Most of us use virtual assistants in iPhones, GPS navigators, and other talking stuff almost every day. We ask what the weather will be like, what time it is, what’s 4×4, driving directions, and so on. But we never ask ourselves why the vast majority of the responses we get are spoken in a female voice.
Some
scientists argue that finding a female voice that everyone likes is
much easier than modulating a male one. It is associated with the
mother’s voice, so most people tend to respond positively to it.
The
predecessors of virtual assistants, like dispatchers and secretaries,
were mostly women. Back in the 40s, American air force pilots
“affectionately” called the aircraft warning system
“Bitching Betty” for the peculiar intonation of a
mechanized voice. By the end of the 20th century, when voice systems
moved from aircraft to cars, manufacturers started getting complaints
about the built-in GPS navigator speaking in a female voice. They did
not want to “listen to a woman,” telling them what to do.
Also, those complaints came from angry men, obviously.
Automatic voice alarm systems and talking robots are all designed and created by humans, which means that their inclinations, social prejudices went straight into the development process. Psychologically speaking, a person is just more prone to female voices. A study published in 2014 says that at the prenatal stage, the fetus responds to the voices of both parents, and the newborn already prefers the mother’s voice rather than the father’s. Another study conducted in 2010, discovered that men most often prefer hearing a female voice even though they don’t like to admit it. Women, on the other hand, well, they also prefer a female voice, so it’s a win-win!
