Can we talk about "fundie baby voice" without getting political?

[Eos]

I don't know anyone who speaks like this but I've read that it's triggering to some people who grew up with it. For those of you who are personally familiar, do you relate? Or is it comforting?

I'm also curious about how this pattern is taught - do you remember conversations about it? Do you ask your daughters to speak this way?

Edited March 10 by Eos

[Scarlett]

I guess I don’t know what that is.  

[historically accurate]

Just now, Scarlett said:

I guess I don’t know what that is.  

Think Michelle Duggar's breathy soft voice. 

[Katy]

1 minute ago, Scarlett said:

I guess I don’t know what that is.  

It's Michelle Duggar's sing song whisper.

[Scarlett]

Ooooh.  I thought that was just her voice. 

[Eos]

I will link to this blog with respect for her courage https://tialevings.substack.com/p/fundie-baby-voice-isnt-what-we-called

She's responding to this author and others: https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-fundie-baby-voice

[Faith-manor]

NM

Edited March 11 by Faith-manor

[HomeAgain]

It's such a repressive technique to hide true feelings that it comes off as frightening to me.  Those sort of people are never to be trusted because it's the epitome of "keep sweet" and "bless your heart" all rolled into one.  They're often the ones who have a public persona, and then a very different private one.

I can't help thinking of Dolores Umbridge when it comes to this.  Evil, packaged nicely.

[Faith-manor]

On 3/10/2024 at 9:40 AM, HomeAgain said:

 

Nm

Edited March 11 by Faith-manor

[KungFuPanda]

A baby voice in adult women can also be a symptom of childhood abuse or trauma, and these things happen regularly in patriarchal religions.

[prairiewindmomma]

It’s triggering for me. It’s a pattern of speech a lot of women use(d) in church. On TikTok this morning I saw a video by post_mormone where she used the same voice with a fake background from General Conference and the same video angles. It’s creepily accurate. In the video she pretends to give a “talk” about how this is how she was conditioned to swallow her anger….the whole “keep sweet” dynamic. For me, I think it’s more about throwing off an aura of being a loving and nurturing wife and mother because that was our “given role”—and somehow that is incompatible with leadership over mixed groups of people. Women make no decisions for men, and men oversee all decisions women make for other women and children. The voice is about submission to authority. 
 

 

[KSera]

3 hours ago, Eos said:

I will link to this blog with respect for her courage https://tialevings.substack.com/p/fundie-baby-voice-isnt-what-we-called

 

Cuts off partway through for web readers unfortunately. I was wondering if she describes how the actual teaching of this occurs. It’s hard for me to fathom girls actually being formally trained in what their voice is supposed to sound like. I have no idea what that looks like. 

[Harriet Vane]

1 hour ago, KungFuPanda said:

A baby voice in adult women can also be a symptom of childhood abuse or trauma, and these things happen regularly in patriarchal religions.

This is completely true. As a foster parent, I have experience with teenagers who speak with a childish or baby voice who have lived through severe trauma. It's totally different from teenagers trying to act cute.

[livetoread]

Ohhhh, I just now got it! "Fundie" as in "fundamentalism" not "fundie" as in "trust fund"! I kept seeing the term and thinking it meant a trust fund baby, and I was trying to figure out why they would talk like that and what it had to do with the current event triggering the term. I was so confused. This makes so much more sense!

[maize]

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

Edited March 10 by maize

[wathe]

18 minutes ago, KSera said:

Cuts off partway through for web readers unfortunately. I was wondering if she describes how the actual teaching of this occurs. It’s hard for me to fathom girls actually being formally trained in what their voice is supposed to sound like. I have no idea what that looks like. 

I expect it's like conditioning for any other cultural behavioural norm.  Part imitation and part parental correction.  

 

[Halftime Hope]

I would be really interested to find out how much of this is traditionally southern thing.

I don't have much experience in the deep south, but I do in cultures that you would think of as fundie. However, I'm used to strong women within those cultures, not to Duggar-type women.

I can think only of one fundie baby voice person, and she is a recent acquaintance.

 

[SKL]

8 minutes ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step to close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

Agreeing with you.

I could think of a number of women from my childhood (I'm 57) who had super sweet voices and were in fact kind, mature, strong, sensible people.  None of them were trained by some fundamentalist cult to talk that way.  Their voices probably did draw people in with the assumption that they'd be safe people, which they were.

