Study suggests "the bias is real but socially constructed, rather than grounded in how women actually sound."
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Men use “vocal fry” more than women, counter to stereotype
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Finally getting around to learning what vocal fry is, specifically, and holy cow do I vocal fry a lot apparently. Bad posture can apparently be a contributor which, uh, definitely checks out for me, a hunched over mid-40s male from the US.
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I do suspect it's more the pitch than the gender that makes vocal fry more noticable. I'd imagine people wouldn't notice as much vocal fry from deep talking ladies like Lucille Ball or Bea Arthur as much as if it came from Minnie Mouse.
PItch bias is an interesting thought, I hate incessant dog barking, but I'd take a boofer over the shrill barks of the average small dog or howl from a husky.
PItch bias is an interesting thought, I hate incessant dog barking, but I'd take a boofer over the shrill barks of the average small dog or howl from a husky.
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I did notice uptalk in Australia, but I most clearly remember unintentionally cracking up an entire doctor's waiting room by asking how people pronounced "Bourke Street" and then imitating the gentleman who demonstrated it by saying "Beeehhhhhhhhk" with a whole side of fries.
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This was heavily politicized about a decade ago, with some right-wing guys trying to say this was the natural “science based” explanation for why there were fewer women getting the top-paying jobs in fields like journalism or entertainment. This was especially wild because Ira Glass, who is to vocal fry as Scotland is to deep frying, got complaints about the women on This American Life but not him. This turned into a good episode:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/54...hing-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps/act-two-1
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/54...hing-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps/act-two-1
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Kinda surprised. Not so much with the findings, but with the idea that there was a preconception as to which gender does it more.
I've never thought women do it more, though it does seem to be more common in women than it used to be (I attribute this, correctly or not, to the rise of the Kardashians). I've just never liked the sound of it in anyone, but it bothers me more when it is women. Never thought that meant they did it more though.
I've never thought women do it more, though it does seem to be more common in women than it used to be (I attribute this, correctly or not, to the rise of the Kardashians). I've just never liked the sound of it in anyone, but it bothers me more when it is women. Never thought that meant they did it more though.
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This doesn't surprise me. When I first started identifying as a trans man, I got into the habit of speaking at the lowest pitch I could, which meant more vocal fry simply by virtue of the fact that the vocal fry register is the lowest register of the voice! And now, just out of habit, I still tend to speak in the vocal fry register pretty often even after my voice lowered thanks to testosterone therapy. These days, most people I meet assume I'm a cis man, and no one ever notices or cares that I use vocal fry.
So I truly do believe that people simply don't notice it in men as much, and judge it in young women due to... I don't know, seeing it as an affectation? Considering it to be "less feminine"? Even though it's a perfectly natural vocal register that anyone can use.
This also ties into the fact that, on average, the difference in pitch between men's and women's speaking voices is larger than can be explained by just the physical differences in the vocal tract. Which is to say, women tend to speak in a higher part of their ranges, while men tend to speak in a lower part of their ranges, as if to exaggerate the natural difference in pitch. So the pitch someone chooses to speak at is, in part, a cultural choice -- usually a subconscious one, but if you happen to have a reason to want to change how you speak, you'll realize there's quite a lot of variety in how you "could" speak vs. how you habitually do speak!
So I truly do believe that people simply don't notice it in men as much, and judge it in young women due to... I don't know, seeing it as an affectation? Considering it to be "less feminine"? Even though it's a perfectly natural vocal register that anyone can use.
This also ties into the fact that, on average, the difference in pitch between men's and women's speaking voices is larger than can be explained by just the physical differences in the vocal tract. Which is to say, women tend to speak in a higher part of their ranges, while men tend to speak in a lower part of their ranges, as if to exaggerate the natural difference in pitch. So the pitch someone chooses to speak at is, in part, a cultural choice -- usually a subconscious one, but if you happen to have a reason to want to change how you speak, you'll realize there's quite a lot of variety in how you "could" speak vs. how you habitually do speak!
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It's when people try to speak with a deeper voice than they actually have. It comes out very croaky. Adding vibrato where it doesn't belong because you can't hold a note is a different thing.
I like watching Law and Order from time to time, but not the new ones. Anyway, the ADA in the newer series is played by Hugh Dancy, who is English. When he affects an American accent there's a lot of fry in it to the point that his voice keeps breaking and he sounds like he's constantly on the verge of breaking into tears.
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I think it's that it conveys disinterest or detachment. Those are offensive coming from women who are obviously supposed to be hanging on your every word, but ok coming from men who aren't supposed to be into you anyway.
This is obviously not optimal criteria.
This is obviously not optimal criteria.
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Wow... I... Would have never associated vocal fry with women. Watching some of the videos in the comments I get it, I guess. But ive always associated fry with men. Maybe it's a metal bias...
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Vocal fry doesn't require a specific annoying cadence that some people affect. The actual annoyance factor is wildly overblown.
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I (50m) use uptalk when I'm making a statement that I'm unsure about?
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Like Hugh Laurie in a bit of fry and Laurie vs Dr. House.
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That's what it's for.
But overusing uptalk conveys that you aren't sure about anything, that you lack confidence and are submissive to others who have that confidence. That can be self-sabotaging.
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The study is nonsense until it's published. At the very least, I'd need MUCH more description of the methodology for choosing this ridiculously small sample.
Am I the only academic researcher here?
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Almost all speech patterns are that.
