You know that creaky kind of voice that gets cis women lots of criticism, even fired from jobs? Linguist and Speech-language pathologist Jeff Conn brings us a pro-feminist argument about vocal fry (aka creaky voice). Is it a voice disorder? Is it part of a dialect or accent? Can we open our minds and give everyone the space to use speech and language how they want or need to? We examine the ways certain voices are policed and certain people dismissed or demeaned for their voices. But really, it's not about the voice. It ties in with sexism, racism, classism and the many ways we try to silence certain people's messages by saying that they talk wrong.
Links!
"The War on Female Voices" on The Daily Dot
WBUR's piece "Feminists Battle Over Vocal Fry" with Naomi Wolf and Debbie Cameron
That picture of the black screen with the green squiggles? That's what host Cheryl Green's voice looks like in audio editing software. The tall, super skinny lines are coughs. The rest is speaking voice.
- KBOO