Of all the ones I can think of, only one of them was in a particularly unhealthy relationship.  She was a neighbor lady whose husband was mentally ill, alcoholic, and abusive.  She was just a mom doing her best (would not leave him because "in sickness and in health").  Her voice was not the cause of any of the problems.

Personally, I have a somewhat chirpy and quiet voice.  It's genetic.  It doesn't signify anything.

The idea of training one's voice in the way described does sound disturbing, especially in modern settings.  I would guess it was inspired by the old days or "traditional" cultures when women were/are also carefully trained how to walk, how to hold one's head, where one's eyes are allowed to go (e.g. not allowed to meet a man's eyes), how not to appear hungry, and so on.  However, I agree that a prejudice against the combination of nice personality + sweet-sounding voice is not helpful to women.

[prairiewindmomma]

In the case of the original speaker in question, it is not her natural voice. 

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

I think this is important to keep in mind.

55 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

 

I don't have much experience in the deep south, but I do in cultures that you would think of as fundie. However, I'm used to strong women within those cultures, not to Duggar-type women.

Me too. I am sure I’ve heard it somewhere, but I couldn’t say it’s common in any fundamental circles I’ve been in. Neither is patriarchy.

There are a lot of fundamentalists that predate Gothard and a lot of non-fundamentalists that have no idea they are Gothard-influenced.

I think the exposure of Gothard is important for rooting out some terrible stuff, but if we think all fundamentalists do xyz and that non-fundamentalists don’t, that’s a big problem.

It’s complicated.

[Hint: fundamentalist can be used to describe people who embraced conservative theology at a certain point in the 1900’s (vs. modernism), as a way to describe churches that practice secondary separation, and as a way to describe people who are legalistic in their beliefs—this could be dogmatism, or it could be about outward conformity, such as women not wearing pants. Sometimes these groups overlap but not always. There might be even more uses.]

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

If I hadn’t heard this specific voice I’d be inclined to agree with you, but this is something beyond misogyny over the natural range of women’s voices. I’ve also seen this voice resolve after years of therapy. I don’t want to get too specific but it’s a real symptom of real trauma and it’s a bit jarring to hear. It also doesn’t happen to EVERYONE who experiences that same trauma, so there’s some mystery there. I haven’t really researched it but I have come across a few of these women in my life. It’s not a regional thing either. It’s like something gets stuck in childhood cans can’t progress normally. 

[prairiewindmomma]

IMO and IME, it’s not just a “stuck in childhood” thing. The base trauma may start there for many and then their natural expression of emotions and the vocal range that goes with that may not develop——but I have also seen strong women go into abusive relationships and lose their expressive range. I know women who code switch also: natural voice in private settings, baby voice in other settings. 

[HomeAgain]

2 hours ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natral.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

I half agree with you.  I know that the women who are on camera making it a point to talk this way, they either let their speech training lapse part of the way due to trying to convey a feeling of outrage or they have been caught on camera speaking in a much different manner.  It's not an IF when we talk about these characteristics and specific women.  So I think we really need to drop the IF and focus on the WHEN they are taught to speak this way it is unfortunate and is being used as a mask in one way or another.

[Heartstrings]

2 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

I would be really interested to find out how much of this is traditionally southern thing.

I don't have much experience in the deep south, but I do in cultures that you would think of as fundie. However, I'm used to strong women within those cultures, not to Duggar-type women.

I can think only of one fundie baby voice person, and she is a recent acquaintance.

 

I’ve never noticed it in the south generally, not the soft whispery doe eyed thing.  

[kbutton]

Just now, Heartstrings said:

I’ve never noticed it in the south generally, not the soft whispery doe eyed thing.  

I also see something similar in people who are not fundie in the Midwest, but it’s not exactly the same. I imagine it could be confused for what this thread speaks of. It’s a manner of speaking that would’ve been called fodder for blond jokes when I was in high school. Like teenager cute carried into adulthood. Also creepy!!!

[Heartstrings]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

Agreeing with you.

I could think of a number of women from my childhood (I'm 57) who had super sweet voices and were in fact kind, mature, strong, sensible people.  None of them were trained by some fundamentalist cult to talk that way.  Their voices probably did draw people in with the assumption that they'd be safe people, which they were.

Of all the ones I can think of, only one of them was in a particularly unhealthy relationship.  She was a neighbor lady whose husband was mentally ill, alcoholic, and abusive.  She was just a mom doing her best (would not leave him because "in sickness and in health").  Her voice was not the cause of any of the problems.

Personally, I have a somewhat chirpy and quiet voice.  It's genetic.  It doesn't signify anything.

