To hate how women speak tentatively

[amillionnamechangeslater000]

I’ve noticed it on podcasts, Radio 4 and in real life. It seems like everyone has started to add a high intonation when they speak - so a statement sounds like a question.

So Aibu to hate this style of speaking?

Upspeaking. Vocal fry. The 'apologetic' or '(fake) shy' hand in front of mouth when eating or drinking. AAAAAAARRRRGGHHHH

@TotorosFurryBehind

YABU for generalising and 'hating' their behaviours, which are imposed on them by the patriarchal society we still live in.

If you want to hate something, hate the patriarchy.

I thought that that was what OP was saying, really.

I know of an example of an autistic female colleague who was told her direct manner of speaking was 'rude'. Nobody critiqued the male colleagues that also spoke directly and were in fact sometimes obviously rude.

When will we stop feeling entitled to police every tiny aspect of womens behaviour and appearance?

Thinking about it my accent does mean that I am seen as quite authoritative at work despite my age.

Hard to upspeak with a Yorkshire accent and a semi-deep register

In the past few years I've been making a concerted effort to be more declarative when I speak. It's an extremely hard habit to break.

In my own case I sometimes suspect I do it when I'm intimidated (by women as well as men), not so much as a deferential thing but as an "I"m so delicate and fragile, please be gentle with me" thing, which I detest about myself. It must work though, or the habit wouldn't have formed so indelibly.

I even do it in academic writing, in which I can be downright obdurate. My PhD supervisor is always red-penning phrases like "I would suggest that..." and "It may be the case that..." and writing BE MORE ASSERTIVE! in the margins.

The 'apologetic' or '(fake) shy' hand in front of mouth when eating or drinking.

I would class that as a completely different category of behaviour. I, like a lot of other people, am completely repulsed by other people's eating noises / messy visuals, and reflect it back on myself to become totally self-conscious when eating in front of other people (except friends and family, obviously). Also when in a formal setting, I get paranoid about getting something on my chin or something. I've noticed men doing this too.

Funny how it's always women who are told their tone isn't right
I would say it's not right for gaining a more senior position and climbing the greasy pole. It's not exactly criticism for it if they choose to speak like that.
DH is 75 and sexist - he often criticizes the comments or speech of a female politician but never comments on a male. I have to admit that I have some unconscious bias there too but nothing like he has.

The 'apologetic' or '(fake) shy' hand in front of mouth when eating or drinking.

Again I think that's something that has come into mainstream Western culture from abroad - it's a very Japanese thing to do.

Another thing I find annoying is when particularly a sentence ends with a letter 's' or 't' people say the rest of the word then very quietly say the s or t afterwards, on its own. I thinks something they have had to practi...ce.

I learnt at school that if you sound confident the other kids bully you relentlessly for being ‘up yourself’. If you say ‘I think...’ in that weedy voice you don’t get as much crap- better yet don’t answer at all.

I had never thought of this, just assumed my weediness was a product of the patriarchy, but this is absolutely spot-on - I was much more declarative until I was about twelve, when I started secondary school and people started bullying me for being "posh" and "a know-it-all". I learned not to declare answers that I knew, but suggest them as if I wasn't sure.

That's a lightbulb moment @Notverybright, thank you! (And I didn't mean that as a pun on your username )

Disheartening link - qz.com/1812802/un-study-finds-almost-90-of-men-and-women-are-biased-against-women/

At work I'm seen as assertive and not one to be railroaded. Of course, this wouldn't even be noticed in a man but it's noticed in me. Luckily I don't work in a place where that's seen as a bad thing.

I don't upspeak and I'm not tentative in speech. But Christ am I tentative in emails and it's such a bloody hard habit to break. I don't know if it's female socialisation or it's because I started life as a secretary when I was a nervous 22-year-old trying to get CEOs to do what I needed them to do, but I can't stop myself.

I take out tentative phrases from my emails but I usually end up putting them back in because it sounds so blunt without them. I mean wording like "If that's okay, can you..." or "I may be wrong, but I thought [when I know I'm not wrong]" or "I hope you can help with X" when actually they have to do X.

I suppose I just need to bite the bullet and start sending emails that I feel uncomfortable with. :/

QuimReaper I disagree with the position your supervisor is taking. "It may be the case that..." is very good phrasing in my opinion for academic work, unless it's a definite fact. Otherwise it;s just crying out for the reader to look for counter-arguments.

