The Paradox Of The Voice

For men, an attractive voice is fairly straightforward: a lower one is good, as it indicates size, strength, and reproductive prowess (or does it?), while hints of breathiness also seem to be preferable.

But for women, it seems to be more complicated. Higher voices signal reproductive fitness, femininity, and smaller body size, and while it stands to reason that women would try to accentuate these qualities by speaking in correspondingly high voices — and some studies confirm this — other studies find that women tend to speak in lower voices around men they’re trying to attract.