The idea of training one's voice in the way described does sound disturbing, especially in modern settings.  I would guess it was inspired by the old days or "traditional" cultures when women were/are also carefully trained how to walk, how to hold one's head, where one's eyes are allowed to go (e.g. not allowed to meet a man's eyes), how not to appear hungry, and so on.  However, I agree that a prejudice against the combination of nice personality + sweet-sounding voice is not helpful to women.

I think there is a difference between criticism of a woman’s natural speaking voice and noticing that someone is putting on an affect.  This woman does not normally sound the way she did, she chose to put on this voice for the purpose of this speech.   

[Paige]

I think my voice might sound like a "fundie baby voice." Someone who knows me would have to say for sure, because I can't usually hear my own voice accurately, but it's my guess based on the feedback I get. 

I apologize. I was not taught this voice although I grew up moderately fundie, but nothing like the Gothards. I've always wanted a more mature voice, but it was not to be. I have taken voice lessons for drama and singing, but it could only do so much. Please don't assume all us baby voice women are baby beating submissive women happy to be "under his eye." I don't think I have the sing song cadence, but I have a little bit of a southern accent which makes up for it. 

 

[Heartstrings]

Here is a video of her from her 2022 victory speech, she starts at around 1 minute.  She has a soft voice but not the whispery baby voice she uses during her response speech.   Which begs the question of why is she choosing this awkward whispering voice for the most important speech of her career?
 

 

 

Edited March 10 by Heartstrings

[Scarlett]

24 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I’ve never noticed it in the south generally, not the soft whispery doe eyed thing.  

Me either.  I can only think of one woman I know who has a child like voice but it is just her voice.  Her adult daughter doesn’t sound like that at all. 
 

I sometimes wish I could sound softer but I think what was going on with KB was for some kind of weird hiding of emotions and faking emotions. I did not watch the entire thing…..it was just too weird.  

[Pawz4me]

30 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I’ve never noticed it in the south generally, not the soft whispery doe eyed thing.  

Me either. I don’t recall ever hearing anyone speak like her or Michelle Duggar. 

[Kassia]

3 hours ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

I just read this book that addresses some of these issues:  https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41716694   Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

[El...]

I'd rather not psycho analyze anyone on the basis of her vocal range! When we lived in Europe, I was sometimes surprised by women with significantly lower vocal ranges than I was used to expecting, and I have an unverified theory that language may shape vocal chord formation. 

However, I do personally know more than one woman who deliberately shaped her own speech around the phrase, "gentle and quiet." One of them, but not all, were in the Gothard crowd. All were heavily fundamentalist Christians. All tried to train their daughters, and me.

[ScoutTN]

7 hours ago, Scarlett said:

I guess I don’t know what that is.  

Me either.

[SKL]

I'm much more likely to see training for women to be less soft-spoken than is in their nature.  Why isn't this also viewed with suspicion / concern?  And if we hear a change in a woman's manner of speaking, why do we assume it's due to a new form of training, vs. her abandoning the old "be more man-like" training?

[SKL]

I never listened to this lady talk before, but I clicked on the link above, and honestly, her voice strikes me as very similar to that of Princess Kate.  I googled a Princess Kate speech to check my gut reaction, and I still say the same.

The breathiness, without this thread, I would have thought she was tired and low on sleep.  But then again, she also sounds a little like Patsy Ramsey.

Edited March 10 by SKL

[Eos]

 

5 hours ago, maize said:

I think we step into quicksand if we start analyzing and criticizing the way women speak, because women in general have often been perceived as childish because we have voices that are higher than a mans--more similar to a child.

If some women have been explicitly taught to exaggerate the childishness of their voice, that's unfortunate. But if people are pointing to specific women and criticizing the way they talk as being childish, that just seems to me to be another way to point fingers at women for a trait that could in fact be entirely natural.

This just feels a step too close to the kind of criticism that calls women who raise their voice screechy, women who speak firmly bossy, women who show emotion whiny; it comes right back to criticizing women.

I appreciate this.  I wouldn't have thought anything about this except for watching a video that is a split screen - goes back and forth between Mrs. Britt using an assertive voice and the speech she made the other night.  @prairiewindmommacalls this code switching and that makes sense.

I have a really quiet voice and I sometimes say some obnoxious, sarcastic things.  It's never occurred to me that might be odd for listeners, as I hear my voice in a consistent way inside my head, if that makes sense.

Edited March 10 by Eos

[Eos]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

Me either.

