Fundie Baby Voice of Kate Britt

[gustava]

Interesting perspective

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/10/2228575/-Ever-hear-of-Fundie-Baby-Voice-If-you-haven-t-you-missed-what-was-going-on-It-gets-worse?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

[Howl]

Oh, heck yeah!  Many women who had grown up with the Michelle Duggar voice chimed in.  It's also a Mormon thing apparently - Relief Society Voice. 

[Howl]

From Tia Levings, Writer on Instagram this morning: 

So much of my work educating on the abuses in Christian fundamentalism is offering correct language to experiences we have in our bodies. Katie Britt’s speech is a great example—-everyone knows something is “off” and their BS meter is raging, but they don’t know why she sounds that way. Calling it “fundie baby voice” is helpful to a point, but it doesn’t really explain why grown women use it or where it came from.

If you listen to survivors of vocal training and suppression, you’ll hear them use several names—childlike, gentle spirit, primary voice, keep sweet. And it very difficult to overcome. It took me years of therapy, including vocal retraining, to discover my own voice and sound like “myself.”

It’s important to clock that Britt used her breathy “fundie baby voice” while lying. This did not surprise me. Honesty is not required when using the voice to manipulate—anything that works is on the table, in the kitchen or otherwise. Chillingly, Britt can code switch, probably because she spends time around other adult women with jobs. Ordinary housewives worrying in their kitchen aren’t so lucky.

[Jasmar]

Tia is awesome. I’ve followed her since Shiny Happy People. Thanks for sharing!

[nokidsmom]

I explained "fundie baby voice" to Mr. No after he heard Britt's speech.  He was shocked that a grown woman talk like that.   

 

[hoipolloi]

I am so glad that this stuff is getting so much exposure:

 

[Antipatriarch]

Jess Piper notes that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson's wife Kelly uses it too.

https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-fundie-baby-voice

[Caroline]

I know two women in their 60's who speak that way. They both taught Kindergarten for decades. They are not Fundie, and one isn't even religious. It drives me crazy because they can't turn the voice off.

[Mrs Ms]

26 minutes ago, Caroline said:

I know two women in their 60's who speak that way. They both taught Kindergarten for decades. They are not Fundie, and one isn't even religious. It drives me crazy because they can't turn the voice off.

That’s what I thought Michelle Duggar was doing for a long time. Baby talking to toddlers for so many years that it was a habit. Then I started seeing occasional videos of other fundie females who weren’t parents and realised THAT was the common denominator.

[marmalade]

55 minutes ago, Mrs Ms said:

That’s what I thought Michelle Duggar was doing for a long time. Baby talking to toddlers for so many years that it was a habit. Then I started seeing occasional videos of other fundie females who weren’t parents and realised THAT was the common denominator.

Yup. Meech speaks in FBV during speeches to like minded fundies. It's really annoying. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

8 hours ago, Caroline said:

I know two women in their 60's who speak that way. They both taught Kindergarten for decades. They are not Fundie, and one isn't even religious. It drives me crazy because they can't turn the voice off.

My mom is in her 80s and taught kindergarten for about 20 years. She has a kind of slightly different, patient voice for talking to young children, but never a baby voice, never a really high pitch, and never the breathy thing.

I sometimes find myself using a little higher pitch when I want to project my voice, like in a noisy store. I'm going to be second guessing myself about that now.

[FiveAcres]

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

My mom is in her 80s and taught kindergarten for about 20 years. She has a kind of slightly different, patient voice for talking to young children, but never a baby voice, never a really high pitch, and never the breathy thing.

I sometimes find myself using a little higher pitch when I want to project my voice, like in a noisy store. I'm going to be second guessing myself about that now.

I have a hard time finding my inside voice sometimes due to knowing a lot of people with hearing loss, but I don't think I pitch it higher. 

My agility instructor has a special, high pitched voice that she uses for dogs who seem to love it. I hate it. Fortunately, she only uses when talking to dogs. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

I've not really ever though about Fundy Baby Voice, but I've heard it a lot from fundie women I know/ have encountered.

Full disclosure:

I have a southern accent. My voice is is somewhat higher pitched (not a lot but some), slightly softer but not breathy or whisper-y.  I'm not Fundie in the least.

This is my voice my entire life. No one taught or influenced me to speak this way. It's just my voice. I've been told I sound younger than I am, especially on the phone, but not like a child.

I checked with Mr. Dress about whether I have Fundy Baby Voice (showing him examples) and he said no.  I'm positive he wouldn't lie to me.

I suppose I could retrain my voice to speak differently, but this is my voice. It hasn't been a problem in my career.

The only time anyone ever commented on it was a Prof I had in freshman English who relentlessly made fun of my southern accent. He said it made me sound stupid and ignorant and ridiculous  -- and asked me to read aloud in every class so he could then make fun of my accent.  He did this to every person in the class with a southern accent. One guy told him to eff off and dropped the class.

