Why Alexa and your other personal assistants have female voices

Opinion: the reasons why modern technology reproduces such outdated gender roles might be found in sci-fi films

How did you start your day? Did you check the weather forecast? Take a look at your schedule? Maybe you just put on some music while you made breakfast. Whatever it was, there's a good chance you didn’t do it all by yourself.

For many of us, these daily rituals are aided by a disembodied voice emanating from a small, plastic box. Whether it’s Google Assistant, Alexa, or Cortana, these virtual assistants have very quickly become part of our lives. In fact, research suggests that over 50% of Irish homes will have one by the end of this year, and that’s not even accounting for the ones we already use in our phones.

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From RTÉ Radio 1's The Business in 2017, Elaine Burke from Silicon Republic looks at the world of voice activated technology

Given concerns around privacy, as well as some reluctance to adopt such novel technologies, it might seem surprising that these virtual assistants have become so commonplace. Aside from the obvious convenience that these devices offer, there’s another factor that might have helped this transition from novel tech to household appliance: the fact that all of these assistants come with a female voice as standard.

There are a number of possible reasons for this preference. Firstly, Google stated that while they wanted to release Google Assistant with both male and female voices, they were unable to do so because the data used for creating the voice comes from recordings of early telephone operators and these were predominantly female. While other research suggests that we simply prefer the female voice because it tends to articulate more clearly, this still doesn’t account for the speed at which the virtual assistant has become part of the furniture.

While it’s not exactly a ground-breaking observation, this preference of the female voice raises a lot of questions. Specifically, why should modern technology reproduce such outdated gender roles? Interestingly, the answers might be found in science fiction cinema.

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From Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927)

Since the earliest days of sci-fi, there’s been a fascination with robots, androids and cyborgs. This is partly because it allows films to put a human face on a new technology. In fact, in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), one of the first science fiction films, a female android named Maria is generally interpreted as an embodiment of anxieties around industrialisation in 1920’s Germany. Unsurprisingly, Maria is portrayed in a way which conforms to stereotypes of femininity. Because of this, audiences were not only able to put a human face on new technology, but one that confirms very traditional views.

Moving on to the 1980s, as technology begins to play a larger role in day-to-day life, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) features the android, femme-fatale, Rachael. Again, in line with timely attitudes towards new technology, Rachael is introduced as a character who is equal parts alluring and threatening. However, when Rachael falls in love with Harrison Ford's Deckard, the novel and threatening technology is once again brought under control, as it affirms a very familiar relationship.

There are many more examples of this very same phenomenon, such as The Stepford Wives (1975 and 2004); Weird Science (1985) and Star Trek (1979). Whatever the film, the result is largely the same: a cultural anxiety towards new technology is embodied by a stereotypically female android. As a result, the sense of anxiety is replaced by an affirmation of tradition.

From Blade Runner, Rachael and Deckard

So what does this actually reveal? And what bearing, if any, does science fiction really have on our real-world interaction with technology. Well, the fact that this method of portraying the female android has been a staple of the genre for the last 100 years, and has been so successful, tells us that there must be something deeply appealing to it. Basically, it’s having your cake and eating it too. The ability to imagine such futuristic, threatening, dangerous, and alluring characters, while at the same time, portraying them in a way that supports traditional gender roles, gives us a relative familiarity.

While there is a very clear correlation between the android and the virtual assistant, modern science fiction has taken this one step further, creating a direct link between the two. Indeed, Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014), which features another female android, did something very interesting in its marketing campaign.

From NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, Alicia Vikander on how she perfected her voice for the role of Ava in Ex Machina

Before the film’s release, users of the popular dating app, Tinder, were shown Ava, the film’s android, as a potential match. Despite being run by an AI, Ava’s profile proved quite popular, effectively tricking users into thinking that they were talking to a real woman. Clever marketing stunt aside, this shows exactly how willing we are to engage with technology in ways that conform to expected gender roles.

In 2023, already four years after Blade Runner is set, we seem to have escaped technological dystopia, and our real-world technology might not be as frightening as Hal 9000. However, what we have done is created a new form of the dutiful, housebound, servant. Despite living in a world where such technology is so ubiquitous that it would appear quite futuristic to someone even twenty years ago, both science-fiction and science-fact seem bent on dragging up the past.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

Why Alexa and your other personal assistants have female voices

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Dylan Phelan