Feminine Speech and Tone

Did you know that the way you speak can instantly change how people respond to you? A simple shift in tone, from harsh to gentle, from reactive to composed, can completely transform a conversation, influence relationships, and even change the atmosphere of an entire room.

Most people focus on what they say, but few realize that how they say it often carries more weight than the words themselves. Your tone can build trust or create distance, inspire respect or invite resistance, and communicate confidence, warmth, and femininity...or the opposite.

If you're struggling in your marriage, friendships, workplace, or simply feel that your interactions aren't producing the results you'd like, your tone may be playing a larger role than you think. Learning to communicate with intention is not only a powerful self-development skill for women, but one of the most overlooked keys to effective communication.

In today's episode, we'll explore both positive and negative tone examples, uncover the subtle ways tone shapes our relationships, and discuss three simple yet powerful techniques you can start using immediately to improve the way you communicate.

Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the official Fascinating Womanhood Podcast, where we explore timeless principles for developing true femininity, inspiring authentic masculinity, and building strong, loving, and lasting relationships. I'm Cherry Lynn and I'm here with my mom, Dixie Analyn Forsythe. Together we'll dive into the heart of what makes relationships thrive, offering practical wisdom and heartfelt conversations to help you live a more fulfilled and fascinating life.

SPEAKER_12 0:31

Okay, so today we are talking about feminine speech and tone. We just wrapped up our ladylike behavior series, which was a five-part episode talking about ladylike behavior development. And we thought we would follow up with that series with speech and tone because it kind of complements the topic. That's right. This is a pretty big topic. We talked about it in our last episode, which was about physical grace as well as we talked about it in conversation skills. It kind of pops up into everything when you're talking about behavior.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

You know, and the way we speak says a lot about us, and we all sense it. We don't we don't usually talk about it, but we sense it. And you know, I was I was thinking just before we started that some people might say, Oh, you know, men are the ones who require this, or we're doing this for men. And I would very much disagree. I think if we were on an island with just women, this would still benefit us because it's one of our strengths and we play the best to it. It makes us feel better about ourselves and about who we are. It isn't just about how we react to men. Like if you if you're just at home and you're not around men, or you from all family of girls and you're hardly ever around men, you still it still is beneficial.

SPEAKER_12 1:49

Ultimately, don't you think speech and tone is really deep down, it's about communication skills. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Yeah, whether it's with just uh your family or or your loved ones or whoever it is, it's about communication.

SPEAKER_12 2:04

It's really difficult to communicate effectively when you're not aware of your speech and tone.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Right, exactly. It's what you communicate almost uh non-verbally, but people still pick it up. It it you know, if you listen to a film of a foreign language you don't understand, you can tell when someone is angry, when they're sarcastic, even if you don't know what they're saying, you can tell what they're communicating.

SPEAKER_12 2:27

That's true. I mean, even animals can kind of tell what we're communicating. Yes. They don't speak our language, they can tell when we're upset, they can tell when we are sad, and some of that is not our tone, some of it's our body language, but I think ultimately, like we said, the speech and tone that you're choosing, if you're not aware of how you're coming across, it can actually cause a lot of damage in your relationship. Yes. Do you have any examples of that? I know this is something you're really good at just naturally, but do you have any examples of that in your own life where that has either been something you struggle with, or maybe someone else has had a tone with you and how it's made you feel?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Yeah, I'm I'm really sensitive. I pick up on things that I know Bob doesn't. The way someone says something, like, okay, here the other day, uh, I think I mentioned it on the live yesterday. We were at a restaurant, it was our anniversary, and I ordered there was a you pick two with shrimp. Anyway, so I ordered these two different kinds, and the waitress gave me the wrong one of them was the wrong one, and I said, Oh, I ordered this one, and she said, No, you did her tone was irritated. She says, No, you ordered this, and I and I I instantly knew she was upset, defensive. She didn't say you lied, you're wrong. She just said, No, you ordered it. Okay, so then when she brought it, she goes, Here's your shrimp. No, it's like picture like a plate plopping down. Yeah, she kind of plopped it on the table. Okay, so she didn't is there anything wrong with saying, Here's your shrimp? No. It's the way it was done. That was very clear to me that she had an attitude, and I thought, well, she didn't own the restaurant. I mean, it isn't anything and it anything personally with her, but she it was the point is is that you can tell the tone. The tone was bad service. And for us, we knew instantly, even though we couldn't prove it as if you had to uh as you know, have a he said, she said on that. Well, I only said this.

SPEAKER_12 4:35

Well, ultimately she made you feel like you made a mistake. I know you said it's bad service, but ultimately when you're comparing this to relationships, because I know this is a service person, but that's a good parallel to what's happening in our everyday lives. If you make someone feel or you are in you sound like you're trying to intentionally blame something on someone, yeah, that is hurtful and it causes it's bad communication and it it causes hurt in your relationship.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Now, yeah, we don't have a relationship with a waitress, so it was that one time saying, but that when these things happen in uh relationships in workplace and and not just in your home, but in workplace and other it can it does and can damage relationships, and and if you don't talk about it ever, the person you there may be a misunderstanding. They may say, Oh, I was I was uh having a really bad day, and they may not have realized how they communicated to you. That's also possible.

SPEAKER_12 5:34

Right. Well, and when it comes to your husband, because this is something we talk about so much with fascinating womanhood, is developing a long-lasting and wonderful marriage, the way that you're speaking to your husband and the way he's speaking to you has such huge impact on your day-to-day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

I mean, we could go on and on about well, let's say here and here here's something that happens more often, maybe. Let's say your husband comes home and you've asked him on the way home, could you pick up some milk? Okay, so he comes home and he's forgotten. And and the wife comes in and says, Uh uh, did you get the milk? Okay, there's an there's an accusatory tone where she could have said, Oh, hey, did you get the milk? Seriously, she doesn't know. Right. They both say the the exact same words, but one communicates, yeah, yet again you forgot. Right. And the other one, the other one is, oh, like, oh, I I almost forgot to ask you, did you get the milk? It's the tiniest shift.

