Women and voice

[AmberTheCat]

I've really enjoyed the 'Women and space' thread. In your OP, Buffy, you mentioned you'd given more thought to women's voice. I'd love to hear more about your and others' thoughts and experiences around that.

Ooh! I loved that thread too and this one sounds really interesting as well.

I don't know if this is what you mean, but something that always strikes me about voice is the way that people constantly insist that if only women in professional/responsible situations spoke exactly like men, they'd do as well as men. Whereas in reality, of course, if a woman speaks like a man, ten to one she'll put everyone's backs up as they will think she is a 'bolshy woman'.

There is, btw, some really horrible violent imagery about silencing women in historical art and literature. Women with tongues cut out, or nailed down and so on. It is a really clear target of male violence.

Mary Beard is particularly good on this subject

There is a sociological observation that women's voices have dropped in pitch since the warII. You don't hear women speaking is especially high tones so much as you used to. Not offering any theories as to why here though.

Ahhh, but in some ways you don't, buffy.

I know what you mean (and I grant I am basing this on extremely brief face-to-face meeting). But you do also do that female-socialized, polite, not-dominating-the-conversation thing, I think?

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of conversations I've had with men who're academics senior to me, that I'm asking for advice (which I was), who took anything approaching the tone you took with me. They just don't do it. They may be perfectly nice, but there is much more of an assumption of complete authority and much less 'you might feel differently ...' stuff.

Sorry, hope that wasn't over-personal! I just find it so interesting.

squid - ooh, that's interesting! Would some of it be bigger chests or summat? (I know nothing about anatomy or anything like that, I just know our proportions have changed).

squid is that the UK or everywhere? Because I had been noticing the opposite myself, that a lot of women seem to have high pitched voices (but they have tended to be American).

Funny thing though, I have a lower pitched voice and I used to feel badly about it. I thought it made me seem less feminine and I hated it. Then DH pointed out that my voice is suitable for singing the jazz songs of the 1930s that we both love.

I still get talked over though because I am shy and quiet. Also, I do the self-effacing thing all the time. I worry that my social awkwardness comes off as unpleasantness when really I am just trying to be sure not to inconvenience anybody.

More on topic to the thread though, aren't voices and space inherently linked? The louder and basser the voice the more aural space it takes up so people have no choice but to listen.

And women are taught not to take up any space anywhere which includes aural space hence many of us speak quietly and rarely.

HAHA We all have bigger chests !! (Sorry that really put an image of Jordan in my head)

Well base tones travel further and and heared easily, while high tones communicate 'injured animal/helpless baby' more...

It's a European thing, Terraria
Perhaps there is a collective and subconscious goal to speak in an assertive rather than a passive way... Americans do sound higher pitched to me too!

I'm sure if I heared Buffy speak I wouldn't think "Baby" lol...

Or maybe female voices have dropped because we have ^actually" gained more authority than we had...

I think that it is more to do with body language.
Finger wagging for instance is not much of a man trait.

I presume that not many of you watch Big Brother. But this year, as like I think every series since it started about 14 years ago, several women are evicted first, before any man is.
This series, a man went out 4th because Big Brother engineered it that way.
My impression was, that they would have been embarassed if any more women went before the men. imo, if they hadnt intervened, I suspect another 2 would have gone before any of the men.

It struck me that feminism still has a very long way to go, since most of the voters apparently are young women.

I'm not sure how much this is about voice, but I've been struck recently by the impression left by a series of webinars my company has started running. There is a fairly high number of women in senior positions in the company, but recently it's felt like there aren't as many as there used to be (I'm not sure if that's true, or a perception driven by our long standing and hugely respected female CEO being replaced by a man). Anyway, these webinars are designed for people around the company to share interesting things with colleagues. Nearly all of them have involved men talking, with members of our internal comms team (all women) visible in the background setting things up and making it all run smoothly.

I've found the contrast between men speaking and women enabling quite stark, and depressing.

I was in a meeting recently at work, three men and me. Three of us at the same level of seniority and the other managed by one of the men. He and the manager wanted to pass over some work to the team that me and male colleague are in.

The dynamics were fascinating - initially the discussion was largely between junior male, who has been doing the work, and me as he proposed passing it to someone I manage. When disagreement arose though his manager took over, and used interruption and body language - holding his palm.up to me and saying "no" repeatedly. Then my colleague took over and used interruption and increasing volume to dominate. I found it hard to get a word in and junior male went silent.

