Abstract
I claim that Adriana Cavarero’s concept of sonorous voice is significant in feminist teaching because, as she argues, dominant concepts of voice refer to voice in semantic terms thereby discounting voice in sonorous terms. This process of ‘devocalization’, spanning the history of Western philosophy, devalues the uniqueness embodied in each sonorous voice effecting a bias against female-sounding voices. In light of women’s history and experience of being silenced, this devaluing of sonorous voice has distinct implications for feminist teaching. A person’s actual sounding voice, which constitutes her or his uniqueness, is missing from prior considerations of ‘voice’ in professional ethics. Because establishing a voice of authority is a central challenge starting off as a teacher, devocalization makes this challenge greater for those with female-sounding voices who take on and try out the dispositions and attitudes of an authoritative professional. Using the example of a voice workshop I designed for pre-service teachers, I re-consider it in light of ‘devocalization’ and the frankness needed to practice feminism, asking if it is possible to be frank and sonorous using irony (Cavarero’s way of writing with ‘bad intentions’). I conclude that it is, that Cavarero’s philosophical practice is a model for feminist teaching, and I re-write the workshop with ‘bad intentions’; for and in more than one voice.
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Notes
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a “goody two-shoes” is a person who is goody-goody; also: a person who is uncommonly good. Goody Two-Shoes is the heroine of a children's story that is sometimes attributed to Oliver Goldsmith. The term’s first known use is 1934. Accessed 10 Oct 2013 at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goody%20two-shoes.
The female actress playing the naïve ingénue in a spoken-word drama tends to lighten her voice, if it is not normally so, perhaps making it slightly sing-songy, leaving out the deep sonorities that imply depth of thought.
I use the attribution ‘female-sounding’ in recognition that males speaking in higher pitches with frequent rising intonations are at risk of homophobic bias, as are females with lower-pitched demonstrative voices assumed to be ‘male-sounding.’
This is a focus of Italian feminism (Cavarero and Bertolino 2008, pp. 129–130).
For more on the distinction between Butler’s and Cavarero’s approaches to this question, see Forrest et al. (2010).
Cavarero describes Butler’s method as ‘Aristotelian’; that is, seeking “conceptual clarity by proceeding through questions that articulate themselves into other questions, until the discourse is gutted and exposed in all its premises and consequences”. She calls her own method ‘Platonic’, placing “more emphasis on a narrative architecture and collateral digressions” (Cavarero and Bertolino 2008, p. 149).
In 1994, Martin charged feminists locked in the essentialism debate with falling into a methodological essentialism that was restricting intellectual inquiry (p. 630).
Cavarero (2005) quotes the Italian saying: “alle donne si addice il silenzio” meaning, silence suits women (p. 253).
Theories abound regarding the origins of uptalk (ref. Stokel-Walker 2014); i.e., high-rising terminal intonations making statements sound like questions. Lakoff (2004/1975) associates the phenomenon with women’s language use; the rising intonation indicating uncertainty and a need for reassurance (pp. 48–50). She notes a similar effect in women’s use of the tag-question (e.g., “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”).
This is not to ignore the possibility that some voices, on the basis of sound alone, are difficult to cast as one gender instead of another. The equivocation they raise in the mind of the listener demonstrates the power of our tendency to differentiate voices by gender.
He says (Foucault 1997) they cohere methodologically in the study of “technological types of rationality” and “strategic games of liberties” and theoretically in how we have defined “the historically unique forms in which the generalities of our relations to things, to others, to ourselves, have been problematized” (p. 133).
Foucault (2011) emphasizes that he is attempting to avoid reducing each of these domains of human relations to the others (p. 9).
For an ironic treatment of the claim that irony died after the terrorist attacks of 11 Sept 2001, see Williams (2003).
See Lyotard (1984).
From his understanding of antiquity Foucault (2011) delineates four basic modalities of veridiction or truth-telling: prophecy, wisdom, professional expertise (tekhnē), and parrhesia (pp. 16–18).
Seery (fn. 2, p. 201) borrows this image from Thomson (1926, p. 235).
See her interpretation of events surrounding the “Into the Heart of Africa” exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, Nov 1989 to August 1990, a cautionary tale in what she calls the “political perils of irony” (p. 177).
I say ‘usually’ not to discount silent teaching. One can teach using only visual aids and gesture, as demonstrated in Deaf culture and by didactic texts and artworks. For more on silence in teaching, see Forrest (2013).
Non-singers could use a DVD performance, preferably without subtitles.
How many professional women have had the devocalizing experience of offering a point in discussion that falls on deaf ears only to have it lauded later when it is repeated by a male voice?
Munsch’s story The Paperbag Princess (2008, c1980) comes to mind. Reading it with ‘bad intentions’ entails juxtaposing it to a story of the stereotypically helpless princess, who is inevitably saved by a prince. In a feminist teaching of this story, the paperbag princess is not a role model; she is an ironic representation of feminist reaction each time the old stereotype is replayed.
For an ironic treatment of clips from 1950’s training films for factory managers with female employees, see Hayes et al. (2005).
For a more detailed description of this phenomenon as it relates to justifying the arts in education, see Forrest (2011).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the dedicated reviewers whose insightful suggestions helped me make stronger and clearer connections throughout this essay. I owe a debt of thanks as well to the excellent work of the copyeditors for this journal.
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Forrest, M. Sonorous Voice and Feminist Teaching: Lessons from Cavarero. Stud Philos Educ 34, 587–602 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9458-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9458-3