Hysteria, Harris, and Me: Notes on Female Volume
I lost my voice after a weekend of Model UN, and honestly, I kind of deserved it. My vocal cords, scraped raw from representing my controversial Middle Eastern country, combined with my fried brain from six hours of debate, had finally given up. As I sat in my Grab on the way home, explaining to the driver why my voice sounded like a chain-smoking middle-aged man, I thought about my relationship with volume.
I am, undeniably, loud. Not the loudness evoked from a fear-filled scream or the sharp pitch of surprise, but the kind of loudness that commands attention before asking permission in a room. I’m that public speaker – too loud, too rambly, too intense, too much. In more ways than I would like it to be, my voice remains my most consistent vice.
My struggle with volume isn’t just personal—it’s the result of a centuries-old tradition of controlling women’s voices. The roots of this custom run deep. The very term “hysteria,” derived from the Greek word hystera, for uterus, was used for centuries to dismiss female expression as medical dysfunction. Ancient Greek physicians believed the uterus could wander around the body, causing women to magically experience sudden and uncontrollable emotions. Later on, Victorian England perfected this belief, where finishing schools taught voice modulation and doctors would slap a hysteria diagnosis on women who exhibited any sign of emotion or independent thought. The “virtuous” woman was the quiet one, the “angel in the house” who never raised her voice above a demure sotto voce murmur. Looking at historical records, we can trace how expectations of feminine quietness correlated with limited political rights. The ability to be heard in public spaces, whether in town squares or parliament buildings, is directly connected to the ability to influence public life. In 1866, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony created the American Equal Rights Association, they were routinely mocked in newspapers for their unladylike shouting at public gatherings. British suffragettes like Emmeline Pankhurst were arrested for “disturbing the peace” when they spoke at rallies. At the same time, male political speakers faced no such charges for the same volume and crowd sizes. This was no accident —after all, you can’t demand rights with a whisper.
While today’s descriptors for loud women might be different— “shrill,” “nagging,” or “bossy”— the sentiment persists in stigmatizing women who dare to raise their voices. Fascinatingly, though, it seems that society has come to accept specific, loud, women: soccer moms screaming themselves hoarse from the sidelines, opera singers hitting glass-shattering notes, and cheerleaders rallying stadiums with their chants. The common thread? These exceptions serve or entertain others rather than assert power. The moment that same soccer-mom volume demands change or challenges authority, it transforms into a transgression.
I witnessed this firsthand in Model UN, where the feedback my female teammates and I received was starkly different from our male counterparts, despite our abilities being at the same level. A male delegate might get a comment like “Commanded the room. Passionate language,” whereas we girls would read comments like “Energetic but lacking diplomacy.” For a female speaker, high volume means tactlessness, insensitivity, and hysteria.
It bothered me enough that I conducted a full year of academic research on it, where I quantitatively analyzed how teachers perceived the voices of student speakers. What I — and many of my peers — thought was just a petty grudge against my MUN chairs or the classic excuse for my rough performance that day turned out to be backed by data: female speakers, when assertive, are often seen as rude or inappropriate and are likely to receive lower standards-based scores. The data showed that it seemed more surprising to evaluators when female voices expressed aggression, which led to them getting penalized on two measures: their perceptions of their character and the academic scores they received. Male speakers with identical behavior rarely face such criticisms or penalties, regardless of whether they employ aggression. The data indicated a clear pattern; when women demonstrate the same presence that earns praise from men, they are penalized for being “aggressive” or “abrasive.”
This policing of women’s voices extends beyond the halls of academia and into the highest echelons of power. Consider the 2024 election, where Vice President Harris faced a double bind that perfectly exposed this dynamic. Alt-right pundits cherry-picked images of her speaking on the issues of America passionately—mouth open, nostrils flared—to suggest that pinnacle-of-equal-rights America isn’t ready for an assertive, aggressive female president. Individuals such as Sean Hannity or even her opponent Donald Trump dissected her laugh (too loud), analyzed her tone (too assertive), and critiqued her volume (too much) — echoing the same, old tired playbook used against other female politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose debate performances were labeled as “angry” while her male opponents were labeled “passionate”. Ironically, Harris’s critics labeled her “soft” on key issues like national security and immigration. Her defeat marked a moment where America confronted — yet stepped back from — the possibility of a woman in the Oval Office, echoing the unfinished story of 2016. While her perfectly disciplined, 100-day campaign may have altered the narrative around women’s voices in power, the underlying circular argument remains: female leaders must embody impossible, contradictory virtues. Be strong, but not threatening; be authoritative, but likable; be passionate, but controlled.
Be everything, but also be less.
But here’s the truth about my voice: sometimes vice is virtue in disguise. Being “too loud” isn’t just an admittedly bad habit—it’s a fundamental part of how I explore the world. My voice, in all its loud gravelly glory, is both personal expression and political statement. Throughout history, progress has come from women willing to be “inappropriately” loud, from suffragettes mocked for their “shrill” demands to House Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s passionate floor speeches that drive bipartisan policy discussions. Studies on political movements consistently show that “disruptive” communication—yes, including loudness—can be more effective at achieving social change than polite requests. Like the bumper sticker says, well-behaved women seldom make history, precisely because making history requires rejecting these imposed “virtues” on us.
This doesn’t mean I don’t try to modulate my voice. I’ve realized that dinner conversations or AP Lang discussions require a different volume than IASAS Debate rounds. I’m learning to pick my moments and recognize when my volume upholds my rhetorical purpose and when it undermines it. Sometimes, my voice still gets lost after intense debate weekends. My parents still wince when I raise my decibels. But I’ve stopped apologizing for taking up sonic space.
We’re fighting centuries of gendered expectations about appropriate volume, which means I’ll mess up and be loud about nothing important, and sometimes I’ll speak up when it matters. Yes, maybe I’ll miss the distinction between assertive and aggressive. I’m still learning the difference between being eloquent and being overwhelming to others. Yet in a world that constantly tells women to make themselves smaller, speak more softly, and take up less space, being “too much” becomes an act of resistance.
Because in the end, we all, undeniably, deserve to be heard.
References
Andrews, Kenneth T., and Neal Caren. 2010. “Making the News: Movement Organizations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda.” American Sociological Review 75 (6): 841–66. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122410386689.
Chira, Susan. 2017. “Elizabeth Warren Was Told to Be Quiet. Women Can Relate.” The New York Times, February 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/opinion/elizabeth-warren-was-told-to-be-quiet-women-can-relate.html.
Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen F Fitzpatrick. 1996. Century of Struggle. Harvard University Press.
Patmore, Coventry. 1887. The Angel in the House. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4099/4099-h/4099-h.htm
Purvis, June. 2003. “Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biographical Interpretation [1].” Women’s History Review 12 (1): 73–102. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020300200348.
Tasca, Cecilia, Mariangela Rapetti, Mauro Giovanni Carta, and Bianca Fadda. 2012. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice & Epidemiology in Mental Health 8 (1): 110–19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/.