There was no agreement and it ended with suggesting junior male write up the proposal and I get wider views from the whole team. No actions for either other man.

I thought about how I would try to deal with it differently in future - I will certainly know what to expect with palm man, I was unprepared for that level of rudeness. But I also felt annoyed and frustrated with myself that I hadn't asserted myself more. And further annoyed that I doubt either man thought afterwards, I was quite rude to EE there, I must consider how to be less aggressive in future.

I work in Primary teaching. In my time I've only encountered two teachers I'd consider utter frauds. Not just incompetent, but "how the F have you risen to senior management" level of incompetence.
Both were physically big, tall men and both had deep, loud voices. Both of them could talk the talk (when they weren't saying crashingly incorrect things) and I firmly believe that their voices, gab and stature elevated them to positions they had no business holding. I still work with one of them.

This week we had a difficult meeting with some tough issues about next year being discussed. Male manager did exactly as EE mentioned above - put his palms up and interrupted anyone making a point he didn't want to consider. Now, I have quite a deep voice for a woman and didn't like the way things were going. So I went to put my point across and BLOODY hell, what did I do? I did the awful female-ingrained self doubt thing: "I could be wrong but..." "It might not be relevant but..."

So angry with myself.

i put this on teh pub thread as a bit of self-flagellation, but it's relevant here

I caught myself out in a bit of ingrained sexist assumption the other morning. I was listening to a podcast of Judy Murray on Desert Island Discs, and my first reaction to her voice was surprise that it was quite soft, light and high-pitched. Because of course that doesn't tie in with the stereotype of someone who is driven, strong and authoritative. So angry with myself that that was my initial response. I need deprogramming or something

On the subject of men, women and interrupting in meetings, I came across this: languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13422

Her conclusion seems to be that men interrupt, women interrupt other women, but women don't interrupt men very often.

There are also follow-ups:
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13474
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13480
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13513

I've read almost all of the women and space thread and found it so interesting as it's something I'd never been aware of before.
With women and voice it's easy to get caught up with asking 'is what I'm saying really valid' or 'maybe I wasn't saying the right thing' or 'I know I'm right, I need to be more assertive'.
But when considering women and space, women are not doing anything at all, just existing and we still get less space.
It's impossible to beat yourself up for doing something wrong, when you are just trying to sit, walk or live in your own house and still get less space.

That's what made that thread such an eye opener for me. Also it reinforces that message, the 'personal is political' simply doing your morning commute you can make a point.

I am much more aware of my 'voice' in the workplace now. I have got into the habit of reading back through an email now before I send it and changing it to be less passive and 'maybe we should...', 'perhaps it might...' to just saying what I really think and standing by that idea. At the moment it seems like an older, less-capable man is going to get a small promotion that should really be mine.

I was assessed interviewing a client.

The feedback from my male assessor was that my voice was too high pitched and that basically if I tried to sound more like a man I'd have scored better!

I wish I'd been in a position to complain about it.

One thing that stood out for me from Mary Beard's lecture (the one posted above) is how the one subject that women are 'allowed' to stand up and talk about is women's issues. And it's true, there are so many women out there talking and writing about women's issues, and far fewer writing on the other stuff.

I'm also more aware of my voice at work - I try and sound assertive now, and it's been a real struggle to get there. I only manage to do it by putting on a 'professional persona', my husband and friends have expressed surprise at how confident and assured I sound if they've ever had a chance to encounter me in a professional context. So I don't think I keep up this confident assured act outside of work!

But, I don't try and go too far towards 'being male' at work. I actually managed to get my current job (male dominated tech industry) by being completely open in the interviews about how I prefer a more collaborative way of working, getting consensus before proceeding etc, all things that people associate with a female style of leadership.

When I was younger, I was often told that I should speak more in meetings. But I hated it because it seemed like meetings were just a way for some people to have a platform to get their voice heard, even if they had nothing useful to say. I didn't want to be another one speaking for the sake of it. In recent years though, I've been in many more meetings where the chair has deliberately asked me to speak (or other quiet people, men and women). I find this much easier, and a far better way of chairing a meeting - I feel like I get interrupted far less when someone has explicitly asked for my point of view.