Tomorrow is the exam day, we will do our best in the in-class essay. The Marked Women is one of the exam texts. The texts points out the women's more message-laden way of presenting themselves to the world in contrast to men's natural way of presenting themselves.
Women have to make decisions about their clothing, make-up, hair, accessories etc. Each decision carries a meaning and women have to be always marked. Men also have to make decisions but they can be unmarked and marked, but they do not have to be marked like women. For example, if a women wear sexy clothes, it sends a message; if they do not wear sexy clothes it also sends message. Also both women with make-up or no make-up are marked but we could not say men didn't wear make up; no make-up is unmarked for men.
Also all married women are marked.
If a woman takes her husband's surname, it shows the world that she is married. People think that she has traditional values and she is less herself; dominated by her husband's idendification. If a woman doesn't takes her husband's surname, people think ''she kept her own name.
If a woman uses both her and husbands surname; it is also marked.
...There is no unmarked women...
In contrast, biologically women are unmarked while men are marked.
2 X chromosomes make female, 1 X and 1 Y chromosomes make male but 2 Y chromosomes make nothing.
Also few species produce only females but there is no species that produce only males.
In linguistics, s, es, ess doesn't mean anything - in that case women are marked but in biology, Y chromosome doesn't mean anything unless it is attached to X chromosome. That is the irony!