I didn't either.  I have it here in quotes and I realize that some may be offended - I wanted to discuss it and that phrasing is how it's being tagged online. I never watched the Duggars or followed that world, other than way back in the day, getting a homeschool supply catalog - printed on paper, though the mail! - from a family maybe in Seattle who I am embarrassed to say I've forgotten the name of. 

 

[Grace Hopper]

6 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

It’s triggering for me. It’s a pattern of speech a lot of women use(d) in church. On TikTok this morning I saw a video by post_mormone where she used the same voice with a fake background from General Conference and the same video angles. It’s creepily accurate. In the video she pretends to give a “talk” about how this is how she was conditioned to swallow her anger….the whole “keep sweet” dynamic. For me, I think it’s more about throwing off an aura of being a loving and nurturing wife and mother because that was our “given role”—and somehow that is incompatible with leadership over mixed groups of people. Women make no decisions for men, and men oversee all decisions women make for other women and children. The voice is about submission to authority. 
 

 

Be sweet & obey. 

5 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

I would be really interested to find out how much of this is traditionally southern thing.

I don't have much experience in the deep south, but I do in cultures that you would think of as fundie. However, I'm used to strong women within those cultures, not to Duggar-type women.

I can think only of one fundie baby voice person, and she is a recent acquaintance.

 

I grew up in the Deep South, this is not an exclusively southern thing. Southern women may have more musical voices because of regional dialect; this particular vocal styling is perhaps found more in the southern US due to a higher number of highly conservative folks. I’ve heard it in women from faith based homeschooling communities in many places I’ve been. But no, it’s not “just a southern thing.” Not to point a finger at you, Halftime, but it’s a little tiring to hear southerners generalized so often. 

4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

In the case of the original speaker in question, it is not her natural voice. 

It’s easy to find video of Britt online at press conferences, etc. This SOTU rebuttal was definitely a…. dramatic performance. 
 

It’s not new. One of my (fundamentalist, not from the south) family members in the generation above me was very into books like Marabel Morgan’s 1973 Total Woman. Not sure if it was specifically in that title or one of the other books she had stacked up that taught the supposed attractiveness of childlike qualities. She has an almost-permanent baby voice that was exemplified for me as a young wife. Over the years, and especially now that she’s aged, I’ve heard her slip. The difference is creepy. 

[prairiewindmomma]

She code switched because she adopted a contextual identity. Her contextual identity (how she chose to present herself through voice) is different than her intrinsic or absolute identity. Look, most of us dress/speak/act appropriate for the situation we are in. (We dont wear business suits to sportsball events, we lower our speaking volume in sacred spaces, etc.). That can be healthy and normal to do.

In this case, the woman adopted a fundie voice and chose to present from the kitchen because she perceived a benefit from doing so. The “why” of that is political, so I am leaving it alone.

[Grace Hopper]

5 hours ago, Paige said:

I think my voice might sound like a "fundie baby voice." Someone who knows me would have to say for sure, because I can't usually hear my own voice accurately, but it's my guess based on the feedback I get. 

I apologize. I was not taught this voice although I grew up moderately fundie, but nothing like the Gothards. I've always wanted a more mature voice, but it was not to be. I have taken voice lessons for drama and singing, but it could only do so much. Please don't assume all us baby voice women are baby beating submissive women happy to be "under his eye." I don't think I have the sing song cadence, but I have a little bit of a southern accent which makes up for it. 

 

It isn’t just a soft voice. Context is everything. 

Interesting aside: I was recently at a conference for storytellers. One of the speakers shared how she was hired by the HR department of a large company “to teach female employees to learn to modulate their voices in such a way that their male coworkers would take them seriously.”

Edited March 11 by Grace Hopper

[maize]

7 minutes ago, Grace Hopper said:

Interesting aside: I was recently at a conference for storytellers. One of the speakers shared how she was hired by the HR department of a large company “to teach female employees to learn to modulate their voices in such a way that their males coworkers would take them seriously.”

I'm wondering if this company has sent the men to training to "learn to listen to females and take them seriously regardless of the way their voice sounds"? 🤔 

[prairiewindmomma]

Just now, Grace Hopper said:

It isn’t just a soft voice. Context is everything. 

Interesting aside: I was recently at a conference for storytellers. One of the speakers shared how she was hired by the HR department of a large company “to teach female employees to learn to modulate their voices in such a way that their males coworkers would take them seriously.”

