from nottelling’s link post #24
and also:
If you want to move into the upper echelons of law or the C-suite or in a male dominated field like engineering, you have to take on what is the professional culture right now, which is not to talk like a Kardashian.
Honestly, if you are a woman, and you do not go into a room sounding like you know what you are talking about (and taking on strange vocal patterns makes you sound, well, like an airhead) you will become quickly decorative in a room with lots of middle aged men. It is a rare workplace that is not controlled or at least populated by more middle aged men than say middle aged women talking like Kim Kardashian and wearing mini skirts.
That is not to say that you need to stick to a manly style, or wear mens suits, or anything. Just act and look professional and maybe try to blend in somewhat to the culture you are trying to become a part of.
I think some coaching, mentoring, etc is a good thing … as are more women professional role models, etc.
When you dress up in your mini and go out with your 20 year old friends, sure talk however you want. If you can make money outside the traditional workplace, again, do your thing … If you want 6 figures or higher in a traditional workplace or even say a Silicon Valley startup with 80% men, no …
Re mini-skirts, definitely not a good idea, who wants to be seen as a sex symbol in an office full of engineers ? It’s creepy and can’t have a long term good result, the fewer people who notice you are a girl the better (dating at work is a bad idea for most people unless you are truly in love and he’s not admiring your legs or higher). HR or one of the women staffers can take this on, I agree a man might be outright creepy (I see you are wearing a short skirt again, nice legs by the way, and think you should dress differently) and that could lead to anything up to a legal issue. People talking about her could even be a legal issue, hostile workplace …
In 20 years, when women have a bigger group at the table, maybe, but maybe not, you can just let it all hang out.
One way to make this less sexist is also to work on men who curse at work, men who are rude and cut people off mid-sentence, men who don’t talk clearly or don’t speak up at all, etc. And guys who dress in shorts and sandals, also not cool (who wants to see those hairy legs or worse even, smell those feet).
Only if the definition of “professional” is sexist can speaking with confidence and authority can be considered sexist. Any speech pattern that fails to inspire confidence will automatically call one’s competence into question, as will the inability to look someone in the eye, a limp handshake, fidgeting, excessive blinking, throat clearing, etc. I believe the valuing of certain signifiers is cooked into the DNA of human beings as a societal species. An aire of authority, decisiveness, knowledge, and confidence are essential in those who would lead, and all of us look towards those who seem to possess these traits when it comes to situations and issues we believe to be beyond our depth. We won’t follow anyone who seems less confident or competent then ourselves. Male or female, a professional must make us confident to follow their lead. Why must people twist themselves into pretzels over something so patently obvious?
I was trying to think of something that was a bigger issue for men than for women, and poetsheart mentions one: the “limp handshake.” While I think it’s good for women to learn how to give a firm handshake, I think the failure to do so is more harmful to a man in typical business settings.
I have noticed that reporters/commentators on the radio CONSTANTLY use “so” to start a sentence. It is, IMHO, a delaying tactic, similar to “um” or “like.” I’ve also noticed younger ones, probably twenty-something females, using “it’s sort of” very frequently, particularly in conversational segments.
I’ve never altered my vocal tone to be taken seriously.
Having the confidence to sell one’s ideas helps others take the chance that you are competent and leading them in the correct direction. While you don’t want to seem like a know-it-all or ignore other’s inputs, at say meetings, it is better to sell well than dance around (they will find someone else). You can be pleasant and use your more accommodating social skills in smaller off-line discussions (where some men know-it-alls really don’t function well), but being wishy-washy just scares people.
I can imagine 200,000 years ago, people followed the person (maybe even a woman) who said confidently, this is way to the ocean, not the other person who said, uh, this is the, uh, way to the, I think, ocean ?
There are people who believe leading people in any direction, even 180 degrees from your true target, is better than milling around, so the confidence (and willingness to project that confidence) to lead makes you well a leader. If you keep leading people away from the solutions, that won’t last long either.
Being upset that talking like a dunce is not good for your career is pretty much insuring that you won’t have a good career.
and what value do the Kardashian’s uptalk supposedly offer to a young woman ? Without daddy’s millions and a TV show, these girls could just as well be working at a hair salon or Walmart … or did they go to a real college and just pretend to be outright stupid ?
Be Angelina Jolie who speaks seriously to the entire UN. Watch Hillary or one of the other many, many women who have made it in our society into real jobs and positions of authority. Find that female mentor at work …
@ahl - so glad you kept your southern accent. I love a southern accent on a man or a woman and never understood the whole “it sounds unintelligent” thing. Music to my ears. Have you seen Chad Prather’s response to this? Too funny!
I don’t find it that difficult to believe simultaneously that 1) certain types of presentation, including speech and dress are necessary for professional advancement, and 2) that the fact this is true demonstrates sexism.
Sexism both ways. I’ve seen people comment on Caitlyn Jenner’s voice not changing from Bruce’s voice, and I laugh because I am a female with a lower voice than she has.
Males with higher voices have issues as well as females with lower voices. The key is enunciation, I have seen people with true stutters and lisps that they cannot help, and it is very difficult to get their point across. Very discriminatory behavior towards them.
An accent is generally seen as “correctable”. See Mr. Trump, his voice has smoothed out more and lost the accent pretty much, the one he was famous for 20 years ago.
