There Is No Unmarked Woman By Debroah Tannen
Throughout history, men dominated the planet. Their ability to withstand hard physical labor launched males as the superior gender for centuries. As society progressed, the necessity for physical labor decreased. Today, only a select few jobs require hard labor while the education system influences the job market. This change in society opens the door for women to excel at the same pace as men, however, men continue to insist on enforcing outdated gender roles. These enforcements hold women back in a society where equality should thrive. Socially constructed gender roles hinder individual expression and slow human progression as a whole. From personal experience to paper, Debroah Tannen’s “There Is No Unmarked Woman” shows the key differences
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The bone structure and average muscle mass differ between the sexes. A woman’s brain being smaller, therefore presumed as less effective than a man’s, often becomes an arguing point without evidence to back the claim. In the nineteenth century, a scientist by the name of Paul Broca attempted to prove women’s inferiority to men. “We are therefore permitted to suppose that the relatively small size of the female brain depends in part upon her physical inferiority and in part upon her intellectual inferiority” (Gould 4). Broca tries to back his theory initially with nothing more than physical attributes; explaining how females already accepted their role as the less intelligent sex, using their smaller bodies to help to prove this fact. In 1980, Stephen Jay Gould reexamined Broca’s findings which spawned a following of misogynistic scientists. Gould discovered key errors in Broca’s argument based on his recordings. Broca calculated that the average male brain weighed in at 181 grams heavier than a female brain. Broca recorded his process of discovering this information, allowing Gould to point out a fact that could collapse the entire argument. “Brain weight decreases with age, and Broca’s women were, on average, considerably older than his men” (Gould 9). From the moment of birth, a human begins to die. As the years pass, the brain deteriorates along with the rest of the body. Broca’s inaccurate variables forced his flawed argument out of the
The bone structure and average muscle mass differ between the sexes. A woman’s brain being smaller, therefore presumed as less effective than a man’s, often becomes an arguing point without evidence to back the claim. In the nineteenth century, a scientist by the name of Paul Broca attempted to prove women’s inferiority to men. “We are therefore permitted to suppose that the relatively small size of the female brain depends in part upon her physical inferiority and in part upon her intellectual inferiority” (Gould 4). Broca tries to back his theory initially with nothing more than physical attributes; explaining how females already accepted their role as the less intelligent sex, using their smaller bodies to help to prove this fact. In 1980, Stephen Jay Gould reexamined Broca’s findings which spawned a following of misogynistic scientists. Gould discovered key errors in Broca’s argument based on his recordings. Broca calculated that the average male brain weighed in at 181 grams heavier than a female brain. Broca recorded his process of discovering this information, allowing Gould to point out a fact that could collapse the entire argument. “Brain weight decreases with age, and Broca’s women were, on average, considerably older than his men” (Gould 9). From the moment of birth, a human begins to die. As the years pass, the brain deteriorates along with the rest of the body. Broca’s inaccurate variables forced his flawed argument out of the