Have you ever thought about how ‘attractive’ the sound of your voice really is?

We spend so much on make-up and very little effort is put into maintaining our very unique and precious voices (except, perhaps for the few who sing and when we have a sore throat).

 We can distinguish adult voices as male and female, whilst as children, we  recognise the voices of a baby or a child and the gender does not come into play at this stage.

This all changes when boys and girls start to transform into men and women from the age of puberty upwards.

Puberty is the time in life when a boy or girl becomes sexually mature between the ages of 10-14 for girls and 12-16 for boys causing physical changes in both sexes.

 One distinguishing feature between young boys and girls during this period is a change in voice by our male counterparts.

Adult men and women typically have different sizes of vocal fold, reflecting the male-female differences in larynx size (Adam’s apple).

Usually, the change in the male voice is easily noticeable. 

Adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have larger folds. The difference in vocal fold size between men and women means that they have differently pitched voices.

Males generally have low pitched voices while females have high pitched voices

Males tend to use full pitch range during speech while females vary pitch range during speech.

Studies have shown that the lower the pitch of a man’s voice  the higher his testosterone level (which is an indicator of his genetic quality and sexual fitness).

 Very many studies show that women tend to find men with lower-pitched (deep voices) more attractive! 

Hence the deep belief in the fact that the change of voice in men also has an implication on their ability to ‘attract’ the opposite sex.

Fully developed breasts and hips on women and broad shoulders, height, facial hair and strong muscles on men are all outward displays of femininityand masculinity respectively.

These sexually dimorphic cues (including the pitch of men’s and women’s voices) are cues that help men and women attract mates. 

 Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the two sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics beyond the differences in their sexual organs. 

The conditions occurs in many animals and some plants.

It may therefore be interesting to note that even though we as women are blessed with different tones of voices used for singing and talking, your voice may actually have played a lot more significance in attracting your partner, husband or spouse to say ‘I do’.

So, ladies still on the ‘look-out’, your voice may just be a winning formula in the ‘dating game’.