25th
October
2009
Was Hillary Clinton’s Voice Her Consequential Liability?
“Hillary Tops Obama in Popularity Poll Nine Months After the Election.”
Listening to news program after news program quote the latest popularity poll statistics—Clinton 62, Obama 56— last week, I couldn’t help but think back to last year’s presidential race between the man and the woman. During that campaign I was in the process of writing my latest book; The Voice of Success; A Woman’s Guide to a Powerful and Persuasive Voice. (AMACOM Books). At the time, I had numerous calls from radio stations asking me to give my opinion, as a voice expert/coach, of the candidate’s voices. Most of the talk show hosts happily agreed that both candidates offered similar solutions to current problems, and that Hillary definitely had more experience than Barack, but they constantly complained about how annoying Hillary’s voice was. Descriptive words like shrill, screeching, nagging, and annoying, were among the many voice superlatives that followed Hillary around the country like a pandemic. For example;
§ ‘It may not be Hillary’s fault that her voice sounds like it was fashioned from metal, but it is her fault that she sounds like a car alarm when she’s handed a microphone.” Washington Post Writers Group
§ By detractors in the blogging community she was referred to as; Shrillary; “She sounds like a shouting drone. Who wants to hear Mommy nagging them all day? I’m not voting for a president with split-personality disorder – yelling one minute and crying the next.”
§ Talk show host Glenn Beck devoted an entire show bellyaching about how much he hates Sen. Hillary Clinton’s voice. He called her “stereotypical” voice “nagging,” adding that it “just sticks in your ear like an ice pick,” makes you “envy the deaf,” and “makes angels cry.” Then to add insult to injury, he said “She could be saying, ‘All right, Glenn, I want to give Glenn Beck $1 million,’ and all I’d hear is, ‘Take out the garbage.”
Who’s Voices Are They Really Insulting?
Was Hillary’s “stereotypical” voice her main problem or was it the female voice in general? In describing her voice, the male media hosts kept comparing her to their mothers, asking them to clean their rooms, or their wive’s, asking them to take out the garbage. Could it be the men are saying that their mothers and their wives voices are also shrill, nagging and annoying? Regardless of their politics and choices, during the whole election ordeal, I never heard one person in the media complain about Barack Obama’s voice.
A Quick Female Voice Reality Check
When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, the simple truth is; a woman’s voice, like most parts of her body, is not as strong as a man’s. Men have longer vocal cords and bigger bodies than women, so, if it’s a battle of comparing voices, size does matter and men definitely do have the edge.
And speaking of voice tone, have you ever wondered why, when a woman is “losing” her voice to laryngitis, and has that deep and throaty sound like Kathleen Turner, men find it pleasing, attractive, and very sexy? “Love that voice!” they tell a woman when she can barely croak out her words. Well, believe it or not, there actually is a physiological reason for their reaction. Just as certain parts of the male/female vocal anatomy are different, the vibrations of a man’s hearing mechanism are not the same as a woman’s. A high-pitched female voice may simply annoy women, but for the men she works with, dates, and those in her audience, it can actually be physically painful to their ears. For that reason, men can not tolerate high-pitched female voices. They automatically block them out no matter how important the information or the messenger may be.
Nothing Personal
The truth is, a man’s insults of the "stereotypical female voice", could just as easily be pointed at his mother: “Clean your room!”, his wife; “Take out the Trash!”, a female co-worker, or a female political candidate. It’s nothing personal; it’s just a physical, gender reality. You may think a man is blocking out your ideas, but it could very well be your voice he can’t accept. When it comes to men understanding and tolerating any woman’s voice, this may well be the most important paragraph every written!
It’s The Female Voice—GET OVER IT!
Because of their physical differences, where men and women are running neck and neck for the same office, it is vital, that women learn how to voice their opinions with authority, assurance and self-confidence, vocal traits many women are still not comfortable with.
It is a well-known fact that most women are more emotional than men by nature, that is a part of who we are, and that’s not a bad thing! It’s when we try to cover up those emotions that our voices always, yes always, give us away despite our best efforts to hide our feelings. No matter what your words say, you cannot fool your voice. Those, who criticize even the most accomplished women, often misconstrue the woman’s feelings—or the expression of them— as a character weakness and use the emotions to belittle her abilities. Please hear this well:
Hillary’s voice will never sound like Obama’s and your wife will never sound like your best buddy!
A woman’s voice will never be as strong and resonant as a man because her vocal cords are shorter, and her natural body resonators are smaller. To compensate for this lack of body and vocal girth, most women resort to raising their volume, which leads to, a screaming voice followed by screaming criticisms, as noted above. It’s not volume that women need in their voices, because when it comes right down to it, because of their natural acoustics, men will always have the loudest voices. Women simply need to learn how to use their voices in a range tolerable to the male (and female) listeners ears, and both genders need to understand, appreciate and STOP criticizing the female Voice.
Joni Wilson is an internationally recognized voice expert, best selling author and creator the amazing 3-Dimensional Voice® Technique. For more information about Joni, her latest book; The Voice of Success. A Woman’s Guide to a Powerful and Persuasive Voice, and the best on-line voice lessons visit:www.virtualvoicecoach.com
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