SPEAKER_12 6:40

Yeah. But here's the thing: you can't just shift your tone. You have to shift your tone and your mindset.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 6:49

Because if you're only shifting that tone, but inside you are your self-talk is kind of negative and you are resentful. What's gonna happen? How what do you what is the repercussions of that?

SPEAKER_03 7:07

There's many possible repercussions. I mean, some it it could be that your relationship, say it's your husband, could go on for years, just not as good. And he may build up kind of a wall where he doesn't let you in as much, but he just kind of puts up with it.

SPEAKER_12 7:23

Well, I also think it's hard to put on an act for so you can only do that for so long. Yeah. You can say, hey, you know, today I'm gonna really careful with my tone, but inside you're just ready to explode. I just feel like that's something that you on a deeper level will want to work on. And I think that's what's so great about Fascinating Womanhood. We have all these different episodes and topics we talk about about how to achieve all those things. But today we want to stick a little bit more with just specifically the tone because it is that big of a topic. Now, what about you you mentioned, you know, like how you're talking to your man and like how you're talking to different people. What about men and their tone? Why do you think that women have these expectations, or do they, with their tone, and men don't?

SPEAKER_03 8:10

I think men do too. I know, I know Bob has told me what's wrong. I can tell you're upset when I haven't said anything. And I'm I may not even be consciously aware. He they pick up on it too, and they do it with each other. I mean, I bet if you ask your husband about tones of people that he talks to at work, he'll pick up on it. I mean, he he his part of his job is picking up on attitudes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_12 8:36

Oh yeah. But do you think that men in a marriage have a different expectation than women? That they can get away with a tone and a certain kind of way of speaking, whereas women might have a little bit more pressure.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

I guess I um I think that men, because they're a little less sensitive, most of them are less sensitive. They're not gonna notice some things as much. Maybe just because they're less sensitive and not because they don't care. They're just built different. You know, they're not all the same.

SPEAKER_12 9:08

No, I I didn't I didn't mean that. I just meant like I think there's a double standard, and I think a lot of women complain about that and they ask us about that. They say, like, why do I have to do all this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

I've been hearing that since I was a child when my mother was in charge. Why do I have to do it? And the answer is you don't. You don't have to do anything, but uh women are the ones that tend to be more sensitive about the relationship quicker. And they think, okay, this isn't quite right, I want it fixed before before it becomes something serious. And because women are more tuned into relationship issues, and they have the not just the sensitivity, but the sort of the desire to fix something before it's really broken, that they're more uniquely put in a position to to work on it. Who's gonna make the man do it? Nobody can make him do it, nobody can make us do it.

SPEAKER_12 10:01

I remember us talking years ago with dad, and I this always stuck with me. He said, I always wish fascinating womanhood could have like not have that title, and it should be called uh two women, how to get everything you want. That always kind of struck me as interesting and and funny at the same time because of course no one would probably buy that book, or I don't know, maybe they would because it's kind of catchy. Not a great title, yeah. Not the greatest title, but at the same time, it it kind of is the right uh description of our book because it does when you do these things, you do ultimately get a lot of these things that you want. It's just a like I said before, like a mindset shift. You're not only shifting your tone, but you're really ultimately shifting the way you think about things.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Yeah. Yeah, the way you the way you look at your husband, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 10:54

Well, you can adjust how you view him, yes, and ultimately that will affect your tone with him. Yeah, well, well, that's the hard part, is that's going to affect your tone. What you say says a lot about you, and in fact, it's almost more important the way that you're saying things versus what's coming out of your mouth. So we wanted to demonstrate some voices for you all, some that are not quite as ladylike and some that are more ladylike. We want to talk about different tones, such as higher voices, lower voices, because ultimately it doesn't really matter what your tone naturally is that you were born with, it's just about what you do with it. And then after we play these clips, we're gonna move into three tips that you can use in everyday, very easy tips to improve your tone and your speech. So the first one we want to play, actually, I'm not even gonna say their names, I'm just going to play it. And you can, mom, you can comment on the second and we can talk about each person's voice and what we think. Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_07 12:07

Someone who would lead us in the wrong direction. Because if you really believe America is weak with our military, our values, our capabilities that no other country comes close to matching, then you don't know America.

SPEAKER_12 12:24

So do you know who that is? It's Hillary Clinton. Okay. It's Hillary Clinton, and this is not a political comment of any kind. It's just her voice. I think she has a very dist distinctible voice that you can really recognize, and maybe some people uh associate her with positive things, maybe not positive things. We just want to comment on her tone.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

She has always sounded to me like she was trying to sound like a man to be the in order to be taken seriously. I think it's a mistake. She it just happens to kind of dress like that too, a lot of times. And but when she when she's on at the stand, when she's campaigning, she's very authoritative and kind of sounds masculine. Yes, yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_12 13:09

She she does sound masculine. She she sounds, I this may sound weird to some, but she just sounds angry when she's speaking. Yeah. I don't know if she is or whether she's trying to be strong. Um, but I I don't think that to be a leader, you need to be angry. No. A great leader is not necessarily angry. I think that you have moments where you're where you're passionate, and that's fine, but she seems like she's always angry.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Yeah, I agree. She well, her eyebrows are always kind of kind of together too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 13:39

So here's another one.

SPEAKER_09 13:42

Really a surprise. But what happened was I had a foster child, tried to adopt the foster child, and I was told that uh my family was unworthy and it would be illegal because of the state that I live in, Florida. So after that happened, I decided to talk talk about this because that's an unjust law.

SPEAKER_12 13:55

Who do you know who that is? Is that Rosie O'Donnell? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

What is she sounds angry too? No!

unknown 14:04

She does.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

She sounds angry. Sometimes we are angry, but uh but she also sounds very uh aggressive. Yes. Not just angry, she sounds very aggressive.

