Vocal Fry. Up-speak. Nasal. Too loud. Too high-pitched. Too quiet. Shrill.
We talk a lot about women’s voices. I have even written about the ways we can modulate our voices to appear more confident and capable. The truth is, there is scientific research that supports the fact that, “people associate low voices—which is to say the ones generally innate to men—with competence, leadership ability, and intelligence.” I can’t help but wonder, as a mentor, am I playing into a fundamentally sexist perception when I coach women to modulate their voices? Aren’t we actually just telling women to sound more like men?
Of course, Hillary Clinton is a prime example of how women’s voices are the topic of intense conversation. She wrote in her most recent book that for many years she was coached and trained to change the way she spoke so that she would be more “likeable” and would be taken seriously as a Presidential candidate. However, she noted that simultaneously, she was constantly criticized for sounding inauthentic. How could she possibly sound authentic when she’d spent years altering her voice?
I am the first to admit that I’m extremely distracted when I hear a woman using vocal fry, up-speak or using a very high-pitched tone. I do tend to think it makes them appear less serious, and I’m more inclined to listen to a women whose tone is steady and lower-pitched. This is a struggle for me – I know that by encouraging women to modulate their voices, I’m likely participating in gender bias, but am not sure how to change my perception. I would love to hear from you; do you find yourself judging a woman’s competencies based on the tone of her voice? Do you think paying attention to your speaking habits has helped you in your career? How do you feel about the ever-present conversation around women’s voices and our collective perception of traditionally more masculine voices as the ideal? Please share your comments with me – I will address some of them on my Facebook Group.
Thank you Madeline for bringing this topic forward. I have recognized that some are able to demand more attention when they speak, but I haven’t always recognized that it may be due to tone. Or maybe it has been and I didn’t denote that. I have often taken notice to the women that command the audience. But now I would like to take pause and pay more attention to tone, gender and authencity. Thanks again – this has given me an opportunity to learn how I want to more forward speaking out without losing my authenticy.
What a fascinating topic! As a woman who is about to enter the once male-dominated legal field, the sound of my voice is something that I’ve noticed that I constantly change depending on the audience and what I’m trying to accomplish. My “court room voice” and job interview voice are typically very different from my normal conversational tone. I find myself avoiding sounding too perky or excited and talking in that firm, lower voice that you mentioned. We are also taught to sound less emotional, which can be hard in this line of work and you run the risk of sounding uninterested. I think you are absolutely right that this is another thing that we have to be conscious of in order to be taken seriously (added to the long list of how we dress, how much makeup we wear, how firm our handshakes are, etc.). This is definitely a conversation I plan on having with some of my fellow female law students! Thanks for bringing it to light!
Interesting topic. We have a female manager at work that has a very high pitched voice that is quite child-like. If I were a mentor to her I could imagine telling her to try to modulate her voice. However she clearly has been promoted to being a manager without doing this. The company I work for does pride itself in promoting men and women equally and has been recognized as treating working mothers fairly.
I agree that like others I am sometimes put off by someone’s tone of speech and it applies to both men and women for me. I think it’s more important to be authentic than to try to change to fit society’s potential gender bias.
Absolutely, I struggle with this same judgement issue related to women’s voices. I have caught myself wondering before if this is gender bias or just learning to present oneself in their best light. One way I learned to be a good public speaker was to take on speaking opportunities at a young age. Thanks to those experiences, I have developed a comfort with my own public speaking voice. I encourage young women to take every opportunity to speak up when they have opportunity so they can become comfortable with their own voice and others can become comfortable with hearing from women of all kinds.
What an incredible article Madeline. As a professional speaker, business woman and entrepreneur, I can honestly say I am guilty too of having been a bit judgmental when a woman’s voice (including my own had noticeable inflections and pitch). Oddly enough, when I found my own voice as a speaker I found myself less critical in that area and more focused on the topic at hand. One would think it would be the other way around.
Listening to men and women my entire life pitch ideas, launch sales presentations, and give masterful teaching sessions and workshops, I’ve learned that even men sometimes can be nasally, pitchy, and flat. But ultimately it’s a matter of training yourself to be more in tune with the topic and not the tone. However, the vocal tone can set the stage for the audience to truly listen.