Vocal fry: Kim Kardashian does it, but can we already stop controlling the voices of young women?

OPINION: I want to talk about a little known affliction that creeps into the open-air offices of the country. This is what is called "the wob keyboard", a condition in which, when women type, the keys wobble and that close men go crazy.

Nah, I'm kidding. I want to talk about a new scary epidemic among young women in New Zealand, highlighted in the latest issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ). "Extreme vocal fry" they call it.

Clinicians in Christchurch analyzed the voices of 20 women from two age groups using archives for the oldest group and found that they all used vocal fry – when the voice diminishes and becomes serious (think Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry) – but the younger group uses this is twice as much.

The author of the article on the NZMJ seemed puzzled by the fact that young women, although affected by the outbreak of fingerlings, do not seem to consider him as a voice disorder because they do not show up in clinics for voice disorders. "

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* Crunchy voice and croaking enough to make you cringe
* Women change their voices to sound "squeaky" like Kim Kardashian

Voice frying is not new. Foreign media covered the subject in depth a few years ago, after a study in the United States revealed that students were doing it more and more. Some have warned that this could even hurt women's voices, but speech therapists have since said that there was no evidence that this was the case.

This has sparked reflections and career advice telling women how to speak and not speak. Middle-aged men, and to be fair, some women too, became furious whenever they heard a young woman talking on the radio.

NPR & # 39; s This American life She devoted a part of this in 2015. The host, Ira Glass, said she received many hateful messages about the vocal fry of young female staff members.

The listeners described their voices as "unbearable", d & # 39; "unsustainable", "disgusting", "dreadful" and "unprofessional". One person wrote: "The roar in the woman's voice was so annoying that I turned it off."

Glass, who can barely make a sentence without frying his voice, noted that no one had ever complained.

Another American radio show, 99% invisible, received so many complaints about vocal frying that he created an automated letter in response.

"We have implemented a filter that automatically sends these types of emails to a folder called" Zero Priority. "We will review this file and review the complaints it contains, well, never," says the letter.

"Surprisingly, we do not even have a file for complaints about the male voices of our show, because we've never had one!"

The Christchurch study did not look at men's voices, despite good evidence that men also have vocal fry. Apparently, British English speaking men are more likely to have it. But nobody cares. Damn, no one realizes it and no one really wonders why men do not rush into clinics for voice disorders to cure this disease.

The article says that vocal fry are not considered an "involuntary voice disorder". Women speak voluntarily this way when the style is popularized by the media.

He cites an online survey of 800 auditors that found that French fries users were perceived as less competent, less educated, less trustworthy, less attractive and less laudable. "The conclusion was that young American women should avoid using vocal fry discourse to maximize opportunities in the labor market."

What about the training of recruiters and managers to help them detect their unfair prejudices and to teach them that women should be allowed to speak the way they want?

You can not say it, but I write this with so many vocal fries that it made my coffee mug vibrate on the floor.

For years, the main complaint about women's voices was that they were too sharp, too "sharp" and that they used the tongue (when your voice goes higher at the end of the night). a sentence, which gives the impression that it is a question). It is therefore possible that women began to lower their voices to be taken seriously – and unintentionally, began to fry their voices, especially to avoid a rise in power.

A friend of mine tells me that his beautiful, deep, rasping voice has been a subject of conversation since puberty. "I was pretty aware of that and I was making jokes at my own expense, I guess I should be ahead of someone's badness," she says.

She does not think much about it anymore, but says it confuses her when people talk about the vocal fry "as if she were dressed, as a choice or a fashion".

"At least, from my own experience, it's an inherent quality, sadly unfortunate, sometimes uncomfortable, and I can not do anything about it.

Even though the young women purposely looked like Kim Kardashian – so what? Why should not they be allowed to speak as they please?

Being a woman is confusing. When you open your mouth, there are so many things to consider. If my voice is too sharp, I could not be taken seriously at work. Many women lower their voices for this reason. But if I lower it to the point of frying the voices, people will think that I am unbearable.

A more serious voice might allow me to pursue a career, but it certainly will not allow me to have a husband. Yes, yes, research has shown that men prefer women with a higher voice as partners in marriage. But I thought the baby's voice and its connection were boring?

It is probably best to keep my mouth shut. I wonder if scientists have asked men if they preferred silent women as marriage partners and employees. Whatever it is, I have to finish the article here because the time of my lesson on keyboard manipulation has arrived.