Ms. Mentor

Does Your Voice Make Them Scream?

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Question: Having never heard you speak in person, Ms. Mentor, I can only assume that like 99 percent of successful female academics, you have a nice low voice. I can count on one finger the number of successful professional women I have met who speak in a high, piping voice. Heaven forbid that we should sound "shrill"! Yet my female students have voices all over the range. Do the men who still dominate most academic fields weed out the high pipers and reward those of us who can almost sound like guys?

Answer: Ms. Mentor does indeed have a mellow contralto voice, a supple instrument that can be stentorian, soothing, or sensual. But one needn't be born with an excellent voice to develop a good, serviceable one.

Ms. Mentor knows that high-pitched voices are considered sweet and demure. But like so much that is classically feminine (hats, frills, the extended pinky at tea time), high soprano tones are now a career minus. Ms. Mentor sighs. So much of female life, in our transitional time, is taken up with role questions: Am I playing a woman now? Am I playing a professional role? And how do I dress, sit, and sound?

Of course, both genders use high voices to speak to babies and cats, and "nightingale voices" used to be considered the pinnacle of sexiness in Japan. But university habitués often have to speak to large groups, projecting confidence and knowledge in an easy-to-digest form. High-pitched voices are harder to hear, and not all academics are the souls of patience.

The irascible "Dewey," for instance, had hired "Jenna," a shy graphic designer, as his assistant in an arts program. Dewey was losing some of his upper-register hearing, as many do in middle age. Whenever he barked orders, Jenna became flustered, her throat muscles tensed, and her voice grew so shrill that her boss could not understand her tumbled words. "Lower your voice!" he would scream.

"Kari," similarly, found that her dissertation director routinely ignored questions she asked him in the lab. She tried calling his name first, or even pulling his sleeve to get his attention. But he simply could not hear her soft, high-pitched voice (nurtured by her Asian-American home training). Kari's confused students also complained that, "We can't understand her English" -- but Kari was born in California. It was her tentative voice that they could not hear.

And "Millie," who'd never outgrown her breathy, teenage-sounding voice, was simply dismissed by faculty members and students alike: "Ditzy," they concluded.

Is voice discrimination, like racism and sexism, a prejudice about qualities one is born with -- a way of keeping out those who don't fit a white male standard? Not really, says Ms. Mentor -- because high pipers have options.

Ms. Mentor thinks it unlikely that anyone in tenure meetings votes against a promotion case because, "If I have to listen to her screech until 2030, I'll fall on my sword right now." High-voiced women who get that far are ones who've assimilated, who've decided to conform to a lower-voiced academic norm -- like immigrants learning the native language.

Lower voices gain respect. "Edwina," a poet, has such a rich alto voice that it's often midsemester before students realize she's only five feet tall: "You don't sound short," they marvel. Edwina also projects her voice as a matter of manners -- for it is rude to make others strain to hear you.

Women's voices do get lower with age, and the usual vices -- smoking, drinking, late nights in bars -- can produce a gravelly tone. But Ms. Mentor would encourage high pipers to consult a voice coach instead. Graduate students on the job market sometimes hire coaches to rid themselves of pronounced regional accents. (Yes, they are contributing to the homogenization of American life, Ms. Mentor concedes -- but unless they get jobs, they'll have no opportunity to show that Louisianians are as smart as Minnesotans.)

Coaches can teach ways to make professional talks more engaging -- and the soon-to-be president of a 10,000-member professional organization did exactly that. Her voice is still a high soprano, but so resonant and varied that audiences love her. Coaches teach people with unpleasant nasal voices to open their mouths wider. Women with artificially-high, anxious voices can relax their throat muscles by practicing such sentences as "I don't think it is going to snow."

And, as always in our media-saturated culture, there are celebrity role models: "The Best and Worst Voices in America," as determined in a 2001 poll by the Center for Voice Disorders at Wake Forest University. The women's "worst" were Fran Drescher (nasal) and Roseanne Barr ("screechy") -- both of whom, Ms. Mentor notes, are comedians whose natural voices are much more pleasant. The "best" women were Julia Roberts, Katie Couric, and Barbra Streisand. Roberts's voice ("melodious") is the lowest of the women's, with a speaking pitch only slightly higher than Sean Connery's.

Ms. Mentor encourages women to rent Roberts's films, to sing along with Streisand, to hearken to Couric -- but not to give up, completely, the unique expressive range of the female voice. Shrews and witches have high voices that can scare away demons, and while feisty yelling is Just Not Done in academe, at times a loud, shrill, mean voice can win battles, as notes one correspondent to Ms. Mentor. "When I haul my landlord to court, I don't want to make nice. If they think I'm emotionally unstable and maybe dangerous, they'll be sure to listen to every word, even if it makes their ears bleed."

Ms. Mentor covers her ears, but she also smiles.

Question: Come on already. Will you ever publish your column on tenured whiners?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: In the usual rhythm of the academic year, now is the time when Ms. Mentor hears from real-world professionals -- merchants, real-estate agents, musicians -- who long to share what they've learned and mentor the young. Some also believe that academics have long, blissful summer vacations and easy schedules ("You work only nine hours a week, you lucky poodle"). A few fantasize that anyone can teach ("All you have to do is talk"), a notion Ms. Mentor punctured in a column three summers ago.

This year, however, Ms. Mentor is not hearing from academic wannabes, and she wonders if cutbacks and closures have discouraged all but the most intrepid.

Her correspondents nowadays are more preoccupied with putting careers first (if they are women) or proclaiming that family comes first (if they are men). Yet only women are wondering when is the best time to have a baby. Ms. Mentor welcomes correspondence on that subject, as well as gossip, queries, and rants. She rarely answers letters personally, but many meaty matters are covered in her tome (listed below), her archive, and those of other learned worthies on this site. Anonymity, as always, is guaranteed. Your colleagues will never know you're the guy who's pregnant.