Marking Women Susan Sontag Analysis

Women walk a thin line regarding how society perceives their so-called “outside” vs. “inside,” with one’s beauty put on a pedestal for everyone to critique. In Deborah Tannen’s Marked Women, Allen Pace Nilsen’s Sexism in English: Embodiment in Language, and Susan Sontag’s A Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source?, the authors discuss unrealistic expectations for women’s outward appearances. Although it can be considered a source of power for some, beauty, as defined by society, results in the objectification of women who are always working to be more attractive. Further, Tannen, Nilsen and Sontag suggest how a woman’s appearance has a direct result on her professional life and other’s recognition of her power compared to men. Through the

idealistic images in the media and language linked towards women, standards of beauty in a patriarchal society leaves women constantly under scrutiny and obligations, preventing women from reaching their full potential.
Our culture’s impractical expectations of what is considered beautiful relating to body characteristics, personality, and superficial styles results in women always feeling unsatisfied with their appearance.

When Susan Sontag describes her opinion on how women view their bodies, she writes, “Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and evaluate each part separately” (Sontag 18). In order to fit the ideal mold of beauty, women are left to incessantly dissect and criticize each aspect of their bodies. Thus, as Sontag suggests, the societal constructs relating to attractiveness have created an unwinnable game of perfection for most women. Everyday, we see advertisements spread over magazines or billboards that depict that perfect model for a woman. However, the models we often see can be altered with new technologies today such as Photoshop, rendering an artificial idea of beautiful. Further, Nilsen uses a similar argument while comparing it to men: “In American culture a woman is valued for the attractiveness and sexiness of her body, while a man is valued for his physical strength and accomplishments” (Nilsen 7). Nilsen depicts the superficial nature of perceptions of women, focused on the external looks. In comparison, men are celebrated for their hard work and achievements, indicating a healthier focus on their inner qualities. Sontag suggests that “we are actually surprised when someone who is beautiful is also intelligent, talented, good” (Sontag 17), which reveals women don’t have the ability to be distinguished by their accomplishments, like men, without an influence from their outward beauty. Deborah Tannen argues that women are always “marked,” given a label for their actions and appearance. In relation to beauty, Tannen comments, “Each of the women at the conference had to make decisions about hair, clothing, makeup and accessories, and each decision carried meaning. Every style available to us was marked” (Tannen 2). While observing the women at a

work conference, Tannen portrays that women are required to “make decisions” based on their need to feel beautiful for other people. Further, every decision made is likely to be scrutinized and carefully used to deem an opinion, creating a “marked” woman.
While beauty can lead to power and advances in one’s professional career, a woman’s constant reliance on her looks and charm conveys a dependency for men’s approval and also the devaluing of a women’s full potential in the workforce. Sontag, Tannen, and Nilsen each provide arguments supporting the notion that in the professional arena, women need to be associated with a level of attraction to gain respect and power. In Marked Women, Tannen writes, “When our group made an unexpected trek, the woman who wore flat, laced shoes arrived first. Last to arrive was the woman in spike heels, shoes in hand and a handful of men around her” (Tannen 3). Tannen suggests the woman’s heels signify her femininity and sex appeal, which leads to her gaining more power than the woman in the none sexualized comfortable shoes. The woman in heels sacrifices her personal comfort to receive more attention from the men who find her vulnerable and in need of their support. Consequently, she had to surrender being prompt in a professional setting. In comparison, Nilsen states that she “was surprised to realize how many pairs of words we have in which the feminine word has acquired sexual connotations while the masculine word retains a serious business-like aura” (Nilsen 8). Thus, similar to the woman in heels in Tannen’s article, words relating to women in the English language require sexual meanings to have significance in society today. As Sontag portrays, “Beauty is a form of power. And deservedly so. What is lamentable is that it is the only form of power that most women are encouraged to seek. This power is always conceived in relation to men; it is not the power to do but the power to attract” (Sontag 18). Sontag’s mention of power represents inferiority to men since women can never achieve the perfect image of beauty. Power stemming from one’s looks carries various implications that limit the power available to women. In addition, “the power to attract” is not chosen freely, but instead positioned on women by a man or society as an entity. Even if a woman does achieve a successful position in her work, “She is always under pressure to confess that she still works at being attractive” (Sontag 18). Sontag suggests a woman has to always maintain focus on her beauty in addition to working towards success in a profession, an impractical balance.
The relationship between beauty and power deceives women into a harsh cycle of oppression and restrictions on individuality set by society. In Tannen’s last line, she writes, “Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman” (Tannen 5). Tannen depicts societies impression on a woman as unavoidable even if she desires to escape all judgments and perceptions from others. Sontag contributes that, “Nothing less than perfection will do…it is a crude trap” (Sontag 18). Paralleling Tannen’s argument, Sontag suggests women are required to be overly concerned with superficial appearances and their beauty rather than their genuine desires and individual form of expression. As result, influence from men, language, and media locks women into a series of unattainable dreams for perfection that result in the belittling of their true selves.