Fellas! Sorry to have to issue another warning about the devious females of our species, but I have learned of yet another way that these wily lady creatures secretly control our minds.
On the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit, a fella named cactiscat explains how the ladies manipulate us by “contorting [their] face[s] and voice[s].” And it’s all the fault of Starbucks and the Kardashians and possibly Rachel Zoe.
Women, cactiscat informs us, “are programmed for manipulation.” As little girls, they learn to charm their fathers by “act[ing] sweet and cute in order to get what they want at home.”
But they become true mistresses of manipulation as young adults, when they all, inevitably, get jobs at Starbucks or McDonald’s or somewhere else where they have to deal with idiots all day without punching any of them.
Modern women in the US have almost all worked customer service jobs, either as baristas, waitresses, cashiers, receptionists, ect. In these jobs they naturally hone and perfect their social manipulation skills. They have to put on a smile and make their voice sweet, hour after hour, day after day, regardless of how they feel inside. After doing that for long enough, they essentially become like sociopaths.
Damn you, Starbucks!
Of course, the problem has been around a lot longer than Starbucks. Back in prehistoric days, you see, wily cavewomen learned how to charm hard-working cavemen into giving them some of the mammoth they had so bravely hunted and killed.
Women have always been better at social manipulation than men. This is how they ensured their survival during the caveman days. They couldn’t hunt, or make tools, so they carved out the niche of being social manipulators instead.
Here is an authentic cave painting showing how these evil caveladies conned their men into giving them free stuff.
But there’s one sneaky new trick the ladies are using to control men: talking like a creaky-voiced Kardashian.
Have you heard of “vocal fry”? That’s one of the most blatant tricks in the modern woman’s arsenal. Its a tone style of speaking that sounds like after sex bedroom whispering, and a lot of modern women have shamelessly adopted it into their everyday speaking, because it gives them power.
Here’s Kourtney Kardashian showing us how it’s done:
And here’s dress-picker-outer to the stars Rachel Zoe with her low croak.
As you can see, Rachel Zoe’s vocal fry is so powerful that she’s given vocal fry to pretty much everyone around her except her loser husband.
So be careful, fellas. The next time you hire Rachel Zoe to pick out your outfit for the Oscars, stuff earplugs or bananas or something else in your ears to block out her beguiling croak.
Oh, man. Because of my experience in retail, I avoid shopping of any kind on holidays; I don’t even go to the gas station unless it’s an emergency. My not demanding service on those days might not make a big difference, but at least no one is working for me on those days, you know? I wish with all my heart that we could just slow the fuck down and, you know, have real days off.
I didn’t even know vocal fry was a thing. I always thought that’s how some voices naturally sound, some people have high voices and some people have deep voices that crackle and pop.
I still have a hard time telling what exactly vocal fry is. Right now my mental schema for it is basically deep voice because I don’t hear anything weird in any of the clips of it. Does James Earl Jones have it? What about Kelsey Grammer?
Vocal fry isn’t deep voice.
I can speak lower than my usual fry voice, easily. Fry is more associated with breath support, in most cases. Fry voice requires little airflow, which is why fry tends to be most prominent at the beginning or end of sentences, with ‘cleaner’ modal speaking in the middle.
Most of the time, people who fry won’t if they’re trying to speak louder or trying to project their voice, because speaking louder or projecting (focusing sound) requires more airflow.
I’m a choir geek.
Getting the same fry sound while singing has become a style thing, and the technique and cause of the fry is a little different. Fry singing (think heavy metal) is actually False Chord Phonation for the curious!
@Kupo,
can you hear a distinction between “deep and scratchy” and “deep and smooth,” or “deep and rumbly,” and “deep and clear?”
When I first started hearing about vocal fry, I found myself thinking: there really are people who will get annoyed at just about _anything_, and people like that need to be told to shut it, more.
I’m thinking it again.
Things that annoy me? Uh. And um. A lot of um and uh while people are talking. You can stop and think and put the sentence together first, instead; I’ll wait; I’d even prefer it. But I’m only even _saying_ because apparently this is ‘complain about everything everyone else does’ day (again). Normally, I shrug, remember people are people, each different, and try not to twiddle my thumbs too noticeably while I wait for them to finish getting it all out.
Serially, fuck, but too hell with all the judgey already. Have we not _enough_ to fight over that we’ll even pick at nits like this? How breathy or scratchy or low or high someone’s _voice_ is? Here’s _my_ judgement: someone just revealed how badly they need a better hobby.
… Erm… That’s ‘seriously’. (Though I may repeat it, in a bit. At which point it may also be serially.)
When I heard about this vocal fry controversy on the radio (courtesy of NPR) three things occurred to me:
Wow! Some people really do have a lot of extra time and energy on their hands when this something to complain of.
Men do it as much as women, so it’s not vocal fry per se that’s the ‘problem’.
I personally like it – I feel it’s just one of many things that gives a speaker’s or singer’s voice its unique character.
A man remains cool, affable and professional despite any emotions beneath the surface = DEFAULT MAN.
A woman remains cool, affable and professional despite any emotions beneath the surface = SOCIPATH!!!!!!!!
Now, while most people seem to regard both as logical behaviours and some people do regard overly charming men as socipathic (though more so in competitive corporate roles than the service industry (which in itself indicates a whole host of things)), it could be easy to peg this all as basic ‘Can’t please all the people all the time’ stuff.
