The title of this book comes from a discussion I was having with my business partner who happens to be a woman and my twin. We were having the discussion after having a meeting with an ATT salesman. The three of us sat around a table to discuss new phones, tethering and alike. Victoria and I are both very observant i.e. what are they saying and who are they saying to.
This particular salesman looked and conversed with me as though Victoria wasn’t there. She is just as qualified to talk tech as I am, but he never found that out. She has as much purchasing power as I do, so why did he direct his sale at me and not the both of us?
There had to be a reason, no salesman would kill his chance at a sale by purposely ignoring 1/3 of the buyers sitting at the table because he was sexist. He wouldn’t keep his job long now would he?
We both came to the conclusion that there had to be more to this behavior than met the eye. This “behavior” had to be investigated for a very important reason. Victoria takes care of sales and I am the technical end of our business. There was a Testicle Tree obstructing our path and we had to figure out how to cut it down.
There are some men that think they are superior to women, but they are the same ones who believe they are superior to those of other races and educational attainments. Everyone knows that they are asses and/or business impotent. The vast majority of businessmen do not realize “why” they respect a man’s judgment more than a woman’s; they only know that they do. It is delegated to the back of their minds so denial can be achieved.
It is biological
Without much research we find that size matters even amongst men. The taller you are the high you will rise in an organization and the more success you will attain. This is a fact that short and average height men must deal with. The primal parts of our brain still look to the largest of our species as better providers and by their stature… leaders. Women don’t have a chance when size matters and it does. It isn’t rational, but a fact none the less.
A new study is underway on pay differential related to the octave of your voice. The baritone’s pay is higher than the tenor and the tenor’s pay was higher than the mezzo-soprano. The amazing part of the study is that when a woman spoke in Contralto (one pitch below mezzo-soprano) their pay increased significantly. Your question is of course why?
Studies of a hunter-gatherer people – the last of its kind in East Africa showed that the higher the women’s voice, the more attractive they were to men. Deeper women’s voices were, in contrast, assessed not emotionally but functionally and isn’t functional what you look for in a business environment?
An illustration of this is Margaret Thatcher. When she first was elected to the House of Commons, her voice was high pitched and spoke quickly. When you watch a tape of her as she was about to become the Prime Minister, her voice was much lower and she spoke much slower. She was assessed not emotionally, but functionally. Another example is Hillary Clinton. Her voice is much higher as the President’s wife than it was when she campaigned for President.
Another illustration is that many a father will lower his voice into almost a growl when scolding his children. The volume isn’t as important as the resonance. Every one of us has our own personality, so does our voice. Each voice mirrors an individual’s character and by attempting to change it can affect how you look at yourself. So for those people who are not so blessed with deep voice and are asking “how can I make my voice deeper?” Here are some helpful tips for you to consider.
Take away stress. Keep away from anything that will cause stress in your daily life. You must learn some relaxation exercises and deep breathing techniques, especially if you can’t avoid being stressed. When you are relaxed your vocal chords produce deeper reverberations inside your chest and a deeper sound of your voice. When you are relaxed you also produce an air of expertise in your conversation.
Before going to bed every night apply a liberal coat of mentholated chest rub across your upper body, sounds odd? You’re probably asking yourself, “Will this make my voice deeper?” Definitely yes, it is done to relax your throat muscles, and for you to breathe easier, this will result in a deeper tone of your voice in the morning. (You might want to wash it off in the morning)
Have a voice exercise. It doesn't just come out of nowhere. Practice singing in the deepest pitch you can manage. You must spend time by yourself and play around with your voice, and see what you can do with it. It is also important to train yourself to speak more slowly while holding your head up and projecting your voice from your chest, in order to allow your voice to travel further with little effort on your part. Aside from that, speaking from the back of your throat is also important.
So for people out there who are asking “is there a way to make my voice deeper?” The answer is definitely positive. It is possible to change your voice; all you need is time patience and perseverance in order to reach your goal.
