Not posting this for the sake of the subject matter — to me it just sounds like typical pandering B.S. However... This is the first time I've ever seen her make a podium style speech that didn't leave my ears ringing from her bellowing delivery. Sounds like she's got a bit of a cold or is losing her voice, which may factor in, but in any case this warmer delivery is something I think she'd got to maintain going forward. For the first time, she didn't strike me as someone screaming for attention like a foot-stomping child. Keep it up, Hill-Dog!
Clinton campaign strategy: "Do everything we possibly can to make Hillary look Presidential as all get-out. The Donald and his jackals will do the rest." The big orange twerp is handing her this election on a silver platter. PLEASE don't screw this up, Clintons!
Clinton always sounds better when she's not yelling. There are tons of politicians (including Bill, and including plenty of women I can think of, so I don't think this is a sexist thing) who can pull off "rousing voice," or "be-heard-above-the-cheering-crowd voice," but unfortunately Hillary is not among them. It's just not a skill she's particularly good at, but she IS good at "normal-volume-speaking-like-she's-in-your-living-room" voice. Some people are good at both (like Obama), but some are only good at one or the other, and she's one of them.
I don't think this necessarily is, either. But I do think there's so many double standards in the expectations for her that even this one makes me wonder, at least with some people. Here's a simple test to see what I'm getting at: imagine if, like Bernie, Hillary showed up at an event disheveled, in clothes off the rack, hair uncombed and askew. She would be crucified. The very thing that endears people to Bernie Sanders would have most of those same people positively savaging Hillary.
Oh, I don't think there's any question that Hillary gets sexist double standards thrown at her all the time. The very term "shrill" is almost never used for men, even those with far more annoying voices than hers. I just don't think it's necessarily sexist to point out that she's not particularly good at the specific skill of "rousing voice" (for lack of a better term).
Ted Cruz has an amazingly annoying voice, quite apart even from what he's saying. But was he ever described as "shrill?"
There are many pejoratives used to denigrate individuals who aren't white males, and this one is classically reserved for women. Even men who have voices that would be easily designated as "shrill" (Cruz is a good example) are never described as such. One of my beefs about her, although there isn't much she can do about those aspects of her voice. Training helps, but not when it comes to modulating tone and timbre. As someone who's been cursed with Minnie Mouse speech (and Speech Comm was my B.A., so plenty of orations were required for the degree), my heart goes out to her. It's difficult to focus the audience's attention in a positive manner when your voice isn't very commanding. Shirley Chisolm had the speaking skills I wish Hillary also possessed.
Elizabeth Warren has a soft voice, and yet she can do "rousing voice" very well. It's a hard thing to define. And then there was Barbara Jordan, who had one of the greatest voices in US political history - a real BOOMING voice - and boy, she could do it too. Of course, it doesn't hurt that both are/were so eloquent, so the word choices are inspiring as well.
Yes he does. And yet never called "shrill." At least I saw him called "whiny" more than once. I suppose that's progress of a sort.
I don't really take it as a sexist thing as much as just an identification of a certain kind of timber. I think of flutes as "shrill" (poorly played of course), or perhaps a rather obnoxious high-note trumpet. On the other hand, I would never think of such a thing when listening to a trombone, even one in a very high range ("blatty" comes to mind in that case). Just sayin...it ain't *always* about a cadre of nefarious white guys parsing out how best to insult the rest of the world from a smoky back room under the redwood trees.
I think of it more as an unconscious double standard. When's the last time you heard a male pol's voice described as "blatty?" While Clinton is FAR from the first female pol to be routinely described as "shrill." Again,I don't think this is NECESSARILY sexist. Certainly wouldn't say that about you. But it's nuts to pretend that some people don't use that term as a way to dismiss what she (and other women) say.
Never. That's my own word to describe musical sounds. I've heard plenty of men's voices described as gruff, though. Sorry. I just don't see the double standard here. Some women's voices *are* high-pitched in a way that creates an unpleasant, shrill sound. Hillary's certainly qualifies. Bigly.
Well, I do see it. I've heard, say, Sherrod Brown's voice described as "gruff," but that just doesn't have the same negative connotations as "shrill." And Clinton's voice isn't even particularly high pitched. It's certainly lower than Warren's, for example. I agree that she doesn't do "rousing voice" well, but to me it's because it usually sounds forced, not due to any particular timbre of her voice.
I don't know that women are necessarily "shrill". Even when my wife Annie is mad at me I would never define her voice as "shrill". "The full-throated braying of the Hounds of Hell" would be a more apt description. LOL She doesn't get mad often, but when she does her Philly Girl shows.
But in this context, the denigration is being applied to a female candidate. Just like Obama was referenced as the "uppity n*&&er" many times, and portrayed as an African native with a bone through his nose or a gorilla. That level of pejorative never surfaced for McCain or Romney. I've heard very few pejoratives used against the white male candidates this time around, mostly direct insults at Trump for his bigoted remarks. But I've seen plenty against Hillary, and they're all sexist on their face (mostly involving anatomy parts). With "shrill" being the least offensive. Even Palin didn't get the "shrill" description. And her whiny high pitched voice is much worse than Hill's!
Yes, but you wrote: It's not the women part of the sentence that's so typically Skinner, it's the first half I take exception to. I just don't get why you couldn't stop at "There are many pejoratives used to denigrate individuals," — this is your usual, biased slant, and it's off-putting to a white guy like me who never engages in such pejoratives, and resents the implication that all of us do (not that you care). Consider the source. Anti-black racists did that, and by and large anti-black racists are on the right side of the spectrum. Anti-white types, on the other hand... Clearly you haven't been paying attention. You may have been correct in the normal run of things, but this election cycle the shit has been flung far and wide, much of it from within the two parties themselves in circular firing squad fashion. Whiny? High pitched? That's sexist!
