For a female, I have an abnormally deep, low-pitched voice. I also talk loudly, always with a whopping spoonful of animation. My pitch builds to climaxes, slowing to let important points sink in and dropping in tone at the end of an idea. I’ve always thought of my rather wild and unpredictable way of speaking was a good thing, a literal talking point which makes me unique and has the potential to grab and keep the attention of audiences.
Yet, a “This American Life” episode brought to my attention by a coworker in the Honors Program has given me new reason to feel insecure about my apparently “grating” vocal tendencies.
A recent study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business published in the scientific journal, PLOS, characterizes this vocal affectation, termed vocal fry, as a lowering of the pitch of a speaker’s voice at the end of the sentence to the very bottom of the speaker’s register, producing a ‘creaky’ and apparently unpleasant sound. In its most extreme form, vocal fry can be likened to the ‘Valley Girl’ way of speaking, where a female speaker holds onto the last word of a sentence while simultaneously lowering her pitch.
While the authors of the study admit that male speakers also fall victim to this phenomenon, vocal fry apparently only has negative consequences for women. Specifically, women who speak with vocal fry are perceived as “less competent, less educated, less trustworthy, less attractive and less hirable” by potential employers, especially when the interviewer is over the age of forty.
Interestingly enough, many NPR female narrators such as Sarah Koenig of “Serial” and Alix Spiegel of “Invisibilia” speak with vocal fry. Someone should tell NPR that it has in fact hired incompetent, undedicated, deceitful employees. Look up the Fuqua School of Business’s Youtube video which demonstrates the difference between a ‘normal speaker’ and a speaker who employees vocal fry, and you’ll find it’s rather difficult to pick up on the difference, let alone make all of these wild assumptions based on the speaker’s tone of voice.
Put more plainly, young women who speak like other women of their generation, a vocal tendency which they passively incorporated into their speech patterns, are being discriminated against in the job market. They want our fresh, young ideas, but not the linguistic trends that come with being a member of the millennial generation.
I’ve got a laundry list of reasons why this form of sexist discrimination bothers me, and at the very top of my list is the fact that men do not suffer the same consequences when speaking with vocal fry. Secondly, it’s disturbing to me that there are negative consequences for something I absolutely cannot change. This isn’t about putting more strength behind a rather flaccid handshake or removing inappropriate uses of “like” from my vocabulary. I can’t come up with a cure to this apparent affliction outside of speech therapy.
I’m a young female who speaks with slightly fried vocals, and if this fact costs me a future job, that job is probably a terrible fit for my progressive, female ideals in the first place.
Kenna Rewcastle is a senior in College Scholars. She can be reached at [email protected].