Yup. I was given coaching in my first attorney position for the same thing. My wardrobe and interaction style when I worked with kids was different than when I represented banks. My stance, arm and hand gestures, and my language patterning all change. I learned to use my diaphragm more and to eliminate softening and filler words.

By contrast, at church I wore dresses rather than power suits, thanked my church leaders for the opportunity to speak, referenced my love and appreciation for my husband and children, and so on before making my points in my speech (which generally reflected on a talk a male speaker had given or referenced a male character in the scriptures). I didnt adopt a breathy voice, but I was definitely viewed differently when I continued working professionally outside of the home for a time, and praised when I chose to stay home with the kids.
 

Contextual identity. 
 

As to maize’s question about men being trained to listen….yes, that was part of the diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Note that DEI has also become controversial in some geographies.

[Eos]

41 minutes ago, maize said:

I'm wondering if this company has sent the men to training to "learn to listen to females and take them seriously regardless of the way their voice sounds"? 🤔 

Nailed it.

[maize]

55 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 

By contrast, at church I wore dresses rather than power suits, thanked my church leaders for the opportunity to speak, referenced my love and appreciation for my husband and children, and so on before making my points in my speech (which generally reflected on a talk a male speaker had given or referenced a male character in the scriptures). I didnt adopt a breathy voice, but I was definitely viewed differently when I continued working professionally outside of the home for a time, and praised when I chose to stay home with the kids.
 

Since we have experience in the same culture, I must be either oblivious or untrainable.

I can't remember ever thanking anyone for asking me to speak. Can't remember talking about my husband and kids unless I had a relevant anecdote to share. The last talk I gave in church was around the 4th of July last year and I know I was chosen for being a veteran. I based the talk largely on George Washington's condemnation of party politics; got more positive feedback than I have for any other church talk. I've had nothing but support for taking up a new career. I happen to strongly prefer skirts to slacks but my oldest daughter habitually wears slacks to church, including for her missionary farewell talk (and will definitely do so for her homecoming talk in a couple of months). 

I'm not suggesting your experiences aren't genuine. I'm sure they are. They're just not universal.

(And also, yes, I'm not in the habit of noticing or complying with social norms. Like all traits, that can have both positive and negative impacts...oblivious and untrainable can be both good and bad 😅)

Edited March 11 by maize

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

this case, the woman adopted a fundie voice and chose to present from the kitchen because she perceived a benefit from doing so. The “why” of that is political, so I am leaving it alone.

I do find it interesting that she chose to adopt this voice for a nationwide audience but not her home state of Alabama.  My instinct is that it should have been reversed, that Alabama would have more people who would appreciate the fundie voice while her normal soft voice would be more appropriate for a national audience.  

 

It was telling that Senator Tuberville said they picked her because she is a “housewife” when the woman is a whole Senator, doing the same job he does, but no one would dream of calling him a housewife.   Not was a housewife or had been a housewife, but is currently a housewife, while dabbling in being a Senator I guess.      (I feel like this is part of the gender discussion , not a straight political topic).  
 

 

[Amira]

41 minutes ago, maize said:

Since we have experience in the same culture, I must be either oblivious or untrainable.

I can't remember ever thanking anyone for asking me to speak. Can't remember talking about my husband and kids unless I had a relevant anecdote to share. The last talk I gave in church was around the 4th of July last year and I know I was chosen for being a veteran. I based the talk largely on George Washington's condemnation of party politics; got more positive feedback than I have for any other church talk. I've had nothing but support for taking up a new career. I happen to strongly prefer skirts to slacks but my oldest daughter habitually wears slacks to church, including for her missionary farewell talk (and will definitely do so for her homecoming talk in a couple of months). 

I'm not suggesting your experiences aren't genuine. I'm sure they are. They're just not universal.

(And also, yes, I'm not in the habit of noticing or complying with social norms. Like all traits, that can have both positive and negative impacts...oblivious and untrainable can be both good and bad 😅)

Prairiewindmomma’s experience doesn’t sound unusual to me.  I often hear women thank men for the opportunity to speak (men will say this too, but by definition, women are never in a position to assign speakers in our main church service, so it comes across differently to me). Even though I always wear pants to church, the vast majority of women do not and I still get comments about my slacks. Women missionaries and wives of general church leaders are still not allowed to wear slacks to church. Women talk about their love for their husbands and children all the time.  Many stories about women connect them to husbands and children. I just sat through a women’s meeting where love of husbands and children came up often. “Primary voice,” which is not about tone but rather style of presentation, is a real thing.  The videos above show the difference.  

