I must say I'm kind of disappointed with one the huffington post articles today.
I just ran by an article called Body Politics: Sarah Palin's Body Language and Why It Should Worry You . While I do agree with some of the points they do make about the choice of words she uses in her speeches and the random false facts about Obama I think the following just speaks for itself.
"Voice-Flag #2: The Metallic Shriek Of The Fear-Monger
To emphasize certain points, Sarah Palin takes her voice up the tone scale to a metallic shriek. This tone will be familiar to many of us: it's the voice your mother employed as a last resort to get you out of bed when you were a teenager. It's designed to scare you, to rake fingernails across your inner chalkboard. She often uses this voice when she first takes the stage at a rally. It works quite well there, because it cuts like a knife and jolts any of the faithful who might be dozing to sit up in their seats. We hope Americans are not so sleepy as to vote in favor of hearing this tone of voice for four years."
I just thought we were past the woman "high pitched shriek" bashing" : \
Found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathlyn-and-gay-hendricks/body-politics-sarah-palin_b_132785.html
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Yeah, that is kind of disappointing, and I expect better from them too.
While I think the article is poorly worded and is worded in a clearly sexist way, the overall premise of the article is pretty accurate (coming from the, one of my areas of expertise is non-verbal communication which includes vocalics).
But it could have easily been written to make all the same points and not be blatantly sexist. Some of it might have still come across as sexist as, like it or not, high-pitched attention grabbers tend to be employed by women more than men.