Recently I read Ann Friedman’s salty piece in New York Magazine on "vocal fry," a way of talking in which you draw out the end of sentences or words with a low, raspy, creaky sound that comes from the back of throat.
Like "upspeak" and "valley girl speak," vocal fry is a speech pattern or vocal tic -- apparently unique to women -- that seems to make the person using it (i.e., the young woman) sound immature, dumb, small, and not confident.
Image: CBS News
But, Friedman argues, "To assume that our verbal tics are always negative is to assume that the goal of all speech is the same. Which, of course, is patently ridiculous." Basically: As if!
The way a woman speaks allows her to connect more authentically with her audience. Regardless of public perception, it isn’t her job to change how she talks to better suit the audience's ideas of what confident and smart looks like.
So what’s the problem? Do we sound too young? Are we preemptively limiting our opportunities by sounding babyish or uncertain? Or is the real problem that we just don’t sound like white men? Therefore, we sound stupid and cannot be taken seriously.
To be honest with you, I’m just tired of talking about this stuff.
As a mother of two girls, it is completely unsurprising, yet still so sad, that in 2015 it is not enough to just listen to what a woman has to say without critiquing how it sounds. This is a non-issue perpetuated by a male-dominated, old establishment so afraid of what women have to say that they are trying to distract you with candy-colored fluff, like how our voices sound.
Lately, every time I turn on CNN, they are talking about or to Donald Trump. I have never in my life heard anyone speak more declaratively, but with as little knowledge about anything as Donald Trump. There is neither a hint of lilting, creaky, female tones or any real substance to what this man says. It's just lots of garbage, and he says it quite forcefully, I might add!
When I think about my daughters, and how they might speak as they get older, I can only pray that theynever sound anything like Donald Trump.
It is completely absurd to "police" how women sound when they're speaking. As journalist Jessica Grose said on a recent podcast about this topic: While we are all busy sharing our opinions about Kim Kardashian’s creaking voice or low-brow banter, she is busy building a gazillion-dollar multi-media empire.
If my daughters end up like her, would that be so bad? I mean, maybe the 18 selfies a day thing might be annoying, but otherwise, come on. She's a married mother at the head of a massive financial juggernaut. Behind her upspeak, she must be doing something right.
When it comes down to it, I really don't care how my daughters sound or will sound, as long as they have the brains to back up what they are saying (regardless of their vocal tones). I also don't really give a fuck what anyone else thinks about how my girls sound. And I'm pretty sure my number one job as their mother is to teach them that they shouldn't either.
Life is filled with opportunities to wallow in other people's judgments of you. But, generally speaking, what a major time-suck!
My advice for my girls? I think I’ll actually take a page from The Donald's book -- literally. In his book, Midas Touch, he blessed us with this gem: "Criticism is easier to take when you realize that the only people who aren’t criticized are those who don’t take risks."
So don’t sweat it, girls. Criticism -- about your voice or otherwise -- just means you’re doing it right. Or maybe I should say, You're doing it riiiiiiiiiggghhht.
Read more at My Jenneration or follow me at @JennMeer