User:Viriditas/sandbox61: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

In the late 20th century, pre-recorded female voices were increasingly used for announcements by the military in aircraft, by transportation networks, for security purposes, and for commercial transactions like ATMs. In the 1970s, the [[McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle|F-15]] used a female voice in its warning system, leading pilots to refer to it as “Bitching Betty”. A similar female voice alarm was also used in the [[McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet|F/A-18]] in the 1990s.<ref name=”bell-2024″/>

In the late 20th century, pre-recorded female voices were increasingly used for announcements by the military in aircraft, by transportation networks, for security purposes, and for commercial transactions like ATMs. In the 1970s, the [[McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle|F-15]] used a female voice in its warning system, leading pilots to refer to it as “Bitching Betty”. A similar female voice alarm was also used in the [[McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet|F/A-18]] in the 1990s.<ref name=”bell-2024″/>

Pre-recorded train announcements using both male and female voices began to be used in the [[New Technology Train]] fleet of the [[New York City Subway]] in the year 2000, with male voices used to give orders and the female voices being used only to deliver informational messages to passengers. According to the [[Metropolitan Transportation Authority]] (MTA), this was an “accident”. The MTA defended their decision, asserting that “psychologists agree that people are more receptive to orders from men and information from women.”<ref name=”mta-voices”/>

[[New Technology Train]] fleet of the [[New York City Subway]] in the year 2000 male voices used to give orders the female voices used only to deliver informational messages to passengers. According to the [[Metropolitan Transportation Authority]] (MTA), this was an “accident”. The MTA defended their decision, asserting that “psychologists agree that people are more receptive to orders from men and information from women.”<ref name=”mta-voices”/>

==Text-to-speech (TTS)==

==Text-to-speech (TTS)==

In addition to the use of automated and recorded female voices, transportation systems began using [[text-to-speech]] (TTS) in the 2000s. [[Lucent Technologies]] designed a TTS system for [[Bay Area Rapid Transit]] (BART) as part of their Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). The system uses two voices, George and Gracie, to help provide information for riders who are hearing and visually-impaired.<ref name=”bart-2009″/>

==Voice assistants==

==Voice assistants==

==Research==

==Research==

Scholars [[Donna Haraway]], [[Judy Wajcman]], and [[Londa Schiebinger]], anticipated the concerns of [[technofeminism]], with more recent scholars including [[Lauren Klein]], and [[Catherine D’Ignazio]], and many others, in fields as diverse as [[gender studies]], [[science and technology studies]], and [[feminist HCI]] and [[gender HCI]].<ref name=”ovacik-2025″/>

Scholars [[Donna Haraway]], [[Judy Wajcman]], and [[Londa Schiebinger]], anticipated the concerns of [[technofeminism]], with more recent scholars including [[Lauren Klein]], and [[Catherine D’Ignazio]], and many others, in fields as diverse as [[gender studies]], [[science and technology studies]], and [[feminist HCI]] and [[gender HCI]].<ref name=”ovacik-2025″/>

[[Clifford Nass]] argued that preferences for gendered voices are reinforced in the womb and by culture.<ref name=”griggs-2011″/> Nass cites studies showing that fetuses respond with recognition to the sound of their mother’s voice, but not the sound of other female voices or their father. On the other hand, Nass found cultural preferences for male voices in Germany, where men objected to the use of a female voice in a [[navigation system]] tested in a [[BMW 5 Series]]. According to Nass at the time he consulted with BMW, “German male drivers…do not take directions from females.”<ref name=”nass-2005″/> Except for Germany, most voice assisted GPS [[automotive navigation system]]s use female voices.<ref name=”griggs-2011″/>

[[Clifford Nass]] argued that preferences for gendered voices are reinforced in the womb and by culture.<ref name=”griggs-2011″/> Nass cites studies showing that fetuses respond with recognition to the sound of their mother’s voice, but not the sound of other female voices or their father. On the other hand, Nass found cultural preferences for male voices in Germany, where men objected to the use of a female voice in a [[navigation system]] tested in a [[BMW 5 Series]]. According to Nass at the time he consulted with BMW, “German male drivers…do not take directions from females.”<ref name=”nass-2005″/> Except for Germany, most voice assisted GPS [[automotive navigation system]]s use female voices.<ref name=”griggs-2011″/>

<ref name=”mta-voices”>[https://www.nypress.com/news/the-voice-behind-the-closing-doors-would-like-to-clear-something-up-NXNP1020030318303189995 “The voice behind the closing doors would like to clear something up”]. ”[[New York Press]]”. February 17, 2015.

