'Fundie Baby Voice' Is The Chilling Vocal Trend You Need To Know About

2 years ago by VeganPizza69 Ⓥ to c/atheism

Experts break down this vocal phenomenon — most recently displayed by Sen. Katie Britt — and what it means in politics and pop culture today.
nkat2112 174 points 2 years ago

I found this to be a very well-written article about a concept I wasn't previously aware of. Here follow some interesting choice quotes - but I recommend reading the actual article:

When activist Jess Piper heard Alabama Republican senator Katie Britt deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union, she had a visceral reaction. The senator spoke in a breathy voice with a soft and sweet quality ― even as she described horrific acts of sexual violence and murder and painted a dystopian picture of the United States.

For Piper, there was no mistaking that sound, which permeated her childhood in the Bible Belt. Britt was using “fundie baby voice.”

Then more context - conveying submission to male authority:

“I would describe ‘fundie baby voice’ as a woman’s voice that is higher than average in both pitch and breathiness,” said Kathryn Cunningham, a vocologist and assistant professor of theatre and head of acting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “While the average woman’s voice is higher-pitched than the average man’s due to a combination of anatomical and social factors, some women who speak this way seem to be intentionally placing their voices higher than their natural pitch range in order to convey submission to male authority and childlike innocence.”

These changes in voice are deliberate:

Deliberate voice changes are very much a reality for women in fundamentalist Christian communities, noted Tia Levings, author of the upcoming memoir “A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.”

“From a young age, we were taught over and over again to modulate our voices,” she said. “It was all about sounding sweet, soft, and childlike. There were very strict gender roles, and women were supposed to never sound angry but keep sweet, obey, dress modestly, speak softly, be very feminine.”

Interesting roots:

This sort of Christian vocal training has roots in Helen Andelin’s 1963 book “Fascinating Womanhood.”

“This book encourages fundamentalist Christian women to sound ‘childlike’ in order to convey submission to male figures,” Cunningham said, noting that there are “references to an idealized voice that a compliant, Christian woman should have.”

I found this quote referenced in the article very remarkable:

“It is important to emphasize in this discussion that women’s voices are always scrutinized and policed. The truth is that we can’t win, no matter how we speak.” - Kathryn Cunningham, vocologist and assistant professor

Of such women in power who use the fundie baby voice, the article goes on to quote the following:

“What they produce is a lot of abuse and subjugation,” Levings added. “And it always stings more when a woman is used as a tool of the patriarchy to promote it. They’re the Aunt Lydias and Serena Joys of the program ― brought in and given power when it suits men, but they will be discarded when it’s no longer useful to those men.”

Toward the end of the article, the very valid warning:

Piper urged those who are interested in the fundie baby voice phenomenon to educate themselves on the Christian nationalist movement in U.S. politics and the Project 2025 agenda. Directing ire toward those in power is more useful than tearing down everyday women for the way they were trained to speak.

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APassenger 45 points 2 years ago

Solid recommend at the end.

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Pissnpink 35 points 2 years ago

I do agree, but my experience with fundie women (Christian women who "know their role") is that yes, there is point where they are victims of this system of belief, but they will NOT think twice about using their proximity to power to victimize/bully/subjugate others, whether it's people of color, lgbtq or anyone not in their bubble.

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Hackerman_uwu 8 points 2 years ago

Angela from The Office.

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captainlezbian 6 points 2 years ago

Exactly. One of the most complicating factors in feminism has always been that there have always been means for women to use proximity to men to gain power over others in accordance with the power of those men. For example in the era shortly following the abolition of slavery in the United States women had practically no rights that did not come from their husbands or fathers, but could still get a black man killed by claiming he hit on her.

Some women prefer it that way. In exchange for autonomy they receive a form of alternative authority and are able to abdicate responsibility for the power exerted in their names. If you already wanted what they demand of you, then you have little reason to question the morality involved here and they sell a life that for some is very nice. And it’s not like you’ll need an abortion to save your life or will find your husband getting violent or will have a queer kid. That happens to other people, less holy people, sinners. They’re the ones who are why your life is difficult.

And there’s also the hypocrites. The Phillis Schlafely types. They believe they belong in their place but don’t want to do it so they try to make it mandatory.

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JustZ 3 points 2 years ago

It's like if you change it up and let the kids who never get picked first be the team captains, the very first people they pick will be the people who never picked them. Everyone just wants to be winners.

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APassenger -6 points 2 years ago

Then spend your time that way. I'm far more concerned with one guy, with heaps of allies, setting the terms across the country.

Others can make sure some women learn "their real place."