Women are nurturing by nature. While women have thoughts of family while in the shower, men have thoughts of business responsibilities. Men have the ability to work more hours at their chosen profession than women because women are delegated to make children a higher priority than work. Functionality at the business dictates that those who work longer hours and do not have to leave for secondary priorities like sick children are more valuable and therefore more promotable.
Another reason is God’s Disciples
Women are taught from a very early age that God believes them to be second class citizens, if you are to follow the major male dominated monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These religions have had a profound effect on women's lives and stature. When your child walks into church, who is the leader?
Your daughter is subjected to “Men are in charge and women are helpers” by the model presented at a very important function. Oh wait…so is your son. You were led down this path, so why wouldn’t you lead your children down it.
We are taught that woman was supposedly created as an afterthought from Adam's rib. She creates the original sin. Her role is established in the scriptures as a temptress, whore, foot-washer and domestic servant; she is unclean during menstruation and untouchable until ritual cleansing after childbirth.
This is the indoctrination used on children under the supervised teachings of the church. With these childhood impressions is it any wonder that it spills over into adulthood and business?
Next
Strong women scare men. Men are highly motivated to be seen as strong and to lose to a woman carries a stigma that no man feels he can afford. He will resort to name calling and backstabbing a woman much faster than he would a man. The weakest man will use subterfuge to keep strong women below him off the ladder of success. To lose to a woman is to embarrass one’s self; so men instinctually push a woman’s buttons to get to talk fast and at a high pitch ultimately stealing her credibility. Don’t fall into this trap.
You need a voice coach.
Michael Jackson had a voice coach as do most professional singers. Upper level politicians have voice coaches; even Hitler had a voice coach by the name of Erik Jan Hanussen who taught Hitler how to use his voice and gestures to engage the populous. If great and successful people feel they need a voice coach, wouldn’t it be wise to believe that women might be lacking in the delivery of their message?
Can’t afford a voice coach?
Get a VSA (voice stress analyzer). In both principle and execution VSA is a simple technology. Researchers found that frequencies in the human voice in the 8 to 12 Hz range are sensitive to honesty. When a person is being honest the average sound in that range is generally below 10 Hz, but is usually above 10 Hz in dishonest situations.
All muscles in the body, including the vocal chords, vibrate in the 8 to 12 Hz range. This is considered a feedback loop, similar to a thermostat/heater that will maintain an average temperature by raising the temperature a little above the setting, switch off, and not come back on until the temp is a little below it. Just as the temperature swings up and down over time, so too do the muscles tighten and loosen as they seek to maintain a constant tension. This is known to be caused by the production and release of a chemical, (as explained in the Scientific American Article "Psychological Tremor" Vol. 224, No. 3, 1971).
In moments of stress, like when you tell a lie that you dare not get caught at, the body prepares for fight or flight by increasing the readiness of its muscles to spring into action. The vocal cord vibration increases from the relaxed 8 to 9 Hz, to the stressful 11 to 12 Hz range.
VSA is a simple program which takes digital audio files as input, and outputs new ones with a changing tone in the backgrounds indicating the changing stress levels. Higher tones mean higher stress. It has one control: a threshold setting which determines how high the voice stress frequency must be to trigger the background tone. This program helps you learn to control the stress in your voice.
Speak with an etiquette coach
I met this lady at a small business luncheon. We didn’t really have time to talk, but her area of expertise was in teaching business owners and executives how to be “business effective” through speech, etiquette, and appearance. Her name is ------- Her methods are spectacular. I of course thought that she would have clients lined up around the block, but she didn’t. How could this be?
No one wants to admit that they don’t know how to power dress, or find out they are doing something at lunch that isn’t conducive to attaining respect from others, but we all know we have room for improvement. Do it or struggle, it is up to you.
More
Men are data driven. Data is black and white and comfortable…..except to women. Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.
In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.
Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.