<ref name=”mta-voices”>[https://www.nypress.com/news/the-voice-behind-the-closing-doors-would-like-to-clear-something-up-NXNP1020030318303189995 “The voice behind the closing doors would like to clear something up”]. ”[[New York Press]]”. February 17, 2015.

*[http://www.whosevoice.com/home/2010/1/4/guided-by-subterranean-voices.html “Guided by Subterranean Voices”]. ”Whose Voice is That?”. January 4, 2010.</ref>

*[http://www.whosevoice.com/home/2010/1/4/guided-by-subterranean-voices.html “Guided by Subterranean Voices”]. ”Whose Voice is That?”. January 4, 2010.</ref>

<ref name=”bart-2009″/>[ https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2009/news20090309 “Meet George and Gracie, the (synthesized) voices of BART”]. [[Bay Area Rapid Transit]]. March 9, 2009. Retrieved February 1, 2026.</ref>

<ref name=”rakow-1988″>Rakow, Lana F. (1988). “Women and the Telephone: The Gendering of a Communications Technology”. In Kramarae, Cheris (ed.). ”Technology and Women’s Voices: Keeping in Touch”. Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 179-199. {{ISBN|9780710206794}}. {{OCLC|15855948}}.</ref>

<ref name=”rakow-1988″>Rakow, Lana F. (1988). “Women and the Telephone: The Gendering of a Communications Technology”. In Kramarae, Cheris (ed.). ”Technology and Women’s Voices: Keeping in Touch”. Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 179-199. {{ISBN|9780710206794}}. {{OCLC|15855948}}.</ref>

<ref name=”nixon-1998″>Nixon CW, Morris LJ, McCavitt AR, McKinley RL, Anderson TR, McDaniel MP, Yeager DG. (July 1998). “Female voice communications in high levels of aircraft cockpit noises–Part I: spectra, levels, and microphones”. ”Aviat Space Environ Med”. 69 (7): 675-83.</ref>

<ref name=”nixon-1998″>Nixon CW, Morris LJ, McCavitt AR, McKinley RL, Anderson TR, McDaniel MP, Yeager DG. (July 1998). “Female voice communications in high levels of aircraft cockpit noises–Part I: spectra, levels, and microphones”. ”Aviat Space Environ Med”. 69 (7): 675-83.</ref>

Gender bias in voice technology is the use of female‑sounding default voices in human-operated telephony, pre-recorded announcements, text-to-speech systems, and in voice assistants and artificial intelligence systems that are reported to perpetuate stereotypes of women as submissive, compliant, and servile.^[1] Saniye Gülser Corat and the Algorithmic Justice League have addressed the problem in their work, calling for gender-neutral training of AI voice assistants.

Human-operated telephony

The female voice became the standard in telephony in the 1880s. Telephone operators were initially boys, but only for a short time, as they were perceived as rude, disorderly and disruptive, and prone to playing pranks. They were replaced with young women who were described as obedient and were viewed as a cheap source of labor. The telephone industry preferred white, middle class women as operators for just under a century.^[3] At the same time, typewriters began to enter the business world. As with operators before them, the first typists were men, but by the 1890s, women were seen as cheaper labor and took on the gendered female role of secretaries.^[4]

Communications scholar Lana Rakow argues that, over time, women’s voices were tailored, molded, and commodified by employers in the telephone company and business environment, who restricted their communication with customers through rigid training and rules, creating the standardized telephone operator voice. These same skills later transferred to secretarial work, where women worked as “telephonists” in offices. This role was similarly restrictive, limiting women’s speech and reinforcing male hierarchies. Rakow notes that in both cases, men promoted the idea that women were naturally more suited to telephone work because of their “voice range and timbre.”^[5]

