#36 - Women’s Voices, Part 2: Our Actual Voices

The Fairer Cents: Women, Money and the Fight to Get Equal

This is the second part in a two-part series on women speaking, focusing today on our actual voices and how they are heard (or not heard) by our bias-filled culture. There is a ton of research showing that women and men are perceived differently when we speak, and that's both socially wired and generational. Like in so many parts of the economy, women are held to an impossible standard where you lose no matter what: either you're too assertive or you're not assertive enough. You're not authoritative enough or you're bossy. Our guests are Kristen Meinzer (host of the By the Book podcast along with Jolenta Greenberg, and author of the book "So You Want to Start a Podcast: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story, and Building a Community that Will Listen" and, along with Jolenta, the forthcoming book "How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books") and Tamara Keith (National Public Radio's White House correspondent and host of the NPR Politics Podcast). While not every woman needs to speak on the air like they both do, their experience tells us a lot about what women are up against in our economy when we speak.

Links from the episode:

• Kristen Meinzer on Twitter
• Kristen’s book, So You Want to Start a Podcast
• By the Book podcast
• Tamara Keith on Twitter
• NPR Politics podcast
• Katie Mingle’s autoreply at 99 Percent Invisible
• Study on vocal fry and success of young women in the labor market
• Study on preference for leaders with masculine voices
• This American Life piece on vocal fry and women’s voices: “Freedom Fries”
• Fresh Air interview on policing young women’s voices
• NPR story: “Sounding Like a Reporter – And a Real Person, Too”
• Transom.org opinion piece by Chenjerai Kumanyika about vocal color in public radio
• Naomi Wolf’s misguided Guardian piece on women’s voices
• Fast Company piece victim blaming women for our voices and how others discriminate on that basis
• Atlantic story on bias against women’s voices in hiring