Hannah Fry's Vocal Fry - Part 2

Everything was on the line tonight. The dean of her program made that clear. Once celebrated for her public engagement, the past month of bad press and dwindling shows had turned her from an asset to an albatross for University College London. Students dropped her classes. Donors pulled funding. It happened so fast that her ultimatum fell swifter than normal. If she failed to turn the tide with this lecture, her career as a professor was over. She had only one option: she had to prove her worth.

And she was doing it by fanning her hand toward her face. Like a chatty bimbo.

"Wow, it is sooooo hot up here. Are any of you hot? Cause I'm hooooot."

Hannah Fry caught herself a second too late and stared at her hand in disgust. It was happening again. She hated herself for it, but it just... came out. Getting worse by the day.

Time had not been kind. Less trustworthy, less competent, less attractive. The research showed a clear pattern in how the world perceived vocal fry women. Despite reading those studies (or perhaps, because of them), Hannah found herself engaging in all its stereotypes. It showed as she slumped her shoulders, wrung her hands, fidgeted and paused between words. As her confidence died, so did any authority she held as an expert in her field. They saw a dumbass, and she felt like one.

"So liiiiiike... if you look at my chart? It saaaays... thaaaaaaat... we can use numbers, to anal-lyze fertility in cows. Isn't that cooooooool?"

A few coughs in the crowd reminded her how little they thought of her so-called expertise. She couldn't quite blame them with the cues she gave. She had too much makeup on, for one. She hadn't realized until too few minutes before hitting the stage that the layers of foundation and blush made her look like a gussied up airhead. Her vocab shrank too, from a large pool covering the breadth of her discipline to a puddle she felt most right using. Knowing the urge to compensate, to make herself more attractive and relatable to offset her voice, didn't stop her from falling into it.

Cheap jewelry jangling on her wrist, Hannah smiled, flipped to the next slide and gawked. The little bastard had done it again! Another case of the student she'd failed sneaking in something to ruin her reputation. One look and her audience chuckled at the idiocy on display, unaware it wasn't her own. Nervously laughing with them, she thoughtlessly twirled her hair and made her best attempt at a save.

"6 + 9 = 69 is dumb, right? But if you think of sex, it totally works."

Wait. Had she just said totally? Snickering confirmed it. Sighing, she continued in her newly trademark low sexy growl. "Everyone loooooves sex. It's... it's everywhere. You need to, like, think beyond the numbers. Make it sexy and it's easy. It's good maths!"

They weren't buying her excuse. And neither, clearly, was the dean sitting in front row with his arms crossed.