AJ Gilpin Blog #4

In August’s essay “Real Men Don’t” he speaks about inequalities between men and women. A hotspot in this essay for me is when August is talking about how things are always about male for example mankind. Which also in tales the women but is “man”kind. Many women radicalists find this as a controversial thing. But as said by August “Our first tongue is called out “mother tongue” in English and in many other languages,” (August 129). When women talk about how fair “man”kind is I will just ask them about our “mother”tongues or even “mother”nature which are both obviously feminine. Another hotspot from August’s essay that really resonated with me is when he is talking about divorce and how very often women receive custody of the children.  August says: "The law has been particularly obtuse in recognizing fathers as parents, as evidenced by the awarding of child custody to mothers in 90% of court cases" (August 136). This was a hotspot for me because my parents are divorced and my mother has custody of me. Hearing that ninety percent of the time that this is the case is very shocking to me if women are treated as “inferior” as said in this essay.

In Tannen’s Essay “There is no Unmarked Woman” she explores how no matter what women do, say, or wear they are always marked.  Tannen explains that if women dress up she is marked as someone who tries to look good and someone with messy hair is someone who does not care how she looks. While men on the other hand are rarely noticed for what they wear. Men pass through life being “unmarked” Even Tannen does not notice the men. Tannen explains, “I suddenly wondered why I was scrutinizing only the women. I scanned the eight men at the table. And then I knew why I was not study them.  The men’s styles were unmarked” (Tannen 141). As told here men are not judged as much as women because all women’s styles are marked while only controversial things men would wear would be known as a marked.