If the female voice, technologically untethered from the material body, has been serenading and seducing the ear since the invention of wax cylinders, why does Silverman insist on a challenge or threat to the patriarchal order in this type of acoustic mirror? The answer depends on our narrow protocols within which women have been permitted to “express” themselves, phonological speaking. As Dolar insists, “singing, by focusing on the voice, actually runs the risk of losing the very thing it tries to worship and revere: it turns it into a fetish object – we could say the highest rampart, the most formidable wall against the voice.” This is why female singers are such affective lightening rods and have historically run the gauntlet of social strictures to remain “ladylike,” even while representing civilisation’s darker, more primal half.
– Dominic Pettman, Sonic Intimacies
