'Fundie Baby Voice' Is The Chilling Vocal Trend You Need To Know About
'Fundie Baby Voice' Is The Chilling Vocal Trend You Need To Know About
Experts break down this vocal phenomenon — most recently displayed by Sen. Katie Britt — and what it means in politics and pop culture today.
You're viewing a single thread.
Edit: I feel bad about starting this whole thread. Retracted
Moreover, trans women develop the same kind of vocal characteristics on HRT, so saying that women are doing this as some of cultural phenomenon is judgmental and wrong.
Just correcting a common misconceptions, for trans women the voice doesn't change on HRT, as the change in voice with testosterone is not reversible.
Getting similar voice/speech characteristics as cis women is pretty much cultural.
Thanks for the correction! Regardless, attacking women on their physiological traits just seems like such a misguided approach to attack someone for their ideas.
These characteristics exist in women who’ve never been exposed to such fundamental ideas! Policing women’s voices is just another way that conservatives are going to win allies.
Edit: what some transphobe might say based on Jess Pipers criticism—“apparently trans women cannot get soft voices on HRT, so these woke people want to police women’s voices out of existence.”
For the love all that is honest and good, I implore people to not attack others on aspects related to their genes and physiology. You’re no better than your ideological enemies then.
I am having a strong reaction to this post because everything about critiquing and policing something physiological about women just seems so misguided to me. Again, we can attack bad ideas without ad hominem attacks.
“I would describe ‘fundie baby voice’ as a woman’s voice that is higher than average in both pitch and breathiness,” said Kathryn Cunningham, a vocologist and assistant professor of theatre and head of acting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “While the average woman’s voice is higher-pitched than the average man’s due to a combination of anatomical and social factors, some women who speak this way seem to be intentionally placing their voices higher than their natural pitch range in order to convey submission to male authority and childlike innocence.”
This assistant professor Kathryn Cunningham answers your question concerning women's anatomy I think.
I am not saying this phenomena doesn’t exist! I am saying that not all women who have higher pitched voices relative to average women’s voices are doing it for fundie reasons. I am saying these women naturally have that voice
That’s not the points being made in the this thread though. It’s that Katie is intentionally changing her voice for manipulative purposes to meet ends that most folks on this thread disagree with. So I think the criticism is completely valid. There are times when even progressives have double standards about things like body shaming those on the other side but 1 this isn’t that and 2 a lot of times that’s rooted in hitting those people in areas that will affect them.
I mean, I get that and don’t condone it.
But what happens when someone says that all women who talk like that have the same intentions as Britt?
A key point is that she changes her natural way of speaking, and it's not just a higher pitch, but 'breathy' and softer. If someone is always talking like that naturally you wouldn't assume they were being manipulative.
If someone is always talking like that naturally you wouldn’t assume they were being manipulative.
Yes, true. I think that’s the important part. I just don’t want regular women to be a victim of “oh I heard her real voice don’t ya know!”. That’s unfortunately how society works, people use any dimension against a perceived enemy for any reason, including petty social or sexual jealousy.
I think part of feminist ideals is mitigating all attack vectors related to physical attributes of women, and that includes their voices (and yes, I know! These conservative fakers are putting on a front for duplicitous reason).
Yeah that is a good point, women are scrutinized enough as it is, the idea of this voice being a thing would make me anxious if I sounded like that naturally hah.
Oh yea, it's stupid no matter if it's purely philological or partly cultural.
So is having blond hair stupid as well because of people’s preconceived notions about blonds? Or should all blonds dye their hair?
I think you misread, I was agreeing with you haha
edit:
sorry, my bad I replied to the wrong post haha
Edit: I listened to Jess Piper in detail, her voice doesn’t sound any different to me than the voices of women she’s criticizing. What a weird dimension for women to attack other women on, and tbh that’s just a wrong approach to take!
This is something she addresses herself and says she learned as a trait growing up in the same environment as the women she's criticizing. She's still trying to unlearn it. You should listen to what she's saying instead of just the cadence of her voice.
I hear you, but what I am saying is that there are women who have that voice naturally
Edit lol downvoting me doesn’t make this untrue
Yes, and the women listed in the article are not those women, and we have video proof. I posted this in the thread already but here's a video of Katie Britt's normal voice compared to her current media voice.
Thanks for sharing, I get the difference between “doing it on purpose” and naturally having a higher pitched voice. How will you tell though, for normal everyday women? Like what if some woman doesn’t get picked for a promotion at work because her female boss read this article? How can we ensure that we’re not creating a worse world for women in general?
It's not just a higher pitch of voice (though there are studies on women being discriminated against in the workplace due to higher pitches by MEN more-so than other women).
If you read the article, it's the fact that this combination of pitch, enunciation, and docility in their speech OVERWHELMINGLY shows up in right wing women in public spaces than anywhere else. If you google "fundie baby voice" + "reddit", you'll get a lot of anecdotal evidence that the women in these circles do not speak like this in private (for example when they're disciplining their children).
You should be more mad at the right wing co-opting the natural cadence of these hypothetical women you are defending as a symbol of subservience than the "discrimination" against it in the workplace by other imaginary women.
My problem is that normal everyday women may be judged as fundie or conservative or “trying to be subservient to men” based on something they cannot control, or will have to police.
Secondly, why are my women “hypothetical”? Are you questioning my motivations by saying that? Please don’t make unnecessary assumptions.
