Vocal fry

[HarryHarry]

I recently came across the term in an article about how women undermine themselves by speaking in a certain way and I was curious about why we do this and what we can do to change it.

I know for a fact that I speak differently when I speak to certain people, in part to stop them interrupting and to check that they’re still listening, but also to avoid coming across as cold and unfriendly. When I have experimented with speaking in my real voice, which is deeper and flatter and less expressive, I have found that people - especially men - have responded negatively, calling me stuck-up, rude and aggressive. They seem to treat me much better when they think I am a young, weak and timid little girl.

The reason I’m thinking about this is that since having children, I’ve become more aware of how strong women are, and how the patriarchy has been set up to make us think otherwise. I am now less willing to make myself smaller to make men feel bigger. But I also don’t want to be perceived as a bitch and I don’t want all my encounters with other people to be negative.

Does anybody have any thoughts?

Partner and I both hate vocal fry. (Almost as much as the ubiquitous glottal-stop.) We were blissfully unaware of VF until someone mentioned it about a year ago on this very board. Now it seems all over the place. S'funny but it's hard to put into words exactly why it's so irritating.

"S'funny but it's hard to put into words exactly why it's so irritating."

Possibly because it is so put on and not natural, or certainly not natural in this country.

Here is an article from 2015 theconversation.com/keep-an-eye-on-vocal-fry-its-all-about-power-status-and-gender-45883

General consensus from many studies is that
young Women like it
Everyone else hates it - when it’s used by young women

The deep voice etc gives authority to everyone else but is annoying in young women

IMO we should leave women alone
The way they talk is just another way to criticise them

It's a blissful ignorance thing. A year ago I was unaware, but since becoming aware I now can't miss it and I'm continually grinding my teeth when I have a sense that someone is putting on such a voice.

If a woman uses a higher register to speak, then it's classified as ditzy, valley-girl uptalk. If a woman uses her lower register, it's vocal fry. If she speaks in the middle (modal range), her words often get lost entirely.

Just another way we can’t win!

Op I’m sorry that’s your experience
I am a manager to many men and find the same thing
Ditsy school girl gives me no authority but they’ll do what I want
Anything other than that sees me as bossy or a bitch

Read the book - nice girls don’t get the corner office

IMO we should leave women alone
The way they talk is just another way to criticise them

I'm with you on that. Women are always doing something or other wrong. If it's not the way they look it's the way they sound. When I was young, there was a widespread consensus that women couldn't be newsreaders because people didn't like the higher pitch of women's voices.

It's all such bollocks.

Does anyone talk like that in real life? I've only noticed it in films and TV.
Every real woman I know just uses their natural voice and gets on with life.

When I was young, there was a widespread consensus that women couldn't be newsreaders because people didn't like the higher pitch of women's voices.

That must have been in the 50s right?
Nan Winton and Barbara Mandell proved them wrong.

I guess it’s not just about VF but about how we change our voices generally to be more... I don’t know, likeable? I want to stop but I also don’t want to be called a bitch by strangers!

Vocal fry is a specific change to the voice which happens when the throat is tightened and there is less airflow to the vocal cords. It's not strictly about pitch, it's more of a dry rubbly sound.

It can be done to sound 'less bothered' - if you dont put much air behind something it would typically be because you dont care as much. Or it can happen in women or men who dont feel confident - they need to speak but dont want to sound forceful or worry about not being authoritative enough.

It's very annoying to my generation but its increasingly common.

I sing, and my voice is rich, warm, and deep. Some choirs I've attended were happy for me to sing tenor with the menfolk, as tenors are often thin on the ground because younger men don't often want to sing in church, for instance, but some choirs have refused to let me sing tenor, often there is no alto section, and I've been stuck in with the second sopranos (mezzos). Because I have tits.

I can do it, but I don't like it. I don't like listening to it and I don't like having to concentrate to place the notes, and I think it sounds screechy at the top of my register despite my best efforts. Fine in a group, but I wouldn't do it solo.

A choir master once pointed out to me that they thought it strange my singing voice was so deep, as my speaking voice wasn't, and I'd actually never noticed. I knew I loved to sing, but I'd never liked listening to myself talk: I sounded like Minnie Mouse.

I had a think, and realised that I'd spent years desperately trying to signal that I was, despite my short hair and baggy jeans, a woman. My 'manly' voice had occasionally drew criticism from others, and I didn't want people to think I was, as my brother called me, 'a Lesley bean', and so I tried to appear girly, and the voice was something I could use to signal my femininity.

now I'm in my 40's, and my deep, commanding voice signals authority. I'm great at speeches, and great at crowd control: my voice makes people do as they're told and it makes people listen.

If you listen to female recording artists, most of them are soprano. There's a handful of altos, and they're usually fat, ugly, or lesbians. (The three cardinal sins). There's never any bass females. They exist, and yeah, they're rare, but they do exist. But nobody wants to buy their albums. Soprano is how women are 'supposed' to sound. Like children that you can easily dismiss, perhaps, the pretty fluff warbling about crap boyfriends and romantic entanglements. Safe, non-threatening, easy to control with a few slaps.

again, I suspect female socialisation and/or internalised homophobia are the culprits. Society needs to stop telling young girls what they should and shouldn't be to be 'real' women. XX Chromosomes. That's all. The rest is conditioning.