SPEAKER_12 14:15

How do you suppose she sounds aggressive in just that one like little clip that I played? She wasn't even talking about anything bad necessarily. I mean, she's just talking about a hardship that she was going through. Uh why do why is that?

SPEAKER_03 14:30

How is that? You know, it isn't that if women get angry, they're it's not appropriate. That's not true. Uh it it's it's partly, I think it's partly the um like we're talking about, it's the tone.

SPEAKER_12 14:41

Yeah, I agree. And there's something that both of these women have in common because I can see these clips, I will tell you what they are right now. Neither one of them smiled once in those clips. Neither one of them. Not that we have to be smiling all the time, but it's just a it's just a demonstration of how you might sound when you are like you said, they sound angry and they sound aggressive, and that may just be their personalities.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah, uh, you know, since neither of us know them personally, we can and it's it's just as well because we can only go by their tone. We don't we don't know them otherwise.

SPEAKER_12 15:20

If I were to say, hey, I want to cast someone in a Disney princess movie, or let's let's not take it that far. Let's say that's too far. Let's say we're having a cartoon with a bunch of I don't know, let's say squirrels, and we want to cast the leading squirrel, the sweet, like female character. You would never pick those voices for that character.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

No, you you might you might pick them for the evil witch.

SPEAKER_12 15:50

Well, okay, look what look what look at the voice. I'm just going off of their sound. What is that?

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Okay, that Disney film. That's the mermaid one. The Little Mermaid? The Little Mermaid. The one the voice of the woman, the the octopus. Oh my gosh, that lady. Okay, okay, that her voice was perfect for the evil octopus because of the tone. She didn't have a princess, I think, voice.

SPEAKER_12 16:16

Well, I feel bad for that woman because I have I do know who that actress is, and she actually does have a nice speaking voice when she's trying.

SPEAKER_11 16:23

Here's a quick sample of Pat Carroll's voice, who is the woman who did the voice of Ursula in The Little Mermaid.

SPEAKER_06 16:30

I I think during the period where gentlemen did not want their ladies to be comical, uh, it was rather phony.

SPEAKER_11 16:38

And here is Pat Carroll again, only her voice as Ursula in The Little Mermaid.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

No more talking, singing, zip.

SPEAKER_12 16:48

We don't want to say that if you're born with a certain voice, like you're doomed.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Well, she was acting that she was acting that voice of the voice. She was trying to be to be the evil octopus. So, you know, we're not accusing her of being that way in her real life. Just like the woman that played the wicked witch on Wizard of Oz, she was a really nice lady, but she just happened, sadly for her, she they said, You look like you could be a good witch. And so they they cast her in the park, but she was actually a really nice lady. And she and she did that cackle that she did on that film just because she could act.

SPEAKER_12 17:21

Well, and and our voices say a lot about us, and of course, some of us are acting and we're changing our voices. I think comedians do that, actors do that, they change them for comedy or for drama, but that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about your every single day. Like, let's say you're going to a job interview, and how do you want to sound, or you're going in on a date? How do you want to sound and not performative sound?

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Well, another another if you're going on a job interview, you don't necessarily want to sound timid, and that's another sound.

SPEAKER_12 17:56

Right, right. Well, it's like we said in our we did a YouTube video about this, and we used James Earl Jones, and we compared him to Michael Jackson. Oh, yeah. And we used that as a demonstration of it, what if James Earl Jones had had Michael Jackson's speaking voice?

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Or Michael Jackson to do James Earl.

SPEAKER_12 18:20

We did, yeah, we flipped it, and we we actually, because it was a video, we did a visual of Michael Jackson with his voice and we we flip-flopped it. But we can't obviously do that today because we were on a podcast. But but the point was to show how different those individuals are because of their tone. Now we've shown a couple clips of more kind of aggressive sounding tones. Now let's play another style of tone.

SPEAKER_07 18:46

Tomorrow's my mom's birthday. Um, no, no, Claude. You don't you don't know her.

SPEAKER_09 18:51

Um, I'm I'm bringing her to a soccer game because I wanted to show her what boundaries look like. You know, look.

SPEAKER_08 18:59

She's like, I don't see anything. Like, I know stop calling my friends.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

Do you know who that is? That isn't Amy Schumer, is it?

SPEAKER_12 19:08

It is, it's Amy Schumer. I wanted to play her style of voice because she isn't quite quite as aggressive in her tone, but she has an an undertone that we talk about a lot with sarcasm.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a problem in our in our world right now, at least the Western world, with uh sarcasm. It's really hard to get rid of. We're almost we hear it from the time we're children. It's seems like a way of hiding, well, at least faking hiding what you really feel, because you could say, I didn't say anything. But everyone knows by their your tone what you meant. Well, you can't prove it.

SPEAKER_12 19:48

It's tricky because with her, she has just a slightly more feminine tone than the last two, but yeah, she sneaks in the sarcasm, which makes go to another place of anger.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Another person I've seen doing that recently is Candace Owens. She does that's that's an accusatory tone.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

That assertion could not be confirmed. Like just such a wow kind of a story that I never knew. And that person said that there was a little some rumors about that. And of course, his dad got involved immediately, he called his dad, um, and they I think sent somebody over.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

It's not genuine questions. It's a it's got accusation behind it, and you can feel it, but you can't prove it. You just know it.

SPEAKER_12 20:36

Well, I think you know, I feel bad for some people that are born with voices that that are uh to the extreme, like really deep.

SPEAKER_05 20:45

We give to one another, it's a tennis match back and forth, and if we hit the ball just right, you get it.

SPEAKER_12 20:54

Really high.

SPEAKER_05 20:56

And I can't stand 'em.

