I was reading this post about Sen Britt’s response to the SOTU… and I thought my response might better make a diary than a comment.
I never thought about it before, but I have heard the fundie baby voice, but didn’t know it had a name, or that it meant something particular. It’s familiar and yet deeply irritating.
And...
I have a “cute” voice. My voice is such that on the phone, I have been asked if the caller can talk “to my mommy.” That tends to piss me off, my voice drops two octaves and I answer, “I am the mommy.” Although, if it’s a bill collector, sometimes I pretend that I am as old as I sound and tell them my mommy can’t come to the phone and I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.
I attended a fundie school for a few years as a child, and I have plenty of prior trauma, but I doubt that is what makes me sound the way I do on the phone. It’s pretty surely an instinctually protective thing… against people who would attack or bully me for having a large, deep voice, for laughing too loud, for being too strong, too funny, too expansive, having too big a personality, telling stories, for being good at math, science, and engineering, for being competent and good at what I do—for being female and not being small.
The Fundie baby voice is self-preservation against patriarchy. It is a voice that says, “I’m weak and unthreatening, please… don’t hurt me.”