Hi Laura,

In most cultures women are subordinate to men. The voice reflects this. In my culture (The US) women are taking a more dominant role in society. When they want to be listened to and believed they will use a lower voice in order to be listened to and challenge the male’s position.

Conversely, when women talk to men they usually do not want to challenge them by using a low voice. They will use a high voice in order not to challenge the male. When dealing with men I have tested this out and looked for reactions. When I talked in a lower voice I was put in my place right away. If I spoke in a higher voice men were even very cordial and friendly to me. They did not feel threatened.

Men usually are not threatened by a high voice. But they are very threatened by a low loud voice. This is how men compete for dominance in society. Unfortunately women are not allowed to compete with men.

I love the dynamics of cultures. I find that in many instances there are more similarities than differences. I have lived in other cultures (Germany, Central America to name a few) and enjoyed trying to understand the social dynamics of that culture.

I hope that I was helpful.
Rebecca

The use of voice is connected with the culture. I have noticed that estonian women speak higher than finnish women and russian women beat even estonians. Germans, both women and men speak lower than we.
Another thing is the position in the society or the education background. The more educated the woman is, the lower is the voice. The same with the position, the higher the position, the lower the voice. Some people explain this that a lower voice gives more credibility. Maybe. I don´t know the reasons, but these are my observations.


Laura

Laura,

thank you for this information. I have never heard it or noticed it before but will be looking for the differences now.

Hi Laura,
Just a followup from December.
Has anyone else noticed this phenomena in
their country?

Hugz,
Michelle Lynn

Hey ladies, let me throw my $.02 in, but 1st a little back ground, when I was a child I had a studder problem, not major but enough that I needed to get speech thearpy, so I studied how people spoke; timber, how they pitch their voice, as well as vocabulary. What I noticed is that women in America speak with more cultivation, as well as higher tonned than men, there's a lot more body language with women than me. Also women tend not to use slang as much "sweet", "kicking", "ohh right on", and "dude" are not things I notice women saying a lot I have a bad habit of falling back into that, 1 of my hobbies is working on Japanese sports cars, and I catch myself saying "Sweet ride" that just makes my girlfriend cringe when I say that.

HUGS all