I agree with this, and the fact that a high-pitched voice might disadvantage a woman would be an example. I don’t see the two habits we are discussing as examples, though.
If someone dressing and speaking like Kim Kardashian is unsuccessful as a new associate in most law firms, that won’t be a surprise to me. She is not conforming to well understood, though perhaps unwritten, rules. However, I can still believe those rules are sexist.
Would a young woman dressing and speaking like a new associate in most law firms be successful on reality tv?
Is that sexist?
Other male issues: leering. patronizing (men and women), bulkying…none bode well in the workplace.
Uptalk is something pretty much everybody does when asking a question. This is why using uptalk when making a statement is a problem - it will turn all your statements into questions and thus make you sound weak and tentative.
I counseled both my daughters against uptalk and fortunately they have avoided it. If I had any sons I would counsel them against it too. It has nothing to do with sexism or regional accents (such as Southern). It’s just a good idea for everyone to come across as confident and competent. If some women more often than men choose to speak with uptalk, that’s certainly their right, but I think they are making a mistake.
I have an open mind on the topic of vocal fry. In fact I have an empty mind of topic of vocal fry. I don’t view it as positive or negative, but I don’t see any particular reason to speak that way either.
" It is a rare workplace that is not controlled or at least populated by more middle aged men than say middle aged women talking like Kim Kardashian and wearing mini skirts."
I disagree. My professional work world, which encompasses a lot of Fortune 50 clients, is not at all more populated by middle aged men than middle aged women. And it hasn’t been, even when I started 30 years ago.
[quote]
We got into an argument/discussion with our daughter on this while on vacation. She argued that targeting women for vocal fry and upspeak is sexist. We responded that there are men who speak this way too, and they will have the same issues as women./quote
Actually, speaking as a sociolinguist here, this is not true. Men who use uptalk (technical term: high rising terminal intonation) don’t get viewed the same way as women who use it—in fact, even when people (limiting myself to the US and UK, where most of the research has been done) are faced with a male who uses uptalk, it doesn’t even get perceived as uptalk.
Similarly, both men and women use vocal fry (technical term: creaky voice), but it’s only perceived as socially meaningful for women—men who use the feature just simply aren’t perceived as having it.
So yeah, it’s pretty intensely sexist, because it’s a feature that’s shared by both sexes (though they’re both changes in progress—you certainly do get more of them among younger speakers), but women are pretty much the only ones getting criticized for it.
(BTW, there are pretty much zero speakers of English who exhibit no creaky voice. It’s actually a part of our language, it’s just that its use is expanding into places that it historically hasn’t been seen.)
Said the earnest, helpful colleague a week before she is promoted to executive VP over four departments and moved to the top floor. 
I’d not say anything. It took me years to realize that the situation you describe is not happening out of naiveté, but rather by design. Its not miscalculation. But the objective might not be a promotion.
Upthread ALH asked me to expand on my views. I’m not sure I have much to add, other than I have been very surprised by the recent spate of media coverage claiming that criticism of these speech patterns is sexist. I was in charge of the women’s initiative at my law firm for many years and it was a point of pride that we offered coaching on these issues. I had always viewed this as a huge positive in our professional development efforts for young women. I personally find these sorts of vocal tics extremely annoying.
On the other hand, I remember when I first started out 20 years ago being criticized for typically female patterns of communications that I KNEW were appropriate and productive in the particular setting, but for which I was criticized. For example, I remember being criticized for strategies I consciously or unconsciously used to build rapport with female witnesses that were viewed by my male supervisors as appearing weak or lacking in confidence. They were not those things at all. It is hard to explain, but there are certain things that women commonly do to build rapport that tend to flatten out hierarchies. These include mildly self-deprecating comments, for example, or comments aimed at building up the status of the other person. I very definitely felt that then men who were criticizing me for using those communication strategies to build rapport were being sexist. So I’m very interested in and attuned to the notion that criticism of female communication styles can be sexist.
Also, I do think that we unconsciously adopt vocal patterns of our peers to establish group affinity, etc. It may be that some of these patterns – vocal fry in particular – will be a way for women of the younger generation to establish rapport with younger female clients, if enough of these patterns persist as these women attain positions of authority and influence. There have been studies showing a big age differential as to how listeners judge speakers with vocal fry. Younger listeners think the speakers sound smart, while older listeners don’t.
@dfbdfb Thanks for the response! Really interesting and helpful. Given the evidence you refer to, do you think that professional firms should offer coaching to help young women eliminate such speech patterns, if eliminating them will in fact help the women to progress professionally?
I wish I knew the technical terms for the vocal tics that some young women adopt that REALLY drive me crazy. These are tics that you don’t hear in professional firms (even among the women with the most prominent cases of upspeak), but you hear a LOT in, say, very young retail clerks at the mall. It is the modern-day equivalent of Valley Girl speak. Is there a technical term for that speech, @dfbdfb? Sexist or not, I would like to eradicate that particular speech pattern off the face of the earth! (Obviously, I could never make it as a sociolinguist!) The particular pattern that I’m thinking about seems very obviously directed at attracting male attention; maybe the modern-day “Santa Baby” vocal style would be a better descriptor. (referring to the annoying song).
There are some people whose voices I find it almost painful to listen to, because they are grating. Both men and women.