A Critique and Call for Action, in Response to Sexist Commentary About Vocal Fry

Abstract

Purpose: This letter to the editor discusses recommendations and publicity from a recent article by Gallena and Pinto (2021) that appeared in Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. We contextualize the recommendations made by Gallena and Pinto that young women actively suppress their use of vocal fry, a normal part of linguistic and sociolinguistic variation, to make themselves more marketable to employers who discriminate on the basis of vocal fry use. By reviewing research on vocal fry, social evaluation, and linguistic discrimination, we show how this recommendation is fundamentally flawed and how it perpetuates sexist tropes about language use. We argue that this is particularly dismaying when publicized by a journal of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, which aims to promote the universal use of language, in all its forms, as a human right. Conclusions: People stigmatize linguistic differences to devalue those who have less power. Vocal fry is not a problem; the problem is absurd sexist judgments against those who use vocal fry. The recommendations made in Gallena and Pinto (2021) and Perspectives' publicity about those recommendations both contribute to sexist linguistic discrimination. Rather than recommending that victims of sexism change their behavior to suit the biased views of others, we should use our energy to eradicate the underlying sexism.