Again, I realize these conservative women are doing this to their voices on purpose for a specific cultural reason. It’s gross and I am opposed to it. There are however women who have such voices naturally. How will you ever know who does it on purpose or not? Why do we need to attack women for their physiology anyways!?
How can someone who calls themselves progressive be okay with creating another physiology-based vector that anyone can use to attack common women?
Sorry, my "hypothetical women" thing came across as snarky.
I absolutely understand your point regarding the discrimination vector, but my point is that the root of the problem is still the conservatives who use a woman's soft/high voice as a way to convey a political and social position. There wouldn't BE a discriminatory vector if not for this issue.
You're looking at the downstream effects of something that hasn't been proven, instead of looking at the root issue directly being pointed out to you.
my point is that the root of the problem is still the conservatives who use a woman’s soft/high voice as a way to convey a political and social position
I agree, but doesn’t reacting in opposition to their ill-conceived use of women’s natural voices, and perverting those voices for an agenda, implicitly assume some kind of superiority in softer voices w.r.t women? To me, it seems like saying “these women are putting on this front because softer voices are better on women”.
I disagree that softer voices are inherently better or more attractive in women, so it doesn’t convey any social or political stance to me that someone does this on purpose to themselves. To me, their use of this type of voice seems like a misguided attempt to box out trans women from a definition of femininity or womanhood, but all they’re really doing is policing themselves for conservative men. I don’t care if they want to be this way for their men! Being that way is not inherently attractive or desirable, and attacking it this way just makes it worse for women who have this type of voice naturally.
I don’t understand why people let conservative women define any standard or definition of femininity or womanhood. They’re not the arbiters of anything.
Ok, but have you seen how people interact with small feminine women? It’s already been happening. And we absolutely do need to challenge that, but we also need to be aware that some women are pressured into looking and sounding smaller and more feminine in order to come off as more subservient to men. Both aspects of this need to be acknowledged in order to effectively deconstruct either.
We shouldn’t be judging people based on their voice. When we treat women with high pitched voices as potentially authoritative we take power away from the attempt to make it a sign of submission.
Yes! I am a small, AFAB femme looking person. You are absolutely correct- it's about taking something naturally feminine and exaggerating it to appeal to hierarchical power. It's been the only way to placate some people, throughout my life!
It's unfair to everyone, the same way telling AMAB kids to 'speak like a man or no one will respect you'. No one should require a deep voice to be respected.
We need to fix this ingrained issue of gender expression = ability.
Yeah I’m a large trans woman and I still distinctly remember how going into college looking like a severely depressed wreck and having a full denial beard I was treated like I obviously knew things and was smart, but by the time i graduated I’d been long transitioned and suddenly as the same person I was assumed less competent despite those 5 years being when I went from a dipshit who knew nothing to someone competent. And the speaking patterns I’d been punished for not having became ones I was punished for having.
But also I’m big enough I can make myself heard, it often comes with negative side effects (trans women standing up for ourselves isn’t traditionally smiled on), but I can do it. My mom was the same way and I’m grateful to have had her demonstrate it for me time and again. My little sister though got neither out mom’s size nor her extroversion. It frustrates me to no end that just because she’s small and capable of shutting her mouth some people treat her as less intelligent instead of the brilliant anxious wreck she is.
And yeah I definitely butch it up a bit at work because I’m in a male dominated field and want to be taken remotely seriously. And the fact that I’m choosing to stop myself here from listing examples is part of how big of a problem this is. Patriarchy isn’t some ideology but rather it is woven deep into our culture and the way we are taught to think and interact. It is difficult and important work to push back against it in ourselves and part of that is going to be making a point to listen to what small feminine people have to say, including the quiet and timid ones.
See, I know this is part of the trans hate. It's a lot harder to enforce patriarchy when one sees behind the curtain & talks about it.
Thank you for being you, and standing up for yourself. I'm married to a (tall & gorgeous) trans woman, and she was surprised that no one gets out of her way anymore, lol. She says people invade her personal space and stand directly in her path constantly.
This shit really is so ingrained in our society.
We shouldn’t be judging people based on their voice. When we treat women with high pitched voices as potentially authoritative we take power away from the attempt to make it a sign of submission.
Yes! That’s an idea I fully support :)
but we also need to be aware that some women are pressured into looking and sounding smaller and more feminine in order to come off as more subservient to men.
I agree wholeheartedly, and I’ll add that a lot of the policies concerning women and reproductive rights and pregnancy/divorce cropping up in conservative states are very troubling. The conditioning of women to be subservient is part of it.
Have you seen the movie Mystic Pizza? It breaks my heart, but that’s the kind of life “sweet” women get saddled with when they learn that standing up for themselves is somehow not “good girl” behavior. I feel like there should be memes that subvert the whole “good girl” trope, like filing for divorce when you’re in an abusive relationship is a good girl behavior (as in good on you lol)
I like where your head is at, but I don’t really like the idea of reframing “good girl” for two reasons: 1) the phrase is as sexualized as daddy is, and 2) it reinforces approval seeking behavior as contrasted with what is happening of memes encouraging women to be all the “negative” things. A good girl is a rube. A bad bitch takes care of herself, a slut gets laid, prude knows who isn’t worth fucking, etc. It revolves around desensitizing women to the things you’re just going to inevitably be called if you have both tits and a spine
No one is disagreeing that some women have naturally high voices. You're being downvoted because you tried to derail the subject, and you're doubling down on it for attention. One more for the block list.
I don’t care about attention or being downvoted, do what you want