I found this to be a very well-written article about a concept I wasn’t previously aware of. Here follow some interesting choice quotes - but I recommend reading the actual article:
When activist Jess Piper heard Alabama Republican senator Katie Britt deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union, she had a visceral reaction. The senator spoke in a breathy voice with a soft and sweet quality ― even as she described horrific acts of sexual violence and murder and painted a dystopian picture of the United States.
For Piper, there was no mistaking that sound, which permeated her childhood in the Bible Belt. Britt was using “fundie baby voice.”
Then more context - conveying submission to male authority:
“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.”
These changes in voice are deliberate:
Deliberate voice changes are very much a reality for women in fundamentalist Christian communities, noted Tia Levings, author of the upcoming memoir “A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.”
“From a young age, we were taught over and over again to modulate our voices,” she said. “It was all about sounding sweet, soft, and childlike. There were very strict gender roles, and women were supposed to never sound angry but keep sweet, obey, dress modestly, speak softly, be very feminine.”
Interesting roots:
This sort of Christian vocal training has roots in Helen Andelin’s 1963 book “Fascinating Womanhood.”
“This book encourages fundamentalist Christian women to sound ‘childlike’ in order to convey submission to male figures,” Cunningham said, noting that there are “references to an idealized voice that a compliant, Christian woman should have.”
I found this quote referenced in the article very remarkable:
“It is important to emphasize in this discussion that women’s voices are always scrutinized and policed. The truth is that we can’t win, no matter how we speak.” - Kathryn Cunningham, vocologist and assistant professor
Of such women in power who use the fundie baby voice, the article goes on to quote the following:
“What they produce is a lot of abuse and subjugation,” Levings added. “And it always stings more when a woman is used as a tool of the patriarchy to promote it. They’re the Aunt Lydias and Serena Joys of the program ― brought in and given power when it suits men, but they will be discarded when it’s no longer useful to those men.”
Toward the end of the article, the very valid warning:
Piper urged those who are interested in the fundie baby voice phenomenon to educate themselves on the Christian nationalist movement in U.S. politics and the Project 2025 agenda. Directing ire toward those in power is more useful than tearing down everyday women for the way they were trained to speak.
I do agree, but my experience with fundie women (Christian women who “know their role”) is that yes, there is point where they are victims of this system of belief, but they will NOT think twice about using their proximity to power to victimize/bully/subjugate others, whether it’s people of color, lgbtq or anyone not in their bubble.
Exactly. One of the most complicating factors in feminism has always been that there have always been means for women to use proximity to men to gain power over others in accordance with the power of those men. For example in the era shortly following the abolition of slavery in the United States women had practically no rights that did not come from their husbands or fathers, but could still get a black man killed by claiming he hit on her.
Some women prefer it that way. In exchange for autonomy they receive a form of alternative authority and are able to abdicate responsibility for the power exerted in their names. If you already wanted what they demand of you, then you have little reason to question the morality involved here and they sell a life that for some is very nice. And it’s not like you’ll need an abortion to save your life or will find your husband getting violent or will have a queer kid. That happens to other people, less holy people, sinners. They’re the ones who are why your life is difficult.
And there’s also the hypocrites. The Phillis Schlafely types. They believe they belong in their place but don’t want to do it so they try to make it mandatory.
Then spend your time that way. I’m far more concerned with one guy, with heaps of allies, setting the terms across the country.
Others can make sure some women learn “their real place.”
I don’t see how anything you said after “but” was related to anything except to annihilate your first 3 words.
I’d heard that voice, but didn’t know it was actively taught. What the actual fuck‽ Also why the fuck do these people want their wives to sound childlike‽ Maybe it’s just the lesbian in me talking but as I get older (not even 30 yet) I increasingly want my women more womanly. Give me an opinionated 40 year old over an insecure 19 year old every time. Every time I learn about fundamentalists pushing unnatural youth onto women I’m reminded of how I’ve heard that child molestation is more often about power than desire. And they act as though it’s all just nature, but if it was what was natural they wouldn’t have to put so much effort into reinforcing these hierarchies and forcing dominant women into servile roles and punishing men who are insufficiently dominant.
It’s really disgusting how we still have these ridiculous “norms” to deal with. In opposition to the baby voice we have women who need to modulate their voice to be deeper if they want to be taken more seriously in “professional” settings. It’s all very stupid…
Listening to Love Line back in the day and they could almost 100% predict who had been victimized as a child based on “little girl voice” which seems awfully similar to me.
Sorry for the YT Shorts link, but here’s a video of comparing Katie Britt’s previous speaking voice and whatever the hell was going on during the SotU response. It’s so bizarre.
Damn, that makes it sound even less likely that it really happened. How was this a good idea?
It wasn’t a good idea. She was over-coached to pieces. I’ve heard pundits on the right and left say it’s a shame what she did because by all rights she’s a smart and capable woman.
Edit: I didn’t say I agreed with her politics. Downvote if you want, but this kind of marginalization of a smart woman on either side of the conversation erodes the condition of all women.
I don’t know anything about her besides that one speech, and it’s not a good look
She knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s willingly placed herself in a position to kiss old obscenely rich white men’s asses to make herself rich. And also, to have power over those less fortunate and more moral than her. Anyone under the age of 60 who joins the Republican party is a bad person. Period.
In my experience as AFAB with a more monotone, less femme voice, I got ‘you sound bossy’ ‘you sound like a bitch’ or just ignored until I ‘asked nicely’ which meant ‘sound subservient’.
It has caused me so much trouble in sounding authoritative, because I always had to be high pitched to be heard, but deep pitched to actually be listened to.
In my experience as AFAB with a more monotone, less femme voice, I got ‘you sound bossy’ ‘you sound like a bitch’
What kind of inexcusably rude asshole has said that to you?
Even if I don’t care for someone’s voice (I’m in Indiana and the Hoosier twang can be highly irritating to me), I don’t say anything about it.
Framed as well meaning, oh-honey advice from older women, I’ve heard that or some shade of it at least 100 times since around 8yo, I don’t think it’s rare, unfortunately.
It went hand it hand with “the bellies that show are the first to swell”, which my store manager said to me at 17yo, the comments that other girls should keep their boyfriends (my friends) away from me, all the weird punishing ingrained misogyny bullshit women do to each other in US gender culture.
As soon as I got secondary sex characteristics, I started getting in trouble for just, like, existing
Have you tried intentionally lowering the pitch of your voice and speaking even louder? Serious question, seems like the only possible response
Oh that’s absolutely what I do now. I’m some shade of gender fluid/NB, and my phone voice goes so high pitched when I’m stressed that it makes me very uncomfortable. I’m rooting it out.
I’m amazed at how much differently people respond to me, depending on the gender mannerisms I use.
Any man who likes that voice wants to fuck a child.