SPEAKER_12 21:00

That lady. She just and you know that's not her real voice. She just it's but let's just say that someone really was born with a voice like that. You can still work on it, you can still improve it. But but I think a lot of ladies tend to write into us about this topic and they say, Well, I just don't have a feminine voice.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Maybe they think feminine is high-pitched, and that's just not true.

SPEAKER_12 21:24

Right. No, it's not. It's it comes in all kinds. Now we're gonna play some better clips. Now we played some kind of poor poor clips. I have more poor ones, but we will move shift a little bit for more examples. So let's play another one.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I haven't got the part my obviously every girl wants to be a princess. I mean, ever since you were a kid, and a Disney princess and Cinderella is kind of if I say it's it's like too much to really even believe.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Do you know who that was? It sounds kind of like Lily James.

SPEAKER_12 21:57

Lily James, she's in a lot of movies. But she is, and just because she's British doesn't mean she actually has to have choosing British people, and I was like, I gotta stop choosing British people. So I have more. Um, but there's others that I'm gonna play. But I did I do like her because she does do uh a lot of different roles, and all of the roles that I've seen at least, she's very soft in how she speaks. But she's yet to do something where she's a villain, so we could, I guess, wait for that to make maybe happen. But she tends to always have a very soft way of speaking.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

She does, yes, and everything I've seen her.

SPEAKER_12 22:35

And in that clip, she was smiling almost the entire time. I don't know how I don't know if you could tell where the way she was speaking. Here's another clip.

SPEAKER_13 22:44

But he has he has great wit and uh is very amusing when he's with friends and people he knows. He's he's a very good father, he's wonderful with the children. I think because he he had a rather unhappy childhood himself that he uh dedicates as much time as possible to his children.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

That's not Grace Kelly. That was Grace Kelly. Okay, it's been so long since I've heard her voice.

SPEAKER_12 23:09

And do you notice neither of those gals sounded accusatory or angry or sarcastic or and Lily James was talking about really fun stuff and and Grace Kelly was not, but they both I I purposely tried to find a clip where Grace Kelly was being a little bit more real because it was a real interview, it wasn't a film. She's just talking about her everyday kind of life, and she doesn't sound like you said, aggressive, accusatory, sarcastic. None of that. Here's another clip of Grace Kelly speaking. Actually, Eva Gardner is talking with her, and I was like, ooh, this is because the two of them both have really feminine tone.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

I think it was. I came down to visit a little palm of mine.

SPEAKER_12 24:16

Neither one of them sounds angry, they sound calm. And Grace Kelly was actually smiling throughout the whole scene. Ava Gardner was in and out. But you can tell that they're both pleasant. Here's one more really positive one.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

About 12, professionally, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 24:34

But I my parents, my father, my stepfather, I should say, was a singer. And when I was about seven or eight, really to keep me occupied because my school was evacuated because of the war and things like that, he decided that just to keep me busy, he would give me some singing essences.

SPEAKER_12 24:53

I think we all know who that is. Very famous voice. That was Julie Andrews. That was Julie Andrews? Okay, I got one. But she what I loved about that clip is how soft she is. She sounds a little bit shy, although I don't think she was known for being shy. She was a little nervous to be interviewed, but she didn't have like play that clip of Rosie who was being interviewed.

SPEAKER_09 25:21

But what happened was I had a foster child trying to adopt the foster child, and I was told that uh my family was unworthy and it would be illegal because of the state that I live in, Florida.

SPEAKER_12 25:28

So the two of them, the the way that Julie Andrews was speaking, just that softer, she sounds more approachable.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yeah, well that Rosie O'Donnell also is speaking very fast. Yes. She's she's very fast. Which could be because of her feeling about it, whatever she was talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 25:48

Yeah. Yeah. But I think this is something we all can work on. Everyone can work on this. I think you're probably an exception that you always have such a very soft, and some of us maybe just are naturally like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Well, I'm pro my problem is people sometimes say, I can't hear you speak up. I couldn't hear you. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to make sure I talk loud enough because it I used to like to sing, and it was I had a real problem. If I didn't have a microphone, nobody could hear me.

SPEAKER_12 26:20

So yeah. Now here's um someone speaking that is somewhat more on the feminine side, but a little bit different. And I would love to hear what you have to say about this one.

SPEAKER_14 26:38

Don't play a maillard. It was like, like, after breakfast map. Like, you don't go play a million yard. He's like, don't play anything. Like, she just kept making this weird sound, and finally was like, maybe you wanna you wanna tell me what you had for breakfast?

SPEAKER_03 26:50

She's like, Oh I do not know who that is. Well, what do you think of it though? What do I think of it? It is quite assertive. Yeah. Yeah. And she seems confident.

SPEAKER_12 27:04

Yeah. Do you think it's a feminine toning ladylike voice?

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Not as much.

SPEAKER_12 27:10

Not as much. Why?

SPEAKER_03 27:12

There's a lot of push to it.

SPEAKER_12 27:14

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

She's got a lot of push to her voice. Sort of the I'm in charge thing. Yes. Who is that?

SPEAKER_12 27:20

Melissa McCarthy.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

Melissa.

SPEAKER_12 27:22

Oh, I'm not as familiar with her. Yeah, I know who she is, but I I really enjoy her some not all of her movies, but I really enjoy like some of her humor. I think she can be really funny. But I think sometimes comedians have this label that they have to be a little bit more masculine to be funny.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Except, you know, Lucille Ball is the queen of comedians, and she never was. No, and I have a clip of her. Let's play her.

SPEAKER_12 27:46

I have a clip of her voice.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

Honey, remember what you said to me the first time you met me?

SPEAKER_05 27:53

I sure do. I said you were a cute little chicken.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Well, I got something to tell you about this cute little chicken. She has crows' feet.

SPEAKER_12 28:04

She she always kept her voice pretty I know when she got older, she kind of smoker voice.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

She could she couldn't help it, yeah, it became husky, but it wasn't because uh just because she smoked so much. But uh her voice before then was always feminine.