I don't see how anything you said after "but" was related to anything except to annihilate your first 3 words.

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nieceandtows 32 points 2 years ago

That is hauntingly fascinating

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captainlezbian 17 points 2 years ago

I’d heard that voice, but didn’t know it was actively taught. What the actual fuck‽ Also why the fuck do these people want their wives to sound childlike‽ Maybe it’s just the lesbian in me talking but as I get older (not even 30 yet) I increasingly want my women more womanly. Give me an opinionated 40 year old over an insecure 19 year old every time. Every time I learn about fundamentalists pushing unnatural youth onto women I’m reminded of how I’ve heard that child molestation is more often about power than desire. And they act as though it’s all just nature, but if it was what was natural they wouldn’t have to put so much effort into reinforcing these hierarchies and forcing dominant women into servile roles and punishing men who are insufficiently dominant.

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JustZ 2 points 2 years ago

Me too, I thought it was organic. Like they develop their own slang, why not their own accent?

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Asafum 4 points 2 years ago

It's really disgusting how we still have these ridiculous "norms" to deal with. In opposition to the baby voice we have women who need to modulate their voice to be deeper if they want to be taken more seriously in "professional" settings. It's all very stupid...

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Illuminostro 5 points 2 years ago
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prettybunnys 72 points 2 years ago

Listening to Love Line back in the day and they could almost 100% predict who had been victimized as a child based on “little girl voice” which seems awfully similar to me.

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interrobang 66 points 2 years ago

fundie

victimized as a child

That venn diagram is a circle.

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agent_flounder 15 points 2 years ago

Ugh that's deeply disturbing.

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heyou 5 points 2 years ago

Drew's goin for his wallet!

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zarkanian 4 points 2 years ago

Yeah, and Drew claimed that he could ID "marijuana addicts" based upon how they laugh. The guy's a nut job.

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sigmaklimgrindset 42 points 2 years ago

Sorry for the YT Shorts link, but here's a video of comparing Katie Britt's previous speaking voice and whatever the hell was going on during the SotU response. It's so bizarre.

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Hackerman_uwu 12 points 2 years ago

Honestly the “after” sounds like some sort of surrealist comedy skit like out of Portlandia or something.

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AA5B 5 points 2 years ago

Damn, that makes it sound even less likely that it really happened. How was this a good idea?

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Subverb 2 points 2 years ago

It wasn't a good idea. She was over-coached to pieces. I've heard pundits on the right and left say it's a shame what she did because by all rights she's a smart and capable woman.

Edit: I didn't say I agreed with her politics. Downvote if you want, but this kind of marginalization of a smart woman on either side of the conversation erodes the condition of all women.

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AA5B 4 points 2 years ago

I don’t know anything about her besides that one speech, and it’s not a good look

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Subverb 1 point 2 years ago

Agreed

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Illuminostro 3 points 2 years ago
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yumpsuit 3 points 2 years ago

Shor's blood, the Thu'um!

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runswithjedi 40 points 2 years ago
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interrobang 49 points 2 years ago

In my experience as AFAB with a more monotone, less femme voice, I got 'you sound bossy' 'you sound like a bitch' or just ignored until I 'asked nicely' which meant 'sound subservient'.

It has caused me so much trouble in sounding authoritative, because I always had to be high pitched to be heard, but deep pitched to actually be listened to.

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FlyingSquid 14 points 2 years ago

In my experience as AFAB with a more monotone, less femme voice, I got ‘you sound bossy’ ‘you sound like a bitch’

What kind of inexcusably rude asshole has said that to you?

Even if I don't care for someone's voice (I'm in Indiana and the Hoosier twang can be highly irritating to me), I don't say anything about it.

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interrobang 29 points 2 years ago

Framed as well meaning, oh-honey advice from older women, I've heard that or some shade of it at least 100 times since around 8yo, I don't think it's rare, unfortunately.

It went hand it hand with "the bellies that show are the first to swell", which my store manager said to me at 17yo, the comments that other girls should keep their boyfriends (my friends) away from me, all the weird punishing ingrained misogyny bullshit women do to each other in US gender culture.

As soon as I got secondary sex characteristics, I started getting in trouble for just, like, existing

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FlyingSquid 10 points 2 years ago

My daughter has a low-pitched somewhat monotonal voice even at 13. How wonderful to hear what she's in for the rest of her life.

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thesporkeffect 3 points 2 years ago

Have you tried intentionally lowering the pitch of your voice and speaking even louder? Serious question, seems like the only possible response

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interrobang 4 points 2 years ago

Oh that's absolutely what I do now. I'm some shade of gender fluid/NB, and my phone voice goes so high pitched when I'm stressed that it makes me very uncomfortable. I'm rooting it out.

