BBC article: The reasons why women's voices are deeper today

[Kendra]

Interesting article: The reasons why women's voices are deeper today

> "Cecilia Pemberton at the University of South Australia studied the voices of two groups of Australian women aged 18–25 years. The researchers compared archival recordings of women talking in 1945 with more recent recordings taken in the early 1990s. The team found that the "fundamental frequency" had dropped by 23 Hz over five decades – from an average of 229 Hz (roughly an A# below middle C) to 206 Hz (roughly a G#). That's a significant, audible difference."

In other words the average is gradually getting closer to a gender neutral range. 

[Michelle_P]

It's interesting.  In watching older movies, I often hear females voices being very high pitched.  This generally appears with characters that are supposed to be 'sexy', what I think of as the 'squeaky blonde'.

I wonder if the higher pitch was a socialized behavior linked to whatever was considered sexy at the time? (And then there are a few actresses with DEEP voices from that era as counterpoint, like Katherine Hepburn.)

[JB_Girl]

When I began this journey to myself I spent months singing scales and focusing on training my voice to float at A below middle C.  For the most part it does and for the most part my voice is heard as feminine.  It is more than pitch though, it is lightness, floating phrases and speaking forward in the vocal tract.

All that said, what matters is am I able to adopt a sound that pleases me and allows me to live a life of freedom.  I think that how we speak is too often given short shrift.  If I think of my voice as an instrument, and I do, then I want it to be well tuned.  One of the discordant things in the trans community for AMAB women is voice.  It makes a difference once we are outside of the trans community.  Now when I hit my upper register and nail a High C, It is an expression of discipline and joy.

Peace

[Dena]

My speech therapist taught me how to really listen to voices and hear any problems that they may have as the result, I have been hearing some of the speech fads that young girls have gone through. On of the big ones what the valley girl fad which fortunately wasn't all the popular and didn't last all that long. The current one is somewhat troubling because it could lead to vocal cord problems in the future. Girls are running all their words together using a monotone voice at the very bottom of their range. They can't put any real volume in their voice because they are far away from the sweet spot in their voice where the real volume is.

I as others find it very hard to hear this voice and when the girls get a bit older, they may attempt to force volume in order to be heard. This will cause vocal cord nodes to develop causing even more speech problems. The cure is simple. Minimize voice usage for a  while and push the range where it should be.

My speech therapist treated many Hollywood actors with this problem and by using this method. If he hadn't finally retired, I think he would still find plenty of work out there.