ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of subjectivity and cultural taste in pursuing answers to this question. This is more a sociological than physiological argument and doubtless a good argument could be mounted that any such appeal to the 'natural' is also mounted from a platform of subjectivity and taste. The role of hegemonic masculinity in creating the idea that sounding like a girl is in any case a terrible thing. The acoustic spectrum of thin fold configuration is a much simpler and more sine wave-like one than that of the thick fold configuration, particularly in the case of children whose vocal folds are less massive than those of adult women. The careers of the two boys in the Barthel experiment have, as with other boys in the author's own study, been followed until the time each has indicated the desire to give up singing treble by leaving the choir.