But it is also true that women are punished everywhere for using their natural voices.  I don’t think that women should have to learn to speak in certain ways simply to get men to take them seriously.  We should use our natural voices to speak and others should take us seriously, but we should also not adopt certain tones of voice in order to come across as subservient or sweet or nice.

[Ausmumof3]

4 hours ago, El... said:

I'd rather not psycho analyze anyone on the basis of her vocal range! When we lived in Europe, I was sometimes surprised by women with significantly lower vocal ranges than I was used to expecting, and I have an unverified theory that language may shape vocal chord formation. 

However, I do personally know more than one woman who deliberately shaped her own speech around the phrase, "gentle and quiet." One of them, but not all, were in the Gothard crowd. All were heavily fundamentalist Christians. All tried to train their daughters, and me.

I have almost the opposite experience in Australia. When European backpackers etc come here I’m stunned by how soft and high their voices are. I’m not sure if it’s socialisation or something about Aussie environment but I reckon Aussie women have much deeper voices. My theory is we have to project an image of toughness to survive.

 

I also think the type of living space impacts how people speak. A lot of rural people seem to have more ability to project their voices over distance. And whenever we go stay in the city I constantly have to shush my kids.

[maize]

46 minutes ago, Amira said:

Prairiewindmomma’s experience doesn’t sound unusual to me.  I often hear women thank men for the opportunity to speak (men will say this too, but by definition, women are never in a position to assign speakers in our main church service, so it comes across differently to me). Even though I always wear pants to church, the vast majority of women do not and I still get comments about my slacks. Women missionaries and wives of general church leaders are still not allowed to wear slacks to church. Women talk about their love for their husbands and children all the time.  Many stories about women connect them to husbands and children. I just sat through a women’s meeting where love of husbands and children came up often. “Primary voice,” which is not about tone but rather style of presentation, is a real thing.  The videos above show the difference.  

But it is also true that women are punished everywhere for using their natural voices.  I don’t think that women should have to learn to speak in certain ways simply to get men to take them seriously.  We should use our natural voices to speak and others should take us seriously, but we should also not adopt certain tones of voice in order to come across as subservient or sweet or nice.

I think I hear women talk about their children more often than men, but I hear men reference love for their wives publicly more than the reverse.

I was serious about the social obliviousness though. I come from a super neurodivergent family and fitting in has never been our forte. I was raised by a woman who thought that trying to follow social norms because they were social norms was complete nonsense, so...I'm sure there are all kinds of contexts and expectations that I'm genuinely unaware of. (I've had to learn as an adult that there is genuine value sometimes in adhering to social norms; I had to really mull the idea over.)

You'd probably like my mom if you met her, but she is an exceptionally quirky woman!

Back to the voice thing though...neurodivergence also makes me wary of judging people's voices and speech mannerisms. I have six kids with diagnosed speech issues ranging from articulation to prosody and pragmatics. I have several relatives with atypical speech presentations--I don't even know how to describe them, maybe similar to what people might call sing-songy but also not. 

I'm really not a fan of judging anything about people based on their speech. 

[SKL]

I will say that I never take those kinds of speeches seriously, regardless of who the speaker is.  They all have the same agenda, and I've been over it almost as long as I've been alive.

[Harriet Vane]

33 minutes ago, maize said:

Back to the voice thing though...neurodivergence also makes me wary of judging people's voices and speech mannerisms. I have six kids with diagnosed speech issues ranging from articulation to prosody and pragmatics. I have several relatives with atypical speech presentations--I don't even know how to describe them, maybe similar to what people might call sing-songy but also not. 

I'm really not a fan of judging anything about people based on their speech. 

As I mentioned up thread, I come to this issue with a specific perspective as a foster mom. Just as you have experience with kids and relatives with speech issues, I have experience with severely traumatized foster kids. 

When I heard the little-child voice from a severely traumatized teenager, the sound quality hit me forcefully. Another poster mentioned having this experience as well. In my observation, that specific vocal quality comes out more strongly at some times than at others. It's not just the isolated voice-it's also the eyes and the facial expression and the body language. It's as obvious as the permanent, cringing slump in the person's shoulders. The times that I have observed this in the voice, it was absolutely unmistakable and absolutely heartbreaking. 

I just bring it up again because this is a both-and situation. It's possible for people to have quirky voices or mannerisms as you say. It's possible for subcultures to teach expected behaviors just as Tia Levings says in the link earlier. It's also possible for trauma to impact the voice.