While I’m sure that exists, it does not in the numbers I have noticed, nor in the “low speakers” I know personally. As I’ve said, people (outside of NYC) are trained to be polite and speak softly, but rarely trained to speak loudly when appropriate.
My son became Senior Patrol Leader (top Boy Scout, Sgt Major) of his troop at the unusually young age of 13, and had to learn to use his still changing voice to get attention and be obeyed because everything is delegated through the SPL. Squeaking at the boys didn’t work, and he was too small to get natural authority of size. He had to learn to control and project his voice, not unlike many women have had to, including my wife as I described upthread. Nothing is natural, not fry, uptalk, or authority. It’s learned.
There can be biological aspects as well. My folds are quite scarred from damage caused by yelling in my younger years. I have learned to work around it a bit, but I can’t simply “unlearn” the scars.
What, are we talking like hardcore band vocalist? There was a crossing guard by my kid’s school that had a voice like a bullhorn, she was not young and it showed no sign of weakness! But I have read of rock vocalists who as they aged realized they had terrible vocal technique, and needed lessons on how to keep it up without damaging and losing their voices. Honestly, all I’m talking about is being able to stand up in a room of 100 people and make yourself heard over the air conditioner, not making a career of it.
Just a high-strung angsty youth! Sometimes I yelled hard enough that I’d spray a fine mist of blood from my mouth. (I know, charming, isn’t it! Sounds like a fun person to chill with.)
Well, yes, I am not a rock vocalist but I can relate. Yet another dummy who in their 40s wishes they had the sense to have taken better care of themselves.
I have learned over the years to project my voice without injury, although it takes a lot of warming up for me to do so. Sometimes the fry is hardly noticeable, but other times I think I sound like a torn speaker cone.
My problems aside, I think that women’s voices are often precisely “right”. I often get completely lost in the timbres and articulation of peoples voices. Often I don’t even recognize people visually at all, only once they start talking. Some actors with really rich voices such as Matt Berry and Shohreh Aghdashloo inspire an “asmr” type response which can completely overwhelm me if I let it. Where was I again?
Last week I listened to two audio books performed by Adjoa Andoh - Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, about a galactic empire of black women no less - where she gave individual personalities to dozens of characters. And I could always tell which ones they were instantly. And kept getting my mind blown every so often when I would pause to remember that they were all Andoh.
There tends to be more variety in feminine voices, which I think is almost always a great thing. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without them, they are practically the soundtrack score of life itself. And I do not mean only those with extraordinary voice actor/announcer depth to them. Often I need to check myself if I get too fixated upon somebody’s voice and am rudely following them around in hopes of hearing them, or getting too lost in the music of their speech to follow the details, or paying too much attention to a specific person when my attention should be on others. Probably slightly differing versions of the same problems that many have to deal with when reacting to visible beauty.
I think that some people consider “fry” to be just that exaggerated “oh myyy gooodddddd” growl that some women affect. All those husky-voiced women like Kathleen Turner or Eartha Kitt were “purring”, but that’s fry too.
