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Women lower their pitch
By LIZ RUDALL
ADELAIDE: Women's voices
had become deeper in the last 50
years because it was less important
to sound feminine, according to re
search from an Adelaide universi
ty.
Flinders University speech
pathology researchers Cecelia Pem
berton, Alison Russell and Lynda
Penny have compared the voices of
young women taped on to steel
disks in 1945 with young women's
voices today.
Ms Russell said that young
women in the 1940s spoke with a
higher-pitched, more feminine
voice than young women in 1993.
"The women of today have
much deeper voices than than 18
to 25-year-olds back in 1945," she
said. "This could be because it's
more socially acceptable to not
sound so feminine today.
4 This could be because
it's more socially
acceptable to not sound
so feminine today 9
— University researchers
"A lower-pitched voicc is associ
ated with maturity and authority in
women today."
Ms Russell said the drop in pitch
could also be caused by the differ
ent role models for women today
and the influence of female media
personalities and politicians.
"In the days of Marilyn Monroe,
women tried to speak in her sultry,
breathy voice, but now women are
listening to women journalists, po
liticians and lawyers," Ms Russell
said.
Women now were generally larg
er than in the 1940s, causing vocal
chords to be longer and voices to be
deeper.
Ms Russell said the women
whose voices were originally taped
were now aged over 60, and had
developed deeper and croakier
voices.
But she said they were easily rec
ognisable, and further study would
show exactly how the voice
changes as people age.
Ms Russell said the voices were
obtained from steel disks, which
were made as early as 1942 by a
woman at the Adelaide Teachers
College. They were tracked down
in Florida, US.
Ms Russell said the Flinders
University research was ongoing
and final results would be released
later this year.
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