eaiaiaiaoi/thesis/2. The Monstrosity of the Female Voice.md

The Monstrosity of the Female Voice

What modes: the annoying noise

In Ancient Greece, there was a superstition that associated high-pitched voices with evil. Human nature, as defined by the patriarchy, differs from the other animals' nature on the ability to articulate with sound and create ‘logos’ (speech). In the primitive stage of consciousness, "the brain was ‘bicameral’, with the right hemisphere producing uncontrollable ‘voices’ attributed to the gods which the left hemisphere processed into speech" (Ong, 2002, pg. 30). It was after the figure of Odysseus appeared that these voices didn't matter any more and the self-conscious mind was established. Through 'logos', humans can develop dialogue and democratic processes of communication and decision- making. All the other forms of expression are wild and therefore irrational, including sign language [example?] and the 'hysterical' exposures of women [more detail on describing why the noise is annoying]. Aristotle and his contemporaries believed that vocal sounds were based on physiognomy, particularly the genitals of a person, and that is why men speak at a low pitch. The high-pitched utterance of women, called 'ololyga', which was a ritual practice dedicated to important events of the life, like the birth of a child or the death of a person, was considered a 'pollution' of civic space. If expressed in public, they would create chaos and provoke madness. In mythology, when Odysseus awakens on the island of Phaiakia, he is "surrounded by the shrieking of women (...) and goes one to wonder what sort of savages or super-natural beings can be making such a racket". These women were Nausica and her girlfriends, described by Homer as "wild girls who roam the mountains in attendance upon Artemis" (Carson, 1996, pg. 125). Similarly Alkaios, an ancient poet that had been expelled from the city, where public assemblies took place, was disgusted by the presence of women’s voices talking 'nonsense'. In the ancient world, women were excluded, and so occupied the margins of society, the dark and formless space where speech and thus politics, were absent. This disorderly, loud female noise was related to an uncivilized, wild space and sound deemed politically incorrect. It seems like these primitive 'uncontrollable voices' became related to some modes of address that were reminders of the past condition of the human brain, judging it as having a malignant influence.
Today women in public life worry if their voices is too light or high to command respect. Thus radio producers and politicians, like Margaret Thatcher, are trained to learn how to speak in public, to deepen their voice and being taken seriously as a male speaker would do [interesting side note - "vocal fry" is a vocal effect whereby a woman's voice deepens slightly, criticised by many older men as "ugly" - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/24/vocal-fry-strong-female-voice deep voice bigger size of bodies---vocal fry mimic male deep voice? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_LmC-ynqGM]. Carson (1996, pg. 120) observes that the female voice in public is related to madness, witchery, bestiality, disorder, death and chaos. And thus has to stay hidden from sight.
Here I go on to list, from the text of Carson, how, since ancient times the female voice has been described;

:(...)high-pitched (...) loud shouting, having too much smile in it, decapitated hen, heartchilling groan, garg, horrendous, howling dogs, being tortured in hell, deadly, incredible babbling, fearsome hullabaloo, she shrieks obscenities, haunting garrulity, monstrous, prodigious noise level, otherwordly echo, making such a racket, a loud roaring noise, disorderly and uncontrolled outflow of sound, shrieking, wailing, sobbing, shrill lament, loud laughter, screams of pain or of pleasure, eruptions of raw emotion, groan, barbarous excesses, female outpourings, bad sound, craziness, non-rational, weeping, emotional display, oral disorder, disturbing, abnormal, "hysteria", "Not public property", exposing her inside facts, private data, permits direct continuity between inside and outside, female ejaculation, "saying ugly things", objectionable, pollution, remarkable

