Pitch-Slapped

I'm a woman who's very feminine and considered pretty. However, I have a deep voice -- to the point where I'm sometimes mistaken for a man on the phone. I've learned to laugh about it, but it sometimes makes me feel bad, especially when I hear a bunch of other women talking. How do people feel about women with deep voices?

--Feeling Low

Okay, so you sound like you've been smoking unfiltered cigarettes since you were 3 years old. In social situations, nobody's mistaking you for Darth Vader in a dress. On the phone, however, they're missing the visual information. There's only the audio. In other words, those who think they're hearing a man are not making some sneering judgment about your femininity; they are simply reacting based on averages -- how, on average, women tend to have higher, chirpier voices. On a positive note, according to research by social-personality psychologist Joey T. Cheng, women with deep voices are -- if not more likely to rule the world -- more likely to be perceived as the dames to do it. In Cheng's experiments, both women and men with low-pitched voices were viewed as more dominant and higher in social rank. That's probably why former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, while running for office in the '70s, worked with a speech coach to deepen the pitch of her voice. This helped her make the transition from cuddly mummy to "The Iron Lady" -- as she was nicknamed by the Soviets. Try to remember that you're a package as a person. Your voice is just part of the entire "very feminine" you. Maybe relabel your voice "sultry," like those of some of the sexiest screen babes -- for example, Scarlett Johansson and Lauren Bacall. This might help you feel a little better when you have those dismaying "Excuse me, sir. Who's calling, please?" experiences -- as a deep-voiced friend of mine recently did. "MOM! It's me. Your daughter!" she yelled into the phone.