If you’re a woman who uses your voice professionally, you’re more likely to see a doctor about your strained vocal cords than a man who does the same work. What’s odd about this is that the female vocal instrument isn’t inherently more fragile than a man’s. We might even have some mechanical advantages—finer control, for example, over our respiratory muscles, faster responses in nerve pathways between the brain and mouth and throat. The problem is probably that women unconsciously train our voices to mimic men’s, especially in the public, political, and business spheres.