Mechanisms of marginalization

The mechanisms of marginalization of these specific modes of address are based on control and filtering. One example is the repetitive action of self-control that comes from the ancient tactic of controlling emotional exposure of one's own. Carson (1996, pg. 126) says that patriarchal thinking on emotional and ethical matters is related to ‘sophrosyne’, or self- control of the body. A man is feminized when he lets his emotions come out, and so he has to control his body, and subsequently himself. "Females blurt out a direct translation of what should be formulated indirectly" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129). It was believed that the masculine deep voice, by default, indicates self- control. So the doctors of archaic periods would suggest exercises of oration to men to cure the damage inflicted by repeated use of a loud, high-pitched voice. This means that they would practice public speech so to learn how to filter their inner emotions when they were externalized. In addition to that, so as to be taken seriously, a low-pitched voice would be the right one to use in public assemblies.
The female version of this practice was perceived more as a way for men to silence women when they were loud or screamed from pain or pleasure. Because they weren't able to control themselves by nature, this inability was related to animals and primitive human behaviors. Silencing of women, the female ‘sophrosyne’, had been an object of legislative arrangements in the ancient world. Women didn’t have the license to express their ‘noise’ in specific places and events, and there was a also a restriction over the duration, the content and the choreography of their rituals in funerals so that they wouldn’t create chaos and delirium. So, women’s public utterance restricted in cultural institutions, that were expressing self- fulfilling prophecies [example]. But there was a way to cure the women and city from this. Normally these unpleasant female tendencies had to stay hidden from the men’s view because were annoying, non-human and disorderly. But in Dionysian festivals the task of one selected woman would be to discharge the unspeakable things on behalf of the city, in a practice which was called ‘aischrologia’, that lead to ‘katharsis’, which means the 'clearance' of the soul. She was free to express all these weird noises but only then and for the benefit of society. ‘Aischrologia’ (pg.132-133) seems similar to the therapeutic practice of hypnosis on hysterical women by Freud, who aspired to resurrect this ancient idea. Their emotions, and unspeakable things, were polluting them inside, and employing a ‘talking cure’ or in other words, ‘katharsis’ would help them. Freud's 'talking cure' was concerned with channeling these negative emotions through politically appropriated containers, through 'speech'. [The silencing of women has to do also with the interruption of their voice when they express an argument in a dialogue and men are participating in it (Interview Cristina?).]

Shut out of the public: Separation of public and private space

Ancient Greek thinkers had set the gender binary and its reflection in the space. According to Kevin Fox Gotham (Ελιάνα Καναβέλη, 2012), territorial restrictions, identities and meanings are negotiable, as they are defined through social interaction and controversy. Thus, space is the material of the human action and the outcome of the social interactions. Western philosophical thought, based on ancient social structures, supports the division between the private and public domains. In public space everybody should be civilized and resolve conflicts through dialogue, but the interior of private spaces is ruled by a domestic power where violence is permitted. This separation has reached a point where men are the main political operators in public space. But the division is also between politicians and citizens, natives and immigrants, and experts and amateurs in rhetoric. Representations of gender and space are not immutable, but they consolidate dominant realities because of their repetition. Outside public spaces have been historically the main platform for male- gendered subjects. Public spaces has been turned in gender constructions that privatize men and female subjects are expressing their needs and desires through them. The social life of the latter is restricted by the 'housewifization' and the private abode of the house.
The dominant notion that men are the main operators within the public sphere, together with the idea that women are vulnerable and weak, leads to the normalization of fear of women in outside spaces. Their presence and safety in inappropriate and dangerous spaces is their responsibility. The idea that women are excluded from public space because of male violence doesn't mean that men direct exclude women. There are complicated power relations that create this exclusion. Freedom of speech relates to political participation, and in theory everyone can have it, but in practice unwritten rules and power relations define what is going to be said, and to whom. The factor of fear intervenes in that. These rules construct the public sphere and restrict female subjects in expressing harmless thoughts. The voices and speeches of women in public are directed to “non-listening ears” and they remain silent. [example of syrian wartime radio]

The Roots of the Collective Voice

The voice is a medium for collective practice. According to Ong (2002, pg. 67), "[o]ral communication unites people in groups. Writing and reading [of literate cultures] are solitary activities that throw the psyche back on itself". Orality, or thought and verbal expression which is not based on writing and reading skills, has still a presence in the contemporary western cultures. It has been transformed into a new orality that "has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment (...) But it is essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality" (Ong. pg.13). However, the rational individualistic democracy stands against this collective vocalization that includes the sounds of all the other species and marginalized genders. But mainly it is a reminder of a primitive human mode of address that creates alienation and feelings of fear of looking back in our nature.

Conclusion

The association of the female voice with bestiality and disorder justifies the tactic of patriarchal culture to ‘put a lid’ on the female mouth since the ancient times. Different mechanisms have been developed to exclude specific forms of address from the public that are based on complicated power relations. Collective and female vocalizations are perceived as threats for the society and are undergoing filtration and 'normalization'.

Bibliography?

• ? Fasbinder, F. (2017) Use These 3 Vocal Techniques to Command the Room Like Margaret Thatcher and Obama, Inc.com. Available at: https://www.inc.com/fia-fasbinder/science-shows-people-respond-to-stronger-deeper-voices-how-to-train-your-voice-like-margaret-thatcher-obama.html (Accessed: 4 January 2019).
• my text on sound acts in victoria
• 667: Wartime Radio (2019) This American Life. Available at: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/667/transcript (Accessed: 5 February 2019).

A very recent example of how men were annoyed by women's voices is the abhorrence that Ernest Hemingway had for the voice of Gerdrude Stein [his words]. He would judge her for her big physical size and her monstrous voice that could not be tolerated.[Carson talks about his feelings for being in the margin, feelings of alienation]. ALIENATION-because uf fear of primitive stage