Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s S Voice, and Google Now: They are our personal voice assistants which try to simplify our daily live by voice commands. But why are our smartphone assistants mostly feminine, or rather always feminine by default?

Why is our Smartphone Assistant Mostly Female?

Have you ever wondered why your smartphone assistant sounds female? In most countries voice assistants are female. Whether it is voicemail boxes, GPS devices or computer voices. But why is that so? The first reason I that people are conditioned to expect women, not men, to be in administrative roles. It is a little bit old-fashioned but according to the Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass “It’s much easier to find a female voice that everyone likes than a male voice that everyone likes.”

Another explanation is that the female phone fixation is conditioned by biological factors. Scientific studies have shown that the sound of a woman’s voice is preferred. This people’s predilection already begins at a very early stage of their lives, explains Clifford Nass. Already in the mother’s body, the fetuses react to the voice of their mother, but not to that of their father or another female person.

Also, historical factors are a reason why female voices are preferred. Already in World War II navigation systems were used for aircraft with female computer voices to differentiate clearly from the voices of male pilots. In addition, in times of radiotelephone traffic, all telephone calls were transferred manually and this was a women’s work. That’s why we are used to hearing female voices and using them on our smartphone assistant.

Smartphone Assistant also with Male Voices

Now you know the reasons why the smartphone assistant is mostly female. It is quite interesting, isn’t it? However, all voice-controlled assistants are female by default but you can change easily to a male voice if you prefer this.