Talking While Female | Shots | NPR

How and why is the female voice different from the male voice? What happens when women try to change the way they sound? What do our voices say about self-image?

A few questions explored in a little video reported by Selena Simmons-Duffin and animated by Kelli Anderson.

Much more from "The Changing Lives Of Women" series:

[Epulor]

One possible explanation could be that as we age, our voice tends to deepen, so therefore we trust the sound of an adult voice over that of a child. I don't know. Definitely food for thought.

[FrancisRoyCA]

As a man who is interested in voice development, I find that every bit of this applies to us as well. Congratulations to NPR for providing solutions to those who are interested.

[kael]

Yeah but, uptalk and vocal fry are distinctly American phenomenons.
Almost everyone changes their voice when they talk in more formal situations. I speak clearly, louder and change my accent to a more formal British accent, enunciating my words when I'm on the phone.
There's nothing wrong with a softly-spoken female accent, but weird, added inflections are horrible.

[TimeandMonotony]

Interesting video. I've noticed that I normally speak with a creaky voice/vocal fry, but when I'm talking to customers, my voice gets way, WAY higher and more "feminine." Most of my coworkers (including some of the men) do the same thing. One of my male coworkers once mentioned how much he hated how he automatically would pitch his voice higher when talking to customers.
Maybe if deep voices are considered more authoritarian, high voices are considered more submissive? Says a lot about the dynamic between retail workers and customers, haha!

[menow.]

3:10 "I don't have vocal fry..." Yes, you do. I've heard it at the end of nearly every sentence you've previously spoken in this story. Go ahead and say it doesn't(or shouldn't) matter. Then you can say it doesn't(or shouldn't) matter what you look like to prospective mates or dates. Good luck with that.

[christophermartin]

I worked in a call center during college and having a low male voice commands so much authority on the phone it is amazing.

[lisettegarcia]

Ironic that the women rejecting vocal fry as an objectionable device dip into it consistently throughout their speech.

[Dancinlady]

I have a naturally deeper voice, and when I was younger, kids used to make fun of me for sounding "like a boy", so I started talking higher, and now I hardly ever use my natural speaking voice except with family or close friends. This video encouraged me to appreciate my natural voice, and maybe start using it more often. :D

[olivia]

All I'm asking is that if your going to speak on the radio or TV, don't sound like a drowsy Kardashian. It's a normal human reaction to be annoyed by speech patterns that are freaking annoying.

[SopranoAlive]

As a soprano singer, I have been advised by a former voice teacher NOT to speak in a vocal register that's too low because it would make it that much harder to sing the super high notes when that is required of me in a song. After all, I'm not trying to be Barry White.

[WhatTechShow]

Great to hear!

I'm a female and I have a deep voice. And I HATE my voice. This kinda makes me like it a teeny bit more..?

[NickYT]

Lower pitched voices are older voices. Vocal fry is what happens when people try to intimidate or talk lower so as to deceive others.

Uptalk literally sounds like questions. If you ONLY uptalk, even when you should definitely beyond all doubt "down"talk, then you will sound like you are literally questioning what you're saying.

Not everything is an attack on women.

[topknotfilms]

SO what is the phenomenon when the female voice falls back into the throat for a gravelly effect in the final words of every sentence. You narrator here does it as well as many younger women.

[z_geist]

Both ladies talking have vocal fry or is it just me?

[daigo]

Susan Stamberg has the best voice of the bunch. But I didn't see Nina's name. I love the way she talks to me.

[SCWoodbury]

While watching this video I just thought about something. Who are the great women orators of history? Who are the Dr King's and JFK's for the women of history? I feel bad that I can't think of one.

[crwpup]

I'm glad tanvicious brought this up.  I was stunned when the story blithely dropped the term "biologically driven" to describe people's judgements based on voice pitch.  The PITCH itself is biologically driven, yes.  But the reaction to it?  Socially inculcated.  As for the troll who is claiming that 80% of studies show biological determinism for gendered behavior, I highly suggest looking more closely at those studies.  Or, if you lack the time, read _Delusions of Gender_ or other books that have broken down many of the studies that claim to find sex/gender difference and have discovered how methodically flawed they were.  

If you grow up in a culture that trusts men's expertise more than women's, of course you are going to give deeper (read: masculine) voices more weight.  Many of the studies that have played with using identical resumes but only changing the candidate's name from an obviously female one to an obviously masculine one have shown a hiring preference for the "male" candidate.  This is not "biologically driven" by some gene or hormone - this is _learned_ behavior based on _learned_ ideas about gender and competency. 

Shame on NPR for perpetuating this myth.  I expect better from you.

[demonofparadise]

from the association of the deaf, u can talk with any intonation and worry not, point must be made, eventually (lowering voice)

[josephinewinter]

women's vocal chords produce a basic wavelength twice that of men's, which put simply, men have twice as much sound, deeper, richer, denser voices, which carry better, hence the tendency of women to shriek when trying to be heard: they have to distinguish their voice from background noise by its high pitch because they can't speak louder than it

[A_A_J.]

I remember a study that indicated that men who talked to women will generally use a higher tone of voice. Why, I cannot remember. Maybe to sound less threatening? I know that I do it, for sure.