This research also gives insight to why different types of head injuries are more disastrous to one sex or the other. For example, in women 84 percent of gray matter regions and 86 percent of white matter regions involved in intellectual performance were located in the frontal lobes, whereas the percentages of these regions in a man's frontal lobes are 45 percent and zero, respectively. This matches up well with clinical data that shows frontal lobe damage in women to be much more destructive than the same type of damage in men.
Men and women are actually from the same planet, but scientists now have the first strong evidence that the emotional wiring of the sexes is fundamentally different.
An almond-shaped cluster of neurons that processes experiences such as fear and aggression hooks up to contrasting brain functions in men and women at rest, the new research shows.
For men, the cluster "talks with" brain regions that help them respond to sensors for what's going on outside the body, such as the visual cortex and an area that coordinates motor actions.
For women, the cluster communicates with brain regions that help them respond to sensors inside the body, such as the insular cortex and hypothalamus. These areas tune in to and regulate women's hormones, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and respiration.
"Throughout evolution, women have had to deal with a number of internal stressors, such as childbirth, that men haven't had to experience," said study co-author Larry Cahill of the University of California Irvine. "What is fascinating about this is the brain seems to have evolved to be in tune with those different stressors."
The finding, published in the recent issue of the journal NeuroImage, could help researchers learn more about sex-related differences in anxiety, autism, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Scientists still have to find out if one's sex also affects the wiring of other regions of the brain. It could be that while men and women have basically the same hardware, it's the software instructions and how they are put to use that makes the sexes seem different.
Don't blame your lame smile or lack of an intimidating frown on your upbringing, such behaviors may be hard-wired in your brain.
It isn’t all bad; in 2002; Norway enacted a law requiring that 40 percent of all board members at state-owned and publicly listed companies be women by 2008.
Since then, Spain and the Netherlands have passed similar laws. Now Belgium, Britain, Germany, France and Sweden are considering legislative measures involving female quotas. And although Germany is also debating such a law, Deutsche Telekom, which is based in Bonn, announced last that it would voluntarily introduce a quota aiming to fill 30 percent of upper and middle management jobs with women by the end of 2015.
American companies have almost twice as many women at higher levels of management than is true in Europe. That is fewer than ideal, but the trend is upward and the results achieved without quotas.
American women work in a broader array of jobs and are not as confined to a pink-collar ghetto as European women.
The percentage of American women in the work force is below only Scandinavian levels, American women earn a higher ratio of men’s wages than anywhere outside of Scandinavia, and the percentage of American women who are legislators, senior officials or managers is higher than anywhere in Europe. These figures are not meant as back-patting, but to raise the question: What is the problem quotas would address?
Likewise, many women forsake high-powered business careers in favor of the less tangible rewards of greater flexibility in work schedules; of more time invested in the raising of a family; and of wider opportunities for non-monetary personal development.
Even for many women who do devote their full attention to career issues, many fail adequately to understand how much of the corporate world works. Advancement in the business world frequently is based upon principles most men subconsciously learn as they grow up. It operates in ways emulating team sports and the military chain-of-command. Women who fail to understand the importance of office politics, going through the proper channels, and being able to make decisions quickly put themselves at an automatic disadvantage. Corporate life is a game which is not always fair: for men or women. Being able to take risks without making waves, being a team player who can operate independently when necessary and participating in after-hours activities may not set well with some women, but for the present, the reality of the situation needs to be acknowledged if it is ever to change.
In closing, I would like to say that you can’t fix a problem until you understand it. I could have told you Katie Couric was going to lose viewers when she went to the nightly news. No matter how good a journalist she is, her voice is too high for something so serious, or thought to be. Close your eyes and remember Walter Croncite’s voice, and the voice of Tom Brocaw, then think of Katie Couric’s voice. You now have the answer you have been looking for. Katie Couric’s voice makes men want to sleep with her, Lauren Bacall’s voice makes men want to listen.
Yes, I am a man and the primordial soup in my brain is working just fine.
P.S. When you play checkers do you say “King Me”?
Send your comments to galenbennett@gmail.com
Posts
