Biology versus culture
Many women approach me for voice coaching with the following questions: Why am I not being heard? Why do people interrupt me? Why does my message not seem to persuade? Why am I not taken seriously? Why does it happen that when I suggest something during a meeting, nobody reacts to it, but when my male co-worker later says the exact same thing, everybody thinks he is brilliant?
Talking While Female, the 5-minute video by Kelli Anderson you find below, uses examples from the women who work at US National Public Radio (NPR) to explore the biology and psychology of the female voice. Anderson tells us that we learn from repeated experiments that lower pitched voices are perceived as more competent than higher pitched voices: ‘We seem to have this biologically driven judgement that lower pitched voices connotate stronger, more trustworthy, more competent people.’
Are we really primed to appreciate lower pitched voices? Let’s double click on that. According to Polyvagal Theory, our sense of safety depends on cues we get from our environment and relationships—mostly facial and bodily expressions and tone of voice. If the prosody (rhythm, intonation etc.) of our voice communicates safety, others are drawn to connect with us and listen to us. The tone of voice we’re talking about here, consists of mid-range tones that we hear in normal speaking voices, male ánd female. Whereas our nervous system might associate frequencies that are much higher and lower as more threatening: yelling and growling.
So lower voices aren’t perceived as better by default, there is a sweet spot withing the frequency range. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Have you ever tried to soothe a crying baby with your voice? Probably not by using your lowest vocal register. I bet you even pitched up your voice a little, something that people intuitively do when talking to children or animals. And for good reasons, because research shows that babies prefer hearing slow-tempo, higher pitched speech (called parentese) because it’s easier for them to pick out the sounds that make up words.
Moreover, when it comes to singing, high pitched voices are much loved by the audience. Take for instance coloratura sopranos in opera who can sing ‘Queen of the Night’, female singers like Mariah Carey and Minnie Riperton who abundantly use their whistle register, and last but not least, the vast amount of male pop stars who sing in their highest register (falsetto): The Bee Gees, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Michael Jackson, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, Bon Iver, Pharrell Williams…to name a few. There is absolutely no evidence that we are biologically driven to prefer lower pitched voices.
Women are high-talkers in a low-talker’s world
Culturally however, yes, I believe that we consider lower pitched (=male) voices as more strong, trustworthy and competent. And for obvious reasons: for thousands of years, science, politics and public speaking were almost exclusively the realms of men. It’s no surprise that we have come to associate male voices with leadership, authority, trust, competence and strength, because women were merely not given the same opportunities. Only for the last fifty or sixty years in history, we are getting gradually used to hearing strong, competent, knowledgeable and trustworthy women expressing themselves as such. And being on that path, women don’t easily get the credibility for who they are: they often are only accepted as leadership figures when they behave like men. As Anderson tells in her video, the first female prime minister of the UK, Margaret Thatcher, was taking voice lesson to lower her voice. Convicted business woman Elizabeth Holmes also adapted her voice to be taken more seriously in a male-dominated work environment.
But frankly, you can never really lower the pitch of your voice that much and sound strong, expressive and authentic at the same time. The range of your voice is a biological fact, like your height. With height, something similar is going on as with voice: we generally perceive taller people as stronger, more trustworthy, more competent people. And just as women are generally shorter than men, they have voices that sound one octave higher. What it comes down to: even if they put on a pair of high heels and try to speak in their lowest vocal register, most women will never approach the height and vocal range that men have.
These biologial facts suggest that women will always be at a disadvantage, no matter what. What is the solution then, should women behave differently in order to downplay their femininity? Absolutely not. I believe that if women in leadership positions keep on trying to look and sound like men, we are having a serious problem. Because then our culture will never grow accustomed to what an eloquent, powerful woman looks and sounds like as herself. I think that women should embrace their higher pitched voices as they are. Instead of trying to change their pitch, they should look at other voice techniques they can apply to improve their voice. If you are someone who often gets feedback that your voice sounds high, squeaky and thin, there is a good chance that it’s not your pitch, but your resonance they are commenting on. And this is a technique that you can practice.
It’s not your pitch, it’s resonance
When you speak or sing, your vocal folds produce sound waves that vibrate through your body cavities and your bones. The more space there is for these sound waves to vibrate, the better you resonate. High notes resonate better in the head, and low notes resonate better in the chest. A properly resonating voice sounds louder, stronger, and can handle more activity. This is why we tend to find resonating voices more attractive.
Moreover, we perceive resonating voices as lower than they actually are. With my clients, I always demonstrate the difference between a resonating vocalization and a non-resonating vocalization on the same pitch. Most of them think to hear that the resonating sound is lower in pitch than the non-resonating sound, even though both sounds have the same pitch. Because deep voices are in fashion and perceived as more authoritative, many men and women force the pitch of their voice down to a level that is below their optimal range. As a result, they lack volume and strength. They sound flat because they use a limited range. Sometimes they even sound fake. If you think your voice is too high, please don’t try to speak lower. The deeper quality of your voice will reveal itself if you open up your resonance.
You can optimize the resonance of your voice by simply allowing more space in your throat while you speak. To find this space, make a fake yawn while you open your mouth and drop your jaw. Now close your lips, but keep your jaw low and relaxed. There should now be an empty space in the mouth, the size of a ping-pong ball. Keep this open space while you speak, and your voice will sound more open and rounder. You may need to drop your jaw more than you’re used to. You should also keep in mind that, whatever other benefits it offers, smiling is not an effective mouth position for resonance. Only two vowels show an advantage in smiling position: A as in today and E/Y/I as in me. For the rest of the vowels, avoid smiling and lower your jaw. You can smile again after you speak.
Final thoughts
It goes without saying that men and women are different on many levels. They have different bodies and hormonal systems. Unfortunately, we are still living in a culture that values the stereotypically masculine qualities over the feminine. Instead of adapting to a male-dominated environment by changing their voices, I hope that women will have the confidence to stay themselves and keep on expressing their feminine qualities in voice, looks and other behaviour. Only then we can culturally grow accustomed to recognizing women’s voices as just as strong, trustworthy and competent as those of men.