However, women’s roles, counters Rakow, were shaped less by innate qualities than by the prevailing economic systems and social norms of the time and the needs of male employers, who required women to speak and sound a certain way.^[5] By the 1960s and 1970s, Black women had became telephone operators in the United States, while non-white immigrants filled the same role in the United Kingdom. This shift away from the expectations of the “white voice” of female telephone operators was met with protests from Bell Telephone and racism and discrimination from white customers who had difficulty adjusting to different voices.^[3] As globalization expanded, gendered divisions of labor persisted, following the same patterns. Men were more likely to work in IT services and management, while women staffed call centers and provided customer service.^[3] The preference for the female voice in communication technologies remained high as technology advanced.^[3]

Pre-recorded announcements

In the late 20th century, pre-recorded female voices were increasingly used for announcements by the military in aircraft, by transportation networks, for security purposes, and for commercial transactions like ATMs. In the 1970s, the F-15 used a female voice in its warning system, leading pilots to refer to it as “Bitching Betty”. A similar female voice alarm was also used in the F/A-18 in the 1990s.^[6]

The New Technology Train fleet of the New York City Subway began using pre-recorded train announcements made by voice artists in both male and female versions in the year 2000. The male voices are used to give orders while the female voices are used only to deliver informational messages to passengers. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), this was an “accident”. The MTA defended their decision, asserting that “psychologists agree that people are more receptive to orders from men and information from women.”^[7]

Text-to-speech (TTS)

In addition to the use of automated and recorded female voices, transportation systems began using text-to-speech (TTS) in the 2000s. Lucent Technologies designed a TTS system for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) as part of their Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). The system uses two voices, George and Gracie, to help provide information for riders who are hearing and visually-impaired.^[8]

Voice assistants

Until 2021, Apple’s Siri defaulted to a female voice in the United States, while defaulting to a male voice where people spoke Arabic, British English, Dutch, or French.^[9] In that same year alone, voice assistants using female voices accounted for 92.4% of the smartphone sector in the United States.^[10]

Research

Scholars Donna Haraway, Judy Wajcman, and Londa Schiebinger, anticipated the concerns of technofeminism, with more recent scholars including Lauren Klein, and Catherine D’Ignazio, and many others, in fields as diverse as gender studies, science and technology studies, and feminist HCI and gender HCI.^[10]

Researchers suggest that the higher pitch of the female voice makes it easier to understand in noisy environments.^[10] This idea was investigated by the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in 1995 to understand if there was a difference distinguishing male and female voices in cockpits above the sound of aircraft engines. The study found that the “statistically significant differences in intelligibility were so small as to indicate no difference in operational conditions.”^[11]

Clifford Nass argued that preferences for gendered voices are reinforced in the womb and by culture.^[12] Nass cites studies showing that fetuses respond with recognition to the sound of their mother’s voice, but not the sound of other female voices or their father. On the other hand, Nass found cultural preferences for male voices in Germany, where men objected to the use of a female voice in a navigation system tested in a BMW 5 Series. According to Nass at the time he consulted with BMW, “German male drivers…do not take directions from females.”^[13] Except for Germany, most voice assisted GPS automotive navigation systems use female voices.^[12]

Other claims in favor of using the female voice argue it is more soothing and relaxing than a male voice, with some studies suggesting that female voices are perceived as more trustworthy.^[10] It is also argued that the female voice is perceived as helpful, docile, and servile, reinforcing stereotypes that women are best placed in supporting roles than the leadership roles given to men.^[10] Sarah A. Bell notes that until the 1980s, most of the technical research on the subject suffered from a pattern of structural sexism, with most of the voice modeling research performed by men, using men as the ideal model, with 40 percent based on men alone, focusing on female speakers only 5 percent of the time.^[6]

Drivers

A United Nations study led by Saniye Gülser Corat in 2019^[14] reported on gender bias in AI tools across the industry.^[1] Jessa Lingel and Kate Crawford note that gendered role of the secretary from the 20th century is used to design virtual assistants and enforces the culturally-determined, subordinate role of the female.^[4] Kelly B. Wagman and Lisa Parks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported in 2021 that the digital assistant Amazon Alexa was “gendered feminine and she performs historically feminized clerical labor.”^[15] The gender disparity in computing is explained as one contributing factor to the lack of gender neutrality in voice assistant training and design.^[10] HCI researcher Karl MacDorman suggests that there is an ethical problem that companies need to address. “Maybe they shouldn’t be reinforcing the stereotypes but challenging them or being neutral on them.”^[9]

References