." This quote perfectly depicts the struggles we go through simply deciding what to wear in the morning: determining whether our outfit is too risqué for school, worrying that people will judge us for the clothes we wear. It's difficult to come to terms with the fact that society is still judging women based on what they wear and how they look instead of our minds and ideas.