I'm amazed at how much differently people respond to me, depending on the gender mannerisms I use.

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tsonfeir 23 points 2 years ago

Any man who likes that voice wants to fuck a child.

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almar_quigley 11 points 2 years ago

I honestly couldn’t listen to the YouTube video comparison of her real and fake voice the whole way through. It was so hard to hear.

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wesker -5 points 2 years ago

no one:

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HelixDab2 15 points 2 years ago

Reminds me of the "Mormon General Authority" voice. If you've ever had the displeasure of having to sit through 8 hours of Mormon general conference talks over two days, twice a year, you know exactly the voice I'm talking about. And if you're an ex-Mormon, someone trying to use that voice on you will give you a visceral feeling.

I wasn't raised fundie, so I didn't recognize it when I heard clips of the speech. But I appreciate the anger from the people that were.

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LemmyKnowsBest 9 points 2 years ago

You just brought back my memories of hearing the emotional wet lip smack

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Thcdenton 6 points 2 years ago

Holy shit there a name for that now. I still use after years of being an exjw. Its so fucking cringe.

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nifty -37 points 2 years ago

Edit: I feel bad about starting this whole thread. Retracted

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trashgirlfriend 29 points 2 years ago

Moreover, trans women develop the same kind of vocal characteristics on HRT, so saying that women are doing this as some of cultural phenomenon is judgmental and wrong.

Just correcting a common misconceptions, for trans women the voice doesn't change on HRT, as the change in voice with testosterone is not reversible.

Getting similar voice/speech characteristics as cis women is pretty much cultural.

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nifty -11 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the correction! Regardless, attacking women on their physiological traits just seems like such a misguided approach to attack someone for their ideas.

These characteristics exist in women who’ve never been exposed to such fundamental ideas! Policing women’s voices is just another way that conservatives are going to win allies.

Edit: what some transphobe might say based on Jess Pipers criticism—“apparently trans women cannot get soft voices on HRT, so these woke people want to police women’s voices out of existence.”

For the love all that is honest and good, I implore people to not attack others on aspects related to their genes and physiology. You’re no better than your ideological enemies then.

I am having a strong reaction to this post because everything about critiquing and policing something physiological about women just seems so misguided to me. Again, we can attack bad ideas without ad hominem attacks.

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CareHare 8 points 2 years ago

“I would describe ‘fundie baby voice’ as a woman’s voice that is higher than average in both pitch and breathiness,” said Kathryn Cunningham, a vocologist and assistant professor of theatre and head of acting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “While the average woman’s voice is higher-pitched than the average man’s due to a combination of anatomical and social factors, some women who speak this way seem to be intentionally placing their voices higher than their natural pitch range in order to convey submission to male authority and childlike innocence.”

This assistant professor Kathryn Cunningham answers your question concerning women's anatomy I think.

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nifty -5 points 2 years ago

I am not saying this phenomena doesn’t exist! I am saying that not all women who have higher pitched voices relative to average women’s voices are doing it for fundie reasons. I am saying these women naturally have that voice

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trashgirlfriend 5 points 2 years ago

Oh yea, it's stupid no matter if it's purely philological or partly cultural.

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nifty -11 points 2 years ago

So is having blond hair stupid as well because of people’s preconceived notions about blonds? Or should all blonds dye their hair?

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sigmaklimgrindset 19 points 2 years ago

Edit: I listened to Jess Piper in detail, her voice doesn’t sound any different to me than the voices of women she’s criticizing. What a weird dimension for women to attack other women on, and tbh that’s just a wrong approach to take!

This is something she addresses herself and says she learned as a trait growing up in the same environment as the women she's criticizing. She's still trying to unlearn it. You should listen to what she's saying instead of just the cadence of her voice.

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nifty -15 points 2 years ago

I hear you, but what I am saying is that there are women who have that voice naturally

Edit lol downvoting me doesn’t make this untrue

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sigmaklimgrindset 16 points 2 years ago path: 0 8536537 8538344 8538455 8538565, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 12
nifty -9 points 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing, I get the difference between “doing it on purpose” and naturally having a higher pitched voice. How will you tell though, for normal everyday women? Like what if some woman doesn’t get picked for a promotion at work because her female boss read this article? How can we ensure that we’re not creating a worse world for women in general?

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Illuminostro 1 point 2 years ago
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nifty 1 point 2 years ago

I don’t care about attention or being downvoted, do what you want

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AA5B 7 points 2 years ago

Did you listen to the video?

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nifty 0 points 2 years ago
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