The ironic kicker:  The Prof had a very very heavy Joisey accent.

Edited March 15 by Red Hair, Black Dress

[Hane]

@Red Hair, Black Dress, that’s deplorable. I’ve always said that an accent is part of your core identity, and it would be a sad thing to get rid of it. You’d think an English professor would have the brains to realize that a great deal of the finest American literature came from the South. (And I say this as someone who’s happy when people recognize the vestiges of my New York accent, even though I left the state as a small child.)

[Expectopatronus]

I’ve been guilty of altering my voice to make it higher, softer and more submissive. Three years ago I worked at a job with ridiculous amounts of bullying and a colleague who was out to get me. They very clearly told me that they only wanted to work with their friend who was on Mat leave and that they didn’t like me. They called in two other employees to start a hate campaign against me and told me and my manager that I was causing them to hate work which they loved before me. They claimed that they couldn’t be in the same room as me because my voice was passive aggressive. My manager made me apologize for my voice and I was ordered to alter it. So I did. Then the colleague complained that my sitting position triggered their trauma history and I made the work place unsafe. By this point, I was agreeing with everything they said, eating lunch by myself because they didn’t want me in the lunchroom and pitching my voice way up. They had told me that they had massive trauma because of the number of people they had had to report to management for not being “safe”. They also stated that they could do whatever they wanted as they were trans, Indigenous, had multiple mental health diagnoses and a history of addictions therefore, it was impossible for them to be seen as a bully because the oppressed cannot oppress a cisgender, White woman. Baby voice triggers me as it takes me back to that experience. 

[Marmion]

I had never noticed this before now .  But since you mentioned it ,  I have found a couple articles and a video that delves into this phenom .  https://thedirect.com/article/fundie-baby-voice-explained  

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fundie-baby-voice_l_65eb6b2fe4b05ec1ccd9e9b9  

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQIKT0tcXZo

 

I don't think that all Christian right women sound like that though .  In churches that are Christian egalitarian , albeit still social conservative evangelical , such as for example the Church of the Nazarene , women tend to be as loud and pronounced in their voices as any of the men .  As someone who tends to be hypersensitive to sound , this can be at times jarring , given the abrupt booming nature of it . However , I would never expect that any woman be made to be and sound subdued , especially while the male counterparts are such bombastic blowhards , who possess the style of speech observed in everyone from holy roller preachers to Adolf Hitler , according to William L. Shirer , I believe in his book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" .  Maybe this inverse counterpart should be called the demagogic dictator voice .   @Red Hair, Black Dress , I feel that to pressure those with a genuine natural Southern accent to adopt another manner of speaking would be an overbearing imposition .  Now if one were of their own initial volition decide to modify ones speech patterns , as I have decided to do , that is a different matter . But no one should feel compelled to sound like anyone else , due to external pressure .  I just felt the personal need to find a way to better enunciate syllables , and not have such a dull monotone , so as not to sound so robotic . Also , as someone from a Pennsylvania German background , I had had a hard time pronouncing certain words , especially those with the "th" sound , so I spent numerous years in speech therapy . 

[gustava]

Another article on FBV....written by a woman who overcame it

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/16/2229849/-Once-upon-a-time-I-spoke-in-Fundie-Baby-Voice-now-I-roar?pm_campaign=trending&pm_source=sidebar&pm_medium=web

[thoughtful]

Interview with Jess Piper:

Spoiler

 

 

[Marmion]

On 3/17/2024 at 9:29 AM, gustava said:

Another article on FBV....written by a woman who overcame it

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/16/2229849/-Once-upon-a-time-I-spoke-in-Fundie-Baby-Voice-now-I-roar?pm_campaign=trending&pm_source=sidebar&pm_medium=web

 

From the article  

Quote

In the South, some call it “nice, nasty” or the “bless your heart” syndrome, a penchant for couching insults in edible saccharine gift wrap. The insidious nature of this kind of passive-aggressive tactic leaves those attacked without recourse, often because the target knows what they meant, but the casual observer may not.

If you decide, for instance, to retaliate more straightforwardly, you’ll look like the aggressor. People often respond negatively to such a reaction, which victimizes the target twice—the initial attacker has won!

 

I had never realized before just quite how passive aggressive , and manipulative , this rhetorical device could become .  I had simply believed that it was their way of giving blessing , however condescending , rather than cursing their adversaries , given the Christian character of the underlying cultural hegemony of the Bible belt , where cussing people out is not allowed , and so instead people just veil their true feelings under a saccharine veneer of sanctimonious pity .  Similar to saying "I'll pray for you. "  But now I see that it can give cover to a disingenuous duplicity .   These videos I have seen make it seem innocuous , and even humorous . Yet I can also understand how it could be used in a way that's malicious .  

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler