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Every so often someone will go on a rampage about femininity. Well, daily, probably. There's always too much of it and there's always too little of it. Women aren't feminine enough if they choose their own clothing or occupations or make any demands for equality (that's being "strident" which is a crime against femininity). Men here lately are effeminate if they aren't mean enough.
But women's femininity is a target for this kind of derogation too. Lately it's complaints about women's voices that keep cropping up. It's not the first time. I remember about fifty years ago, when columnists in the newspaper (and not just the odious misogynist troll Count Marco that the San Francisco Chronicle kept on their payroll for eons) would insist that the world would recoil in horror if women were allowed to use their screechy little voices on the radio. I was a little girl at the time, and there were very few women announcers on the radio, and no news readers on either radio or television that I could recall. So it was a thing. Women wanted in on those jobs, and some people wanted to hear women's voices in public like it was a normal thing. So now it's pretty normal that women have voices on the radio and television, though they get treated differently and all.
This time around there's a line that's being repeated about how terrible it is that young women today are adopting "little girl voices." Never mind that the targeted speech characteristics -- rising inflection at the ends of sentences, "creaky voice," and using a higher pitch in one's natural range -- are all both characteristics that have been around in various regional dialects forever, and characteristics that men also use. It's a precious opportunity to get mad at women for being women! Not only that, but you can do it from a superficially feminist-sounding position!
I was baffled by these remarks and inarticulately annoyed by them, but of course, Language Log's Mark Liberman explained it all. You should read what he says about it.
But women's femininity is a target for this kind of derogation too. Lately it's complaints about women's voices that keep cropping up. It's not the first time. I remember about fifty years ago, when columnists in the newspaper (and not just the odious misogynist troll Count Marco that the San Francisco Chronicle kept on their payroll for eons) would insist that the world would recoil in horror if women were allowed to use their screechy little voices on the radio. I was a little girl at the time, and there were very few women announcers on the radio, and no news readers on either radio or television that I could recall. So it was a thing. Women wanted in on those jobs, and some people wanted to hear women's voices in public like it was a normal thing. So now it's pretty normal that women have voices on the radio and television, though they get treated differently and all.
This time around there's a line that's being repeated about how terrible it is that young women today are adopting "little girl voices." Never mind that the targeted speech characteristics -- rising inflection at the ends of sentences, "creaky voice," and using a higher pitch in one's natural range -- are all both characteristics that have been around in various regional dialects forever, and characteristics that men also use. It's a precious opportunity to get mad at women for being women! Not only that, but you can do it from a superficially feminist-sounding position!
I was baffled by these remarks and inarticulately annoyed by them, but of course, Language Log's Mark Liberman explained it all. You should read what he says about it.
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