Men Talk, Women SING?

Why Men [Can’t] Listen to Women?” (FINALLY — I HIT THIS SUBJECT!)

Yes, the quotations and question mark are my interpretation. The article says, in short:

  1. Men hear women’s voices as music, not words (at least at first)
  2. Women’s voices are more complex than men’s voices
  3. Men’s voices don’t use as much of the brain to understand as women’s voices

Almost sounds like sexual selection has developed in women.


In most species, it’s the male that develops sexual characteristics. Whether it’s the tail feathers on Pheasants or Manes on Lions or Croaking in Frogs, it’s usually the male that expends the energy to attract a mate. Usually it’s the female of the species that decides what’s attractive, and the male works like crazy to fit in with that definition of beauty.


Not so with humans. While one can see the pendulum swinging with the terms “Metrosexual” and “Ubersexual,” much of what is beautiful is still defined by men towards women, and it appears that it has taken on a genetic tinge. The female voice may have taken on a multitonality with which to catch the male, or some alpha male may have found himself entranced by some odd talk he heard, and followed his instincts.

It may also be that women’s voices tend to be higher, which allows them to be heard above the background. And our ears are made to catch higher sounds a little better than lower sounds, which tend to blend into the background. Also, higher sounds can separate themselves better than lower sounds, which tend to meld into a similar-sounding sludge.

Whatever happened, women’s voices today seem more and more linked to music than speaking. And men get accused of not listneing, when on occasion their minds are running overtime to figure out what’s being said while fighting the tendency to interpret the sounds as music.

Like I said: Humans are strange. Only we would let the men choose what’s beautiful.

(more later)


Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s