Mary Beard once pointed out that in antiquity, men openly admitted it: they didn’t like the sound of a woman’s voice. Modern life reveals traces of that attitude in the destructive metaphors we use to describe how women sound. Angry women are “shrill”; intelligent women are “sharp”. And, as any woman who uses her voice for work – in, for example, a podcast – will tell you, men are not shy about complaining. They have thousands of complaints, about your tone and your language. They will say you have “vocal fry”, but what they mean is: I don’t like having to listen to you.
That makes the dominance of women in podcasts a sound to behold. For a long time, it seemed as if podcasting was a male realm, but no longer. Sure, there are lots of men doing podcasts, but women are voicing a lot of the form’s biggest hits. Serial, the podcast that made podcasts a phenomenon, was narrated by a woman. Then Starlee Kine lit up the iTunes charts with her sorely missed Mystery Show. And that’s before we get to NPR and BBC stalwarts, such as Terry Gross and Kirsty Young. The podcast revolution has taught us that women’s voices aren’t just pleasurable to listen to, they are essential. Here are the can’t-miss-podcasts produced, reported and performed by women in 2017:
Continue reading...April 03, 2017 at 10:11PM
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from Michelle Dean
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