I didn't understand this part:
But men naturally have lower voices than women, on average, because of having longer vocal cords. So if you associate it with pitch, you're going to find lower pitches in men than women even if where they speak within their registers is the same.
As for the old men thing. Yeah, that's real, but I always assumed that was physiological, not affected.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Offtopic: I love that you can tell an Aussie from a Kiwi with the simple phrase "fish and chips". An Aussie sounds like "feesh and cheeps" while a Kiwi says "fush and chups".
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Yes, and on top of that the sample size of 50 is very tiny and can easily have other demographic biases which would cause a problem even in a published paper. However, this is not even a published paper! This article is reporting on a talk someone gave with no published data or methodology! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1127254? And this is on a topic where there are many established published papers contradicting the new claim.
Sorry, how low is the bar exactly for "science news" at this point? At this point are we just openly writing articles backwards that can fit a clickbait title - "stereotypes broken - in fact men are annoying!"
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SubWoofer2
Ars Tribunus Militum
Alas, you are correct. It was misogyny all along.
Dr Geoff Lindsay makes the point well and palatably gently, in the video linked on page 1.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I once worked with someone who habitually ended sentences with "d'you know what I mean?".
A man can only take so much and one day I snapped back with "no, do you?!".
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I think the brits name it better: "Creaky Voice".
It's a irregular breakup of tone. It think we notice it more and find it more irritating at higher frequency(nails on the chalkboard).
I guess technically this guy has a lot of Vocal Fry:
View: https://youtu.be/uTWRXkYtzMM?si=MlujBY4OjVYZ0myR&t=103
But it's not unpleasant like the Kardashians speaking.
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FSTargetDrone
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It’s never sexy. In all cases, it’s grating beyond all description.
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I think I was most aware of it when listening to Sarah Vowell on This American Life:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/118/what-you-lookin-at/act-one-0
P.S. Turns out, Ira Glass does a bit of vocal fry, too.
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Mungus the Unhyphenated
Ars Tribunus Militum
Anecdotal -- When I moved to the East coast, the number of men deliberately pitching their voices as deep/low as possible in spite of whatever their natural vocal pitch came out to was absolutely staggering. And it was very much a masculinity thing. Impossible to ignore, too, because I'm trained in broadcasting and theatre. It grated so much. But it was just socially ingrained in men from late-teens onward, and that was in the 2000s. You can guess how endemic it is now.
For women -- I suspect it's a socially-influenced thing much as it is among men. The deep "bedroom voice" thing, that got completely out of hand. Once the influencers were doing it, the rest was a foregone conclusion.
The issue with it is that it's painfully obvious when someone, male or female, is trying way too hard. But it hasn't stopped anyone yet.
In the end, it seems like it's likely to tie into social/sexual dominance. People try to be attractive to the opposite sex, and/or try to out-compete the same sex. The human race has done this through the ages; it's part of how we've managed to achieve our status as a dominant species, for better or worse. This will be with us for a long while until something else comes along for us to hyperfocus on.
For women -- I suspect it's a socially-influenced thing much as it is among men. The deep "bedroom voice" thing, that got completely out of hand. Once the influencers were doing it, the rest was a foregone conclusion.
The issue with it is that it's painfully obvious when someone, male or female, is trying way too hard. But it hasn't stopped anyone yet.
In the end, it seems like it's likely to tie into social/sexual dominance. People try to be attractive to the opposite sex, and/or try to out-compete the same sex. The human race has done this through the ages; it's part of how we've managed to achieve our status as a dominant species, for better or worse. This will be with us for a long while until something else comes along for us to hyperfocus on.
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Mungus the Unhyphenated
Ars Tribunus Militum
Broadcasters fall into it when they use long sentences and start to run out of breath -- and hide it behind a bit of pitch and pacing rather than letting their vocalization thin out as they run out of air. All of us who've ever worked in the industry fall prey to it at one time or another. The NPR style is quite verbose -- Glass will fall into the trap from time to time. From his own admission as another commenter pointed out, he'll use it constructively. May as well; the NPR style of longer, more complex sentences will largely force you to internalize it to some degree. (To be fair, long-winded professors are highly guilty of it...)
This is a very different circumstance from where it often comes into play in popular culture however.
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Waaay back in the day, when I was a teenage boy spending hours on the telephone with teenage girls, an increase in fry on their part reliably indicated a flirty or playful mood, and I adopted a deeper tone to the point of fry to convey a soothing, supportive position when they were venting about some issue they were facing. It was just another way of expressing emotion vocally.
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A quick bit of googling would have improved your post considerably.
The published paper from Sept 2025 (would have been good to include this link in the article!):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095447025000427#ak005
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Man, I thought I was taking crazy pills. This “study” makes a random biotech Phase 1 trial look like an act of divinely revealed truth.
Elevate yourself Ars.
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Lake Bell wrote a whole movie around vocal fry in Hollywood:
And she tells Conan O'Brien about it...
And she tells Conan O'Brien about it...
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The text description was still puzzling, and I had to look up a sound clip example. Now I wish I hadn't, since the awareness will drive me nuts like bad kerning. I never did like Britney's singing voice, though.
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Plenty of words have a meaning defined within a specific jargon and also a meaning, which can be similar or quite different, in the broader ordinary language. If you never noticed that, you haven't thought about language for more than two seconds.
But hey, if your point is that Britney Spears and James Bond sound the same, since both use vocal fry in the well-defined scientific sense... sure...
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