SPEAKER_12 28:20

The only thing that she did do in the this is what she did a lot, I think, when she did the I Love Lucy series, is that she she got a little silly and very loud and like high pitched with her voice. We did demonstrate a child-ish type of humor, which was kind of annoying, and that's another thing I wanted to bring up with you. Uh, I think men find specific voices annoying.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Take a link of my sucker. Come on, take a big link, come on.

unknown 28:51

That's enough.

SPEAKER_12 28:52

Women do too. Women find it annoying in each other too, but when we're talking about relationships, why is that important to focus on as a woman? Like, oh, do I have an do I sound annoying right now? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

And people might think, well, I I have to be me. I have to, you know, I I yeah, I should be accepted for how I am. But the problem is that much of a problem, the issue is that you or me, we're kind of a fluid concept. The whole purpose of fasting womanhood is to make yourself to improve yourself, and to do that means you, you know, you you're gonna do something better than you did before. You want to be the best you can be. No one wants to be exactly how they were born, they wouldn't even know how to tie their shoes or do anything. We have to, we're in a constant state of learning.

SPEAKER_12 29:41

Well, and if you are in a position where you find yourself maybe potentially you catch yourself being annoying, like like you just maybe you get into a topic that you're passionate about, like you were talking earlier about um, I think it was Rosie O'Donnell, she sounded passionate. You can still work on this. And maybe your tone is really good 90% of the time, but then 10% of the time you catch yourself slipping.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Well, sometimes if you're passionate about some something and you push too hard, you annoy people because they're not you're pushing them and and they don't want to be pushed, and so there's a sensitivity to when to back off.

SPEAKER_12 30:22

Well, let's play the most annoying voice that we've ever heard in our lives. At least you and me anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:30

Sylvester! Sylvester? Of course it's me. I'm trying to get to all the morning. Sylvester, will you listen? Something's happened. There was an accident this morning. A man got killed.

SPEAKER_12 30:42

She is got to me one of the most obnoxious voices, and I know that the the actress that plays her does not have that actual voice. She's just putting it on for that movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

But she's intolerable in the film, and she did a good job.

SPEAKER_12 30:59

Um, and I think she's trying to portray the quintessential, annoying mother-in-law, and boy, did she do a good job.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

We really did.

SPEAKER_12 31:07

Playing that part because she's pushy, loud, aggressive. All of the things that you you think of when you're it's not the ideal tone that you want to have.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Oh, she's so and very quickly in the film, nobody can stand her.

SPEAKER_12 31:24

Nobody can stand her. Yeah, and she did a good job portraying that. That's true. Those really are the things you check off when you're thinking about tone. And actually, her speech was kind of we the the the thing we were talking about earlier with Amy Schumer, the sarcasm, that's all throughout that film, too, when you're hearing her voice. She's just being so sarcastic.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

With with Ethel Marman in that film, which was Mad Mad World, she's also very demanding.

unknown 31:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

It's gotta be her way. Do this. Bossy. Very bossy. Oh, yeah. Bossy. It's a quintessential bossy. Yeah. And nobody can hardly stand her, but everyone is a little bit afraid of her.

SPEAKER_12 32:06

Well, that's the sad part about all of this, is that you might be someone who does not realize that you sound like that. I feel bad for the women that that um maybe don't realize that they're they sound this way, and maybe in life they they maybe haven't gotten that promotion or found that husband or whatever it is. They haven't reached some of the things in life, and maybe their tone is a piece of it. Yeah, it could be it. Or maybe your marriage has been suffering, and tone is just a slice of it. Here's another one.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Don't do that. Okay, it's less than a dishonorable situation, but it happens. We've all been there.

SPEAKER_12 32:46

Do you know who that is? No, who's that? Let me play another clip of her.

SPEAKER_14 32:50

I think some of the best acting of the evening is when they lose. I do because you really want to win. I mean, you say yes, I'm it is an honor to be nominated, my God. But at the same time, you're sitting there, you know, and and and the countdown is happening into your category, and suddenly they say your name and you're winning and winning, and then you lose, and you have to go like this.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Who is that? Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 33:21

She does, yeah. But in a lot of her roles, she plays someone very seductive and very dirty. Like she's known for being dirty. Now she's obviously not being dirty in that clip because I didn't want to play anything that might get us in trouble, but she's known for using lots of language. I thought it was very feminine.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

It it was, yeah, you know, the language doesn't really help your tone that well, but it the t her tone of voice uh voice is is I thought was quite feminine.

SPEAKER_12 33:53

Yeah. When when you combine that with the raunchy stuff, which again I can't really play that, but when you combine that, what do you think about that? Like the women that really have the feminine tone, but they combine it with the language. It diminishes them.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

It really does. It's not it's not I don't care whether people say it, you say, or everybody says it, it does it diminishes femininity, it just does. It's and we don't need it. My dad, he didn't say this about bad language, but he said it about crude language. He's the example from the film My Fair Lady, which was a book before that, uh where a a girl who's just a a street girl selling flowers, she gets taken in and taught how to be a lady, and a lot of it was her tone and voice. They would say on there that the difference between her as a just a flower girl and her as like a duchess is a lot the way she spoke. And did the whole film based on it.

SPEAKER_12 34:51

In our video that we did about this topic on YouTube, we talked a lot about my fair lady. And if you want to see more of that and hear more of that conversation, you should definitely watch the feminine speech and tone video that we did on YouTube. Yeah. Um, because we did talk about that. Now I have one more that I want to play. It's just a different style of voice.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

For a black American princess. And it's a big, broad, farcical comedy about these two young ladies who have a big dream and they want to go to Hollywood and become stars.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

What do you think about that voice? I think the voice is uh pretty good.