Which is what happens on MN a lot. I always start with "I think..." or "in my opinion/experience..." not through lack of assertiveness, but because I am one person in a world with billions of different perspectives.

When someone comes on and states something as absolute fact, when it's plainly an opinion, it makes them look closed-minded.

Vocal fry and rising intonation 😖 both irritating 😤

@PuntoEBasta oh you’re right actually - and I did the same. Surprising bearing in mind he spent his formative years with actors with very good diction!

Re: the email thing, I do that. I'd hate for someone to think it's unassertive. I do the "if it's ok..." "shall we..." just thought..." as a deliberate attempt to foster collaboration and friendliness. Which never go amiss in the workplace - at least I've never seen that be a problem, quite the opposite.

Yes I do think men should step down from their high horse and be more like this too, rather than us having to imitate their over-confidence to be taken seriously.

I am quite apologetic and write things like 'I wonder if...' in emails, but why is this a bad thing and why should I remover the apologies?

I've always used a friendly but apologetic manner to get what I want in life, I do it in person as well, and it works pretty well! If you start off with 'sorry to bother you but...' even if you are in the right, and you smile and look appreciative, people help you, a lot, including when they really shouldn't. I also feel it's respectful to admin staff to acknowledge when you are being a pain/busy.

I wince when I get a curt/short answer from someone who thinks he's (as it is nearly always a he) very important. I am not going to mimic that.

@Nearlyalmost50

Also, some male professors do an excellent line in gruff, unapproachable barking at people. This is very convenient for them, as then all the students fill up the office hours of the nicer, more approachable, not scary female lecturer, doing the emotional labour of listening and supporting whilst the male professor cracks on with writing their career-enhancing papers.

Good catch!

I’m assertive and clipped, bordering on aggressive in speech if you don’t know me. “Hey! How did your mum feel after her op? Is she alright? Brilliant; send her our regards,” can sound like a brutal interrogation.

I’m very direct and when younger I’d tell annoying blokes trying to chat me up that I wasn’t interested and that they were irritating me.
“Oh, am I, now?”

“That’s what I said,”

This seemed to stump lots of them. They didn’t know how to respond. I only worked out with the benefit of hindsight that they expected me to cave in when they asked for confirmation of my opinion. If I’d caved and gone all nervous and giggly or whatever, that would have given them license to carry on twattering on for longer.

It really did shut them up. Very effective.

carry on twattering

Lighten That was a poor example of mine . He picks me up on it when I do it several times in a single paragraph and it sounds like I'm not sure myself if I'm persuaded my own argument, or even whether I'm actually arguing it - it's usually things like "one might argue..." or "perhaps..."

I just googled Vocal Fry.

Omg, that is such a thing with the young women I know. I’m talking late teens to 20s. Intensely irritating, along with the upspeak.

Two separate colleagues told me that they think the student reviews I receive are very heavily influenced by both sexism and prejudice against Scots (because everything I say it do is ‘aggressive’ apparently)

Great post SporadicNameChange. I think another aspect is the accentism (if that is a real word) that exists. Women academics like Katie Edwards from Sheffield have spoken powerfully about the negative comments she gets for speaking perfectly grammatically but with a strong Sheffield accent. Older men with strong regional accents such as Lord Sugar and Harry Redknapp are often celebrated but where are there female equivalents?

Their

It was recently raised on radio 4 that no presenters had English regional accents. They are making changes.

Women academics like Katie Edwards from Sheffield have spoken powerfully about the negative comments she gets for speaking perfectly grammatically but with a strong Sheffield accent.

I know a Geordie professor with a strong regional accent, immaculately coiffed hair and perfect make up who always wears formal dresses or smart trousers and leopard-print shirts (unlike Yours Truly who thrashes about in DMs). It's a fairly distinctive style in academia and often provokes surprise. When talking to would-be working class university applicants it's a good opening for a discussion of 'what is a professor supposed to look like?', and dispelling the old stereotypes automatically conjuring up images of tweed, unironed clothes, flyaway salt-and-pepper hair and spectacles perched on the head.

The prof mentioned above is still very much in the minority. UK class divisions are awful and one hell of a lot hinges on speech, given names, etc. The makers of the My Fair Lady adaptation had it bang on the money with the lines: 'An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him. The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him'.

Hopefully we'll get past this shallow snobbery one day.