I was talking to Siri on my iPhone earlier today and later got to thinking about talking to a machine. When I was a kid any machine that talked was pure science fiction and usually it was just described in books… I don’t remember any movies with a talking machine or robot or computer until I was much older.
The first real interaction I remember with a piece of hardware that talked, was something our kids had called a “Speak and Spell,” I think. Anyhow this “voice” would ask you to spell a word and you typed it into a keyboard of sorts and the voice would tell you if you were correct or not and even give you encouragement and congratulations if you got it right.
I’ve noticed that most mechanical or computer generated voices are female — I think the Speak and Spell sounded female. I don’t know if there’s a reason for this or not, but I remember telephone operators were almost always female and receptionists and secretaries were usually female. That may all have been a sexist thing that certain jobs were appropriate and inappropriate for women (and/or men.)
I’ve heard that studies seem to indicate that in general, women’s voices are more pleasing to most people. And if you think about it, maybe babies can actually “hear” their mother’s voices before they’re born, so they become accustomed to female voices. I remember our kids and grandkids, when they were young, responded more to Claire’s voice than to mine.
So there may be a lot of reasons that female voices seem to have taken over the artificial voice sector. The GPSs in our cars, our phones, computers and even our TV/cable remotes seem to be female. I think all of the devices can be changed to operate with a male voice, but I’ve never had any desire to do so.
Its not clear to me if these voice assistants are supposed to represent some kind of goddess or a retro secretary. I think its kind of sad, but in many instances, still today, we tend to think of “assistants” as female — I think, probably, because that’s the way, in the past, the labor force was generated and stratified. The fact that these voice assistants are usually female doesn’t seem so much advancing technology as referencing old stereotypes.
Or…. maybe not.
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