SPEAKER_12 35:29

I I was trying to find someone that didn't sound quite as low or high, but someone that kind of I hate to say it, but kind of sounded like a little bit of an airhead.

unknown 35:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 35:43

That was Halle Berry, who I do not necessarily see her as an airhead, but I felt like in that clip she kind of didn't sound like the most intelligent person. Was that a f put in a film or was she just talking about an interview that she was doing? Oh, maybe. Yeah. I feel like when you can grab interviews, you get a little bit more of their natural speaking. I mean, what do you think about the airhead angle of all of this?

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Well, if they're acting like an airhead, that's that isn't to their benefit. Because uh who wants to marry what man wants to marry an airhead, really? I mean, especially if he's a serious guy, he wants to have a companion. He might want to have a mistress who's an airhead. But it air the airhead thing, if some people really are hairheads and they can't help it. In which case that's just how they are.

SPEAKER_12 36:34

There's a lot of um people on social media that sound like airheads, and I'm not gonna name their names because I think that would be really poor taste, but I see a lot of really big impact influencers out there that sound really I don't know whether whether they're putting on that they are dumb or whether they actually c just kind of are dumb.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Well, or whether they think that that's gonna get them somewhere.

SPEAKER_12 37:01

Yeah, I can't I can't out, but I think like when it comes to how you sound and you sounding like an airhead, to me that might be coming from a place of not as much confidence.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

Could be, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 37:13

And I think if you just play back your voice, you can hear it. Hopefully you can hear it. And some of that has to do with you just being yourself, and I know that's hard because some of us are like, Well, when I'm myself, I don't sound good.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Well, one of the problems, a lot of us are real hard on ourselves, and so we we if we play back our voice, we don't like the sound of our voice, but it isn't really what we're talking about with tone.

SPEAKER_12 37:38

It's about doing the best with what you've got.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_12 37:42

Okay, so now that we've played a lot of examples of different types of tone and how they can kind of change the way you hear things and see people, we wanted to give you three easy everyday tips for improving your tone in speech. So the first one is practice listening to your voice.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

Yeah, we don't have to do that because we're forced to listen to our own voices. Some people don't ever hear their own voice played back, but we do all the time.

SPEAKER_12 38:12

What are some practical ways that that people can listen to their voice?

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Well, you can record your voice and you know, and ask it, it's just think to yourself, how do I sound? And and not from the critical point of view. Oh, do I really sound like like like you wish your voice was just different? Do you sound aggressive, sarcastic, pushy, and those kind of things?

SPEAKER_12 38:35

Something that I used to do uh when I was younger, would I I would leave well back when we had voic actual voicemail machines back in the old days. Yeah, we back in the old days. I record it like a hundred times because I didn't like the way it sounded, and now we still have voicemails obviously on our phones, but that would be a really great way to start is to listen to your voicemail message, and if you don't have one, record one and just listen to it and create that kind of style and stick with it that you want to have. Don't change your voice, just shift it a little bit. Exactly. And I think one thing like to take, go back to the clips that we played, who was it, Grace Kelly and Lily James. When I was playing those, I think I had mentioned that they were smiling. Yes. They were saying, smile when you are uh recording your voice, and just just pay attention to how that changes it and how it sounds.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

I I agree. When you're smiling, genuinely smiling, you your voice, your tone of voice will reflect it.

SPEAKER_12 39:42

And it doesn't have to be a big teeth smile, even just a little smile will really transform how your tone sounds. Yeah. What are some other ways you can practice listening to your voice?

SPEAKER_03 39:54

If there's videos of yourself and you're talking, and you can see it as well as hear it.

SPEAKER_12 39:59

You have a uh take a yeah, like a home video of you, whoever, like just listen to it and and observe it and see how it sounds. Okay, the second one is practicing on strangers.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Which most of us have a chance to do all the time because we always have to go out and talk to people.

SPEAKER_12 40:17

Well, one really great thing about practicing on strangers is if you mess up, you probably won't see them again.

unknown 40:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

Not a big deal. Yeah, practice uh when you uh well, a lot of us go to checkout counters or uh we have service people come to our house and fix something and uh or when we just first meet somebody for the first time.

SPEAKER_12 40:41

Yeah, if you listen to your voice and you're like, okay, I I kind of want to practice smiling more. Let's just say it's that one thing. I just want to smile more. So I would just take it in bite-sized pieces and say, Okay, I'm gonna work on smiling for like a year. Because it can take a time a long time to change your tone for good and it be natural, and say, Okay, next time I go to the grocery store and I'm in the checkout line, I'm going to smile a little bit more as I'm talking and see how I feel. Just how do I feel when I'm doing that? Maybe it's too much, maybe I went too far, maybe I didn't do enough. And I wouldn't say you would go as far as to record yourself because that could be kind of nuts, but just into how you feel because ultimately, if you feel good about it, you probably are on the right track.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yeah, another thing is you're not trying to change your voice so much that your family says, What happened? She doesn't sound like you.

SPEAKER_12 41:33

It's like when Madonna suddenly had a British accent and everybody. Oh, yeah. What happened? What is this? British accent. That's not what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

No, don't develop a British or French accent just for this.

SPEAKER_12 41:44

Or maybe you want to work on how fast you speak. That can be a really tough one to break. Or loud. Oh, you're real yeah, so you're really loud, or you have a tendency to get loud in certain. I know someone who gets loud when she starts to drink a little bit. Oh. And she just starts to be real loud. Like, maybe that's something that you're like, oh yeah, like some people kind of tell me that I can get a little loud when I've been at a party or whatever. Like, then you can practice that and say, you know, I'm gonna be aware of how loud I sound today. And you like I said, it takes a long time to break some of these habits, especially when you've been doing them all of your life.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Well, you know, I know I knew a woman once who had a naturally really loud voice, and she just she would talk about she says, I just am always been loud when she's was in our house just talking, because he had her all over the house, and she wasn't excited about anything. That's just she was loud, and I thought, wow, she should be an opera singer, because they really have to project, but she was really trying to curb the the volume of her voice down.