Aren't there more sopranos because that is naturally where most female voices fall?

But Carly Simon, KD Lang, Rumer , Grace Slick , Karen Carpenter, Annie Lennox Cher, Joss Stone, Alison Moyet , Alicia Keys, Sade, KT Tunstall, Roisin Murphy are /were contraltos and are/were hugely successful. There are plenty of others.

KD is obviously a lesbian but to say all altos are "ugly, fat or lesbian is pretty awful.

Annie Lennox a contralto? Who was singing "No More I Love Yous," then?

She has a wide range- Sweet Dreams is in a lower register.

Saying there are no altos/ contraltos except a few who are "fat , ugly or lesbians" is ridiculous.

I think vocal fry is a really important way for teenage girls to identify themselves and band together. I read a brilliant article a while back that essentially traced most of the development of language in modern times back to teenage twirls - they are the trailblazers in terms of vocabulary, tone, rhythms etc.

The beautiful thing about VF is that it's not for the boardroom, or for any of the other things that women have to mould themselves towards. VF doesn't make you cool, senior, C suite, employable, clever, educated, married or anything else - it just makes you a girl. Honestly, I think we should be celebrating it - although it nips my head to hear it!

I can think of many woman singers who have lower voices and aren't considered unwomanly. I can't say I've ever heard a woman bass but I'd think that must be rather rare just like the countertenor or the deepest men's voices. Quite a few people people don't really like the sound of the countertenor either, they find it a bit too weird, or there is a sense of it not being quite right somehow, I assume because it's unusual. Though I don't find people feel the same way about the pop falsetto for some reason.

As for vocal fry, yes, I really dislike it, and I don't think it has anything to do with low women's voices, because I like those very much. Vocal fry is not the same as a low women's voice, it's an affectation. I have occasionally met women with voices so low they sound like men if you don't see the speaker, and while I think they sound pleasant it can create a sense of incongruity, because it seems like mixed signals I think. You almost do a double take and think "wait, am I sure that's a woman?"

I don't think there is much hope that people will stop communicating things by the way we pitch or present our voices, unless we stop talking altogether.

I think it sounds like how children talk when they have really bad constipation.

I love Fiona Apple's singing voice, and Tracy Chapman's :)

I remember a few years ago there was an article being passed around which discussed how the vast majority of voices for things like GPS and Siri/Alexa-type "assistants" were female, and how male voices were available but far less popular. Of course sexism was brought up, followed by a wall of comments saying that women's voices were just more pleasant to listen to. Which is pretty rich considering how often women are told our voices are weak/grating/shrill/etc in basically every other aspect of life. No sexism there, nosiree.

I have only ever associated female vocal fry with women from certain parts of America, I've never really associated it with submissive femininity. So to me personally it is more like an accent than a social behaviour such as mitigated speech.

I don't think there is any such thing as a wrong voice because by what objective standard is a voice 'right'? I guess the male, lower, voice is perhaps the patriarchal society's neutral standard and is associated (in sexist fashion) with wisdom and authority and so women will be criticised either for simply not being that or, conversely, for having or adopting a tone more associated with male authority and overstepping a boundary! Can't win for losing really.

I think we all probably consciously and unconsciously tailor our voices in some way.

Fascinating subject actually.

Yes lots but it's late so will be brief! And hope makes sense

Read a thing years ago about how teen girls drive trends/ change in language ie it starts with them and gets adopted. The articles I read said, they drive popular change but are slagged off for it because, teen girls

Vocal fry not new. Old episodes of criminal minds, Vocal fry all over the place, men and women. Years ago I said to DH, why are they all doing that growly thing?

Watched brief encounter the other day. The women's voices were so high! Women's voices have deepened as we went into workplace. Guess why. Margaret Thatcher was trained to lower voice. Man at work last week said his toddler didn't listen to his wife as her voice is high! These things persist. Female voice is not associated with power. So females adjust.

In short. The focus on Vocal fry is interesting. From a feminist perspective.

I'm not sure I even know what vocal fry is.

Possibly it might be the type of voice which my junior assistant has. She sounds much , much younger than she really is and her voice iso quite high.

I've never thought about it beyond that and I'm certainly not going to judge her in the way some of you presumably would.

So vocal fry is a low voice? I still wouldn't judge.

'I remember a few years ago there was an article being passed around which discussed how the vast majority of voices for things like GPS and Siri/Alexa-type "assistants" were female, and how male voices were available but far less popular'

And weren't programmed to respond to female stuff. They were very good on I'm having chest pain, I've been raped got zero advice etc. Can dig out articles tomorrow, or Google if interested.

The whole thing of the 'assistants' being female is an issue.

Oh, and most of them / all of them, were unable to say no. Interesting.

Desirees it's a growly from the throat sort of a sound. Different from deep.

I don't mind it personally at all, but a lot of people hate it (poss cos associated with teen girls even though as noted men on criminal minds were at it a decade ago!).

Desirees it's a growly from the throat sort of a sound

OK thanks. In that case then I think I know what this refers to.

I have only ever associated female vocal fry with women from certain parts of America
If I've got it right I would add and some regional accents too.

but a lot of people hate it (poss cos associated with teen girls

• yes even on here teenage girls are getting a pasting.