What Gender is the Voice of God

Throughout history and society there have been many versions of who and what is God; namely an old white male. Although this patriarchy is echoed throughout many cultural representation of deity, there is also a historic tradition of the sacred feminine, even throughout Christianity where the Virgin Mary or sacred mother embodies the Goddess mythology that has existed across cultures such as Greek Goddess Venus and African Orisha Yemaja. People of all faith traditions hold strong beliefs about what God is, which can be linked to patriarchal gender of words. Genesis describes the creation of the world "And He spoke saying 'Let there be light.'" with the deep voice of the God of the Old Testament. This is where we get the term Voice of God, which refers to the announcements at conferences directing people to "Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as the program will commence shortly."

Our society continues to slowly progress in civil rights issues of equal pay and opportunities for women over the past century, however at many events and conferences the Voice of God (VOG) is another typically male dominated role. Generally speaking there are more male audio engineers. Despite plenty of exceptional cases of people who identify across the gender and sexuality spectrum who are capable of performing these roles, when it is time to read the Voice of God announcements often a male audio engineer default reads the script with a deep commanding bass. This begs the questions; Is VOG a trivial role or should organizations place more intention in how they curate event narration? How do the announcements set the stage and what story does the narrators voice help tell about the brand or organization?

Girl Up Showing the Powerful Voice of Girls

Recently Alliant produced an inspiring event with my clients Girl Up and United Nations Foundation. This awards ceremony highlighted some incredible #GirlHero Award recipients who have made a positive impact in their community. Like wildfire this movement has expanded to programs in 49 states and multiple languages, providing girls across the world with a community that supports and empowers young women around the globe. Announcements for this event were narrated by a female voice and throughout the evening girls shared the stories of empowerment and overcoming adversity.

Playback vs. Live

Assigning the key role of narration for a conference for an event can be pre-recorded, as is more often the case, a narrator reads from the script live announcing the start of the program, presenter walk-ons and other important announcements. There are advantages to playback of pre-recorded narrated cues by a professional voice artist vs. having a person make the announcements live.

Playback enables the polished sound of recorded cues that have been listened and vetted for approval. The downside is that surprise guest or executive additions will not have the same playback narrator unless they are present at the event. Live announcements are easy and great because they can be changed on the fly. This does mean that the event manager or audio engineer has to be dedicated to this role, which seemingly easy does require some attention. One potential downside is live errors or mis-pronunciation of names. This can be prevented with a pre-recorded voice artist.

The real reason to consider pre-recording with a voice artist is the professional sounding polish that it conveys to the audience.

Set the stage with recorded walk-on announcements combined music that is consistent thematically as the walk-on track song or stinger as walk-on music is referred to in production. The real reason to consider pre-recording with a voice artist is the professional sounding polish that it conveys to the audience. The narrator's voice can makes the event seem futuristic or speak to the audience directly.

An Opportunity for Inclusion

With so many diverse perspectives, event curators owe it to attendees to increase the diversity of voices that are represented both on the stage and on the mic. If women don't always feel comfortable in these roles, it may be one more reason that their voices are needed to encourage and empower other female voices to take leadership roles in their organizations.

When audience members hear voices that sound like their own or images on the screens that represent racial, religious and gender diversity, everyone is invited to engage with the content as it relates to more people in a personal way.

Assigning the Role or Roles

There probably is a little ego feeding that audio engineers enjoy in the role of Voice of God, but for the most part as long as the narrator has a strong and clear voice then the sound guy is happy to let a female executive or manager either pre-record the announcements prior to rehearsals or announce live. The term Voice of God has become a cliche industry reference that is the standard short hand term for narrator. Whether you're an atheist or believe that God is male, it is a great strategy to mix up this role to diversify the audience experience. When audience members hear voices that sound like their own or images on the screens that represent racial, religious and gender diversity, everyone is invited to engage with the content as it relates to more people in a personal way.