SPEAKER_12 42:51

Well, the hard thing about that to me is that if you are naturally loud, you are already fighting against some really difficult things. So if you're in public, everyone can hear everything you're saying. And that can make people uncomfortable, especially if they're with you.

SPEAKER_03 43:07

Yeah, and it also um probably automatically makes your laugh very loud too.

SPEAKER_12 43:13

Probably. And then everyone is looking and everyone is it's just a different type of challenge that you might be facing, and you can still work on it. That's a thing. You can still be aware of it, it just takes time. Yeah. But another problem with being loud is that if you for any reason are angry about something, it's going to sound so much more aggressive than your average person that doesn't have that loud voice and is angry about something. You're just gonna sound it's gonna be make you less approachable.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Yeah, when you're when you're in a story, you don't want everyone to turn and look at you every time you speak because you're because you're loud.

SPEAKER_12 43:53

Yeah, or like I don't know who this person is you're talking about, like, but what did her husband think of her of her voice?

SPEAKER_03 43:58

You know, he never commented on But she would say, I have a really loud voice. He said, Yeah, you do. I mean, he didn't criticize her, but she she was she did have a naturally very loud voice, and she said she she practically can't whisper. She's just so she's just so used to it. But she she did recognize that she needed to work on it. She says, I'm in a restaurant, everybody can hear what I say.

SPEAKER_12 44:22

Well, I do have to say that that when you whether your voice is naturally loud or whether you're making it loud, you can really intimidate people and not in a good way. Yeah. And uh the perfect example that I can think of off the top of my head with that are teachers. Oh yeah. There's some really wonderful, wonderful teachers out there, but boy, does their tone ruin it. Ruin everything. They may be so well educated and have such a wonderful approach about teaching, but then when they become upset and therefore their their tone changes and they become loud, the kids are suddenly not listening anymore, and they're they're fearful. And sometimes that fear is necessary if if you need discipline, but it's not good to overall generally be sending this message of fear all the time. No, especially especially to children. You don't want them to be afraid of you just because you speak. Well, my daughter's teacher last year was wonderfully feminine and wonderful tone, but she shared with me that there were times where boys were naughty in the classroom, and she said, My teacher yelled so much today, and she was scared of her. I was like, How could you possibly be scared of that woman? She's always so lovely. Well, no, she says, not when the then things get kind of heated up in the classroom. And that caused her to pull away from that teacher and not listen to her as much.

SPEAKER_10 45:48

Well, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_12 45:49

And I think that we can all kind of take a page from that book and be like, oh wow, you know, I am I am good at this, but sometimes when I get really fired up, I go too far.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Especially for kids that are sensitive.

SPEAKER_12 46:05

The little insensitive boy may not notice the teacher doing that, but well, and I I disagree that to be powerful and to be strict, you have to raise your voice like that. I just completely disagree with that. Because some of the best classrooms that I've seen with my children that have been run are the ones where the the teachers are incredibly calm and have an amazing ability to stay calm all at all times.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

You know, my my my mother had a brother, an uncle, he was a he was a physician and he he seemed really intimidating to me. But my mother said that he would get kid when kids would be kind of pushed back and be kind of rude, he would he was he was a tall guy, would lean down, get right close to him and whisper, you're not allowed to do that in here. And it would scare him. And he didn't he didn't raise his voice, he whispered.

SPEAKER_12 46:55

Yeah, the yelling culture is just gotten out of hand.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

So many kids hear it all day long, it it it ceases to have the effect that they hope that it will.

SPEAKER_12 47:06

Yes, it's just it's it's they're lying to you when they tell when anyone is telling you in your life that yelling is sometimes necessary. I mean, I guess uh uh unless you're in an emergency situation, of course it's it's necessary. But on a daily, everyday conversation basis, you do not need to yell. You don't need to yell at your kids, you don't need to yell about something you're excited about, you don't you don't really need it.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

It's more something that you deal with if you really exercised about something and you're very upset, but it's not something you you you say, yeah, this is preferable, or I like this, or I justify it in terms of in order for me to accomplish AB or something.

SPEAKER_12 47:45

Yeah, I needed to do it. Yeah, no, I I I just think you can challenge that a little bit. Okay, the third tip is replace your poor language or phrases with better ones. Now, this is more so about the speech part of this topic, which is sarcasm, profanities, those kind of undertones that are coming out with our tone.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

And I I must say it's so pervasive in film that it's it's affected our culture, and it's no matter how much it's said, no matter how much these words are used, it still diminishes us. It it's not our best self to do that.

SPEAKER_12 48:28

Well, I know that a lot of people consider the sarcasm topic and the profanity topic to be cool and easygoing, laid back, not taking yourself so seriously. All that category kind of comes in there with the bad language. But I just I really do want to say this is something that I constantly remind myself of is no one's gonna miss it if it's gone.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

That's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_12 48:56

I just I've talked to so and I've had so many friends and in all the years and all the jobs I've had that are like, you know, this is just who I am. This is me. I talk this way. And so maybe sometimes it is kind of funny, but I think on a general everyday basis, if someone were to say, you know, I'm gonna stop talking this way and then just see how it changes my life, you'd be surprised that you don't miss it.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

You know what's interesting, um Bob has worked in hospitals for years and he does never tell people that he doesn't tell dirty jokes or use bad language. He doesn't ever say anything to anyone, he doesn't ever correct anyone, but he gets known very quickly as somebody who doesn't use it. People notice that he doesn't use it, and they say, Oh, don't talk that way around Dr. Forsyth. He's never said don't do that. But people have just noticed and tell others don't show him that disrespect. And he thinks, how do they know I didn't? I mean, d why are they paying attention? But they just know.

