Do any grown women genuinely speak with a high pitched baby voice?

[Xqyz]

As my next door neighbour speaks like this all the time (apart from when she's shouting at her kids).

This woman is nearly 50 and I wish I could record her so you could hear it. It goes up and down and it's like she's trying to imitate her 3yr old daughter.

I just really don't understand why you would speak like this. It cannot be natural.

Thankfully the sound proofing has dampened most of it when we are in the house but as the weather is reasonable today, they will be in the garden all day so I can hear it. 🫣

I tend to talk in a supersweet, young-sounding, high-pitched voice when I ask for stuff in restaurants or shops. I don't mean to do it. I actually find it cringeworthy and simpering, but the voice just comes out. I have to put a real conscious effort in to trying to talk normally.

My friends call it my 'asking for stuff' voice. My natural voice is a bit deeper.

The funny thing is, I can't do it conciously. If I try and use the 'asking for stuff' voice to show people what I mean, I can't put it on!

My sister does it a bit too, but my parents don't. So no idea where it came from or why I started doing it. I'm in my thirties btw and have had the same issue since I was a teen.

Women from more egalitarian societies have deeper voices than women from less equal societies, compare the pitch of those from Netherlands and USA compared to Japan and China. Its fascinating.

I have a naturally high pitched voice, and the more nervous I am, the higher it goes.

It's a real pisser. Have always wanted a deeper, huskier voice. I had a very bad throat infection once and lost my voice. When it was coming back it was practically an octave deeper. I was delighted. Sadly it got higher as I got better.

I've always worried that people take me less seriously for having a high pitched voice. I'm quite sad to find that some women really are secretly judging me.

Yes. The woman who works at my chemist had a voice so high pitched that she sounds like she has been on helium. It really is the strangest thing! She's lovely.

Don't feel singled out, those of us with naturally deeper voices are openly judged, told that we sound like blokes and get banned from the school choir. as kids.

Far more desirable to sound like Snow White, apparently.

Yes OW was like this. One of ex's friends said "that voice would send me over the edge" 😆

You were banned from a school choir! That's horrific.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, isn't it?

I don't want to be Snow White. I want to be an intelligent, authoritative person. I want people to respect me and take me seriously for my real abilities, not my perceived qualities.

I remember hearing that Maggie Thatcher had voice coaching to sound more 'authoritative' ie more like a man. Thought it was typical OTT Thatcher when I first heard the story, but now I wonder if she was on to something.

Guess my fate is to be drugged and married off to a bloke who shags corpses

If it makes you feel any better, I phoned my (ex) bank once and the man on the other end said, ‘Sorry, but can I ask, are you a man or a woman?’

I’ve had it a few times over the phone actually.

Also re school… we didn’t have a school choir but we had to sing religious songs every day. I had to mime them as they were too high for me and spent years thinking I just couldn’t sing. Ironically now I do sing and have done professionally. I hate my speaking voice but it gives me my singing voice, which makes me very happy.

I’ve known a couple of women with high-pitched voices and I find it endearing. Erin Allman Updyke from This Podcast Will Kill You has a high-pitched voice and she’s lovely. So nice to listen to.

Even worse, I also do "dog dialogue", so talk in a gruff voice and do the dogs answers. His accent is a bit like Dylan Moran. It amuses me. Family roll eyes. 🙄

Wonders if we use the same chemist in NZ, if it is she really is fantastic at her job but have noticed some male customers treat her appallingly. 🤬

Please don't be judgemental about baby voices. My neice has a baby voice , she is 20, it is the only voice she has ever had - it just to shock me anew every visit, as I assumed she would grow out of it, but it is entirely beyond her control, She isn't a baby at all, but she can't change her voice.

I don’t even know where my Cat Voice came from. It just came out the moment he came to live with me. I think I’m physically incapable of speaking to him in any other way. He’s too precious to be subjected to anything less 😳

I've just listened to Julie Burchill and it's like that but much worse as it's very loud and more sing song like. Imagine a Geordie accent with lots of 'eeeeee's.

She's just had a tradesman round and it was really ramped up for him so maybe it is her way of being more attractive. 🤔

I know she is/was extremely thin so what someone said about it being a result of childhood trauma may have some truth in it. I don't know her well enough to know.

I do know that the cat can sleep through anything but as soon as she speaks her ears twitch and she lifts her head in surprise.

I read something about it being related to the length of the neck. I’m not sure if it’s true or not. The longer the neck, the deeper the voice.

😂

Janet Ellis comes to mind, I saw her on House of Games recently and she still has a naturally girlish high pitched voice.

I don't think so. I've got a shortish neck and a quite deep voice. My dog has a long neck and gruff voice, so, dunno. 🤷

I know she is/was extremely thin so what someone said about it being a result of childhood trauma may have some truth in it. I don't know her well enough to know.

Sorry but stuff like this really irritates me. Some people just have naturally high-pitched voices. Vocal cords vary. It’s like with stringed instruments, the width and tension of the string determines the pitch. People are different. It doesn’t automatically mean they’ve suffered childhood trauma or are regressing into childhood.

I've got a squeaky voice and I'm really self-conscious about it. I'm also quite short and in combination I find those things make it hard to be taken seriously, particularly at work. I've always tried to tell myself it doesn't matter and other people don't notice it as much as I do, but this thread is proving I was right!

I can't help it, it's just my voice. I can speak more deeply if I try, but it requires effort and I don't think I could keep it up all day.

Sandra Dickinson. It seemed to be the fashion for women to speak/sing like that in the early 1980s- early Madonna and Cyndi Lauper.

It doesn’t automatically mean they’re regressing into childhood

No but a babyish voice can mean that sometimes..Usually accompanied by other childish mannerisms and used in an exaggerated way around men and people in authority.
So yes, it can be a deeply rooted psychological defence mechanism- a form of self protection or a learned behaviour from childhood which has continued to adulthood.

I think most people have heard a woman use a “sexy baby” voice as a flirting technique. It’s difficult to listen to although many men love it because it makes them automatically feel authoritative and powerful.

Its usually quite easy to tell the difference between the above and a naturally high pitched voice.

Cerys Matthews from Catatonia has a soft high voice, coupled with the Welsh accent it’s lovely. I once worked with a woman who sounded like Joe Pasquale.

My voice is naturally high pitched (not Bernadette from Big Bang, but high( and its a shock hearing myself on tape as it sounds lower in my head.

It's just my voice, there's sod all I can do about it.

I only talk baby talk to my cats however.

At least you get asked, @TokyoStories, I get called Sir, or Mr Complex. It works in my favour in other ways though.