Naomi Wolf wants young women to stop speaking with "vocal fry"

boing
21

12 Likes
22

The issue is that some young women are socially pressured to affect vocal fry when otherwise they might speak with their “normal” voice. So mostly it’s society that’s telling you what to do, and Wolf is just trying to offer another option.

The goal is obviously for each women to talk how she likes to talk, but not to do so out of deference to stereotypes that a feminine voice is less cool or that women must adopt affectations in order to be taken seriously.

1 Like
23

Why, sometimes I’ve had as many as six brain tumors before breakfast.

7 Likes
24

You can feel free to not agree with the norm. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

6 Likes
25

I am embarrassed to ask, but i have no sound. Is vocal fry like daria?

26

Yeah, I get the feeling that however women would be speaking, someone would be out there, ready to explain to them how they’re doing it wrong. Just change yourself a few more times, and then we’ll take you seriously. Promise.

How about if we try to deal with that need to constantly be telling women how to do things, instead?

10 Likes
27

Whether or not I agree is not the point. People often assert things as norms without any evidence, and they usually have a bias for or against it. It seems to be trivially easy for the average person to assume that they know what “everybody” thinks, which I think should encourage skepticism.

1 Like
28

Is it weird that I think vocal fry is kind of attractive? Everyone on the teevee machine keeps telling me its awful, but it has this sort of “no fucks were given” aplomb vibe to it in my mind that is kind of delightful.

But I’m a weirdo. And also it’s not a lady’s job to be attractive to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m all for someone training their voice to sound more authoritative if that’s what they wanna do. But I don’t know why we decided that vocal fry is something to be abhorred.

2 Likes
29

I agree, it is so goddam annoying. In fact, if I had to choose, I would much prefer a return to valley-girl affectations than vocal fry.

1 Like
30

It’s not about “a lady’s job to be attractive” it’s about not being an annoying human being.

2 Likes
31

Maybe I misread, because I do agree somewhat with what you’re saying here … Isn’t the assumption here that how one speaks is generally a straight up choice, rather than part of one’s cultural and social upbringing - something you don’t have total control over? But she’s still asking women to change how they speak in order to be “less annoying”, which is what the problem seems to be. Some men find uptalk and vocal fry annoying… but that’s their problem, I’d argue. It seems she’s asking young women to speak more professionally rather than be themselves…

1 Like
32

Oh no someone’s speaking with a crackle in their voice! Quick, call the whaaaaambulance.

Yeah, sign me up for the I Don’t Get It newsletter. Perhaps rather than investigating vocal fry we should be investigating the folks whom it drives bananas?

10 Likes
33

I find misogyny annoying, but looks like we can’t shake that, can we?

12 Likes
34

Okay, I wikipediaed it. Vocal fry is awesome. Just like anything I prefer things that people have range and whimsy, but don’t disparage gravelly voices for anyone.

12 Likes
35

The woman in the video wasn’t Naomi Wolf, she was the one who wrote the Guardian article.

36

Being annoying is gender neutral.

4 Likes
37

I think she’s sort of like that… I don’t know. This whole issue in the past few months came out of no where. Seems to me is more justifying of sexism… women don’t move up because they have babies… women don’t move up because they don’t dress professionally… women don’t move up because some men find their voices annoying… WTF?

11 Likes
38

Yet I don’t see a whole new cottage industry telling men how they’re speaking wrong. When a guy does something annoying, it’s an individual problem… when women do something annoying, it’s the whole gender that’s the problem.

11 Likes
39

Fuck that noise. 70% of the time at home my wife does a Maria bamford/adventure time impression , and I do a combination of Nick offerman and a guy I used to work for.

If you ever see me type, “you see, realistically” I am making an inside joke 11 people know :smile:

Back to the point. Fuck those fucking fuckers.

1 Like
40

So you are asserting that it isn’t the norm without evidence because I suggested that it was without evidence.

It is anecdotally suggested in the article which I guess I was just using as an assumptions of the discussion. One that also seems to be assumed be most all the media I have consumed.

It’s also discussed in regards to vocal fry within the This American Life Segment, “Glass talked to linguist Penny Eckert, who did a study asking people to rate how authoritative a radio reporter with vocal fry sounded. The response depended on the age of the rater. Those under 40 thought it sounded authoritative while those over 40 did not. Basically, as summed up by Glass, “if people are having a problem with these reporters on the radio, what it means is they’re old.””

1 Like