SPEAKER_12 49:52

Well, there's a reason why the most respected people in this world they don't do that. There's a reason why we have that respect for them. I'm not saying that you need to aim for the respect of a world leader. I I mean, I think it's just about saying, How can I be better and better myself and make things around me more pleasant?

SPEAKER_03 50:15

Well, in fact, a lot of those world leaders might use it when they're not on the microphone. But it's interesting how they all know that that's not cool to do it.

SPEAKER_12 50:26

Well, yeah, you you get trouble. I mean, you get you can get fired as a as a CNN anchor if you use the wrong words on air. You can as a talk show host if you say sensitive. Well, why is that? Because the because the general public doesn't want to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

It's not considered professional.

SPEAKER_12 50:46

It's not, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, that's prof a professional comparison, but I I think it's okay to compare that to your everyday life because it it it it's it tugs on people's heartstrings.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

A lot of most of you probably haven't heard this because you're not as old as I am, but nobody ever used the really feltic language. You didn't hear it in movies or anything. And then I remember after Nixon and the Watergate thing came out, they had these tapes that were recorded that were kind of they weren't so much secret as much as they always record apparently they record a lot of business meetings that the president has in his cabin uh for probably many reasons. They played some of them back and his bad language was a shock. I didn't you know, it didn't sound like the Richard Nixon we saw on the air, but he when he's sitting in his office, he was filt and foul, and I I lost so much respect for him, I just thought that's how he talks. I didn't think, oh, he's cool. It it just it seems so ordinary to me, not like presidential.

SPEAKER_12 51:52

Well, you have no idea who's in the room or who's listening to you that might be offended. That's the problem. Is that if you are in the habit of doing this all the time, let's say you're on your friends and they love it and they do the same thing, well then guess what? That's your habit, and now you're gonna do it everywhere. And you might be offending someone in a new setting and you have no idea, and maybe you're just thinking to yourself, well, who cares? That's their problem. But I think if you want to develop yourself and your femininity and you want to be happier and have more friends and better relationships, you're gonna say to yourself, I do want to work on this, and I don't want to be the person that's always spilling out the sarcasm and the bad language.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

My dad used to say it's a sign of uh you should be able to express yourself in other words besides filthy words. Absolutely. Yeah, he said he said it's a sign of an educated person, you don't want to seem too uneducated. So um you should be able to express your feelings without being dirty. Exactly.

SPEAKER_12 52:54

It is mental discipline to able to communicate in a clean way. So, but how do you get rid of it? This tip is about replacing something, a bad habit with a good one. So, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Replace it with a different word. And for one thing, if you're used to having an expletive, have something that's um better, different. My my father-in-law used to say, Oh, horse feathers, and that worked for him. And I thought it was cute. I remember it because it was cute.

SPEAKER_12 53:22

And uh, I like the replacement of funny words that maybe they're just not funny to you, but they're or maybe they're not funny to everyone around you, but they're funny to you.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

Oh, one of one of one of my daughters, your sister says always says, Oh blast. She she says that a lot. And um, there's many words so you can make up a word to say instead. I'll know someone that says, Oh, cheese and rice.

SPEAKER_12 53:46

I haven't heard that one. Cheese and rice. Just it's just clearly something that they've used to replace. I think it's because they're around children and stuff, but it's clearly something they've used to replace something that they used to say. It kind of rhymes a little bit with something that sounds bad. So they just replace it at some point in time and it sticks. You can just pick whatever it is that stays with you, that works for you. But as far as sarcasm, I don't think you can really replace sarcasm. I think you just have to shift your mindset when it comes to sarcasm.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Like when like if someone says, Oh, nice. That's just the word. Nice. I mean, you immediately know it's sarcasm. It's just the same word you might say if you just say nice. They say, Oh, great.

SPEAKER_12 54:39

Well, what are we waiting for? Let's laugh. Well, we laugh at sarcasm. I actually do think sarcasm can be funny, but I don't enjoy it in my everyday conversation, like all the time. It it gets to be to a point where sometimes you're like, all right, like I'm kind of getting tired of this. Or am I do they have bad feelings about me? Are they angry?

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Well, you might be um you and somebody else might share a feeling about something and you say, Oh, brother, and they agree. You're not doing it at them. You're it's you're doing it together.

SPEAKER_12 55:13

Right. Yeah. Well, I just think generally speaking, when you replace a bad habit with a good one, you're usually going to make some changes. It's the same thing when you're dieting, you don't reach for the donut, you reach for the apple. You know, it's that same mindset shit.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

Yeah, you don't just say um like you're dieting, you don't just say no sugar. Yeah, nothing, you get nothing for the rest of the day. You will you give it you give yourself something so that you can succeed, but something helps. You can do that, but it won't last. That's the problem. Yeah, you can do it for a while.

SPEAKER_12 55:46

Somebody listening that's used to swearing all the time, or you're used to being super sarcastic all the time, and then you're like, Well, I'm not gonna do it at all ever again anymore. And I'm just gonna cold turkey. You have to replace it. You're setting yourself up for failure, it's not gonna work. You have to replace it with something, and only you know what that is.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

Well, you can try a couple things and see which one you like better.

SPEAKER_12 56:09

Well, those are our tips for feminine speech and tone. Thank you, mom, for all of your advice and help today talking about this topic. If you have any future topics you'd like us to cover, please send us some fan mail. We'd love to hear from you. If you haven't read Dixie's book, Fascinating Womanhood for the Timeless Woman, be sure to check out fascinatingwomanhood.com. You can find our entire book library on there as well as a place to book a coaching session with either Dixie, myself, or any of our other coaches on there to learn more about fascinating womanhood and developing femininity. We have our entire YouTube library on our website that you can gain access to, as well as our other social media forums. You can also find Dixie's masterclass membership on our website, which is really really wonderful if you're wanting to take some of her lessons on femininity. And we will see you next time. See you next time. Stay feminine. Bye.