However, I have noticed a lot of contradiction in people’s thoughts on women showing emotion or not, specifically people (generally men) who condemn women for being ‘heartless’ or ‘cold’ ‘bitches’ when remaining unemotional and then deride women overall for being ‘too emotional’. It is almost as if people want to force women to behave a certain way so that they can then dismiss everything they say because of it. Odd that.
Seems partially reasonable. OTT, and bigoted, but not without substance.
A lot of parents do raise young girls with a focus on their appearance, and a seemingly lower level of accountability versus boys for their actions, or maintainance of their feelings. Many young women do cultivate cuteness, sexiness, as a means of getting what they want, whereas young boys are conditioned out of this behaviour at a young age. We are living in the age of the selfie. And manipulating to get what one wants is not entirely discouraged (drinks, free stuff, gifts). Talking to some women in their twenties, you’d think we were still living in the 1950s, and one wonders what happened to the advances of first gen feminism.
Unfortunately not everyone is enlightened to the notions of equality. And even amongst those that are, some believe equality is a breadline, some before others, not treating every person as a human being with their own experiences.
There’s an interesting thing a muslim feminist pointed out to me recently – why is the hijab robbing women of their power, if all it does is de-sexualize them? – can women not have power that is not sexual in nature? I’m pretty sure men can, so why not women?
I think western society has some ways to come on this, women can have power and skill, and command authority without sexuality. They can attain the things they want, for themselves, without manipulation (buy their own drinks, stand up for themselves, carry their own things, learn martial arts, work out etc). They are not passive, weak, incapable, vulnerable, needy, sex objects etc.
I think it could be argued that certain women do and perhaps this is something to address in younger generations, who have re-glamourized women as sexual objects and as having value for sexual reasons.
Of course men, have to take some responsibility for their albiet strong feelings regarding womens sexuality – and grow up and stop playing that game. But I think culturally we still have a ways to go before men and women are treating each other as equals, as we might wish. And no gender is 100% full of saints in this regard.
I’m new here and don’t want to overstep but I’m pretty sure you’re preaching to the choir. This is, to me, a key part of feminism; i.e women being valued, appreciated and respected regardless of their ‘sexiness’
It seems to me your whole premise focuses only on women who are conventionally good-looking, as if no other women exist; this is something I see a lot when generalisations about women using their sexuality fly around. It is almost like the people making the argument only focus on the women they noticing existing by virtue of them being attractive. Other women exist too and are often derided for NOT being ‘conventionally attractive’, as if existing while not being hot is worthy of scorn.
If people have such beef with sexy ladies steering men to the ATM by their boner, try being attracted to people for their other attributes. It isn’t difficult for anyone in love to find their partner very attractive, having healthy friendships with many people, even the ones that you don’t immediately want to bang, can lead to good relationships. Society feeds everyone the bullshit that a woman’s looks matter more than everything else about her, there is no need to swallow it wholesale as an excuse to always be shallow in partner-selection. This argument is often then followed by the insistence that women are ‘inherently’ different so are happy to go out with conventionally unattractive men (or are differently shallow themselves). If people would just try embracing the similarities between men and women (and everyone on the spectrum) rather than insisting they’re different in order to justify everything they think they’re entitled to, this shit would naturally sort itself out.
If you go around thinking you can buy a woman’s affection with money or fake ‘niceness’, don’t be surprised if that is the only kind of woman who will be interested and will come to expect a supply.
I live in the UK, this ^^ is the standard as I see it. The ‘dating’ scene is something I’ve never come in contact with, I’m pretty sure it isn’t a thing. We tend to meet at work, through friends or family and get chatting at the pub or clubs. Men approaching women in public (shops, buses etc) to ask them out rarely happens and I can’t imagine it would end well.
If it is a generational problem, the youth will find their way; especially if older people stop trying to coerce them into sex. Most young women fancy boys their own age, so if older people can lure some of them away from people they are compatible with (people of the same emotional maturity) via manipulation or monetary gain, that is their own fault. There is no point crying over young women with ‘high SMV’ wanting monetary recompense to shag ‘low SMV’ men (or redefining men’s ‘SMV’ to BE monetary and then crying about THAT) and trying to ‘fix’ this. If looks matter, let the hot young things bang each other, they’ll do that shit for free.
The way they sexualise each other is another issue, young men and women are both doing it, pretty sure they always have in one way or another and I think it is getting fairer now though the methods are very public coz of social media. I try not to judge youth culture unless they’re actively hurting anyone.
Absolutely. But you’re making the assumption that if a woman is perceived as sexy – whether she’s trying to be sexy or not – that she is automatically reduced to her sexiness. That she can’t have worth beyond her looks. That is what feminism is fighting against. It doesn’t matter if a woman is “sexy” or “frumpy” she’s a human being and deserves to be treated as such.
On the selfie thing; men post plenty of scantily clad selfies in order to attract women and gain followers. I just typed “male celebrity selfies” into Google and the top hits on images were almost all shirtless.
Justin Beiber does it all the time. So does L.L. Cool J. Funny how nobody ever derides them for using their sexuality to gain power. Nobody ever uses them as an excuse to objectify men. Nobody thinks they represent all men and uses them as examples of why men are shallow and slutty.
The problem isn’t that women use their sexuality to gain power. The problem isn’t that women post too many sex pictures on social media. The problem is that women are treated as the sexual class. Because of patriarchy.