In this monologue, Nancy Bos traces the overlooked history of research on how hormones affect the female voice, noting that scholarly attention only began in the 1940s and has remained sparse, especially regarding mid‑life changes. She introduces her co‑authors, Kate Fraser Neely (big‑picture philosopher) and Joanne Hayes‑Bozman (deep‑diving researcher), and shares their finding that most women in their 30s‑40s are unaware of perimenopause and its systemic hormonal impacts on ears, eyes, skin, throat, and voice. Bos argues that the physiological shifts of menopause often cause a sudden drop‑off in women’s singing ability, prompting the creation of a healing‑focused book. She describes singing as a multidimensional therapy—physiological (vibration of vocal folds, parasympathetic activation), emotional (community bonding, comfort), and spiritual (energy and vibration). The talk expands to cultural reflections on women’s bodies being bathed in estrogen/progesterone, the societal valuation of women, and the fluidity of gender identity within the arts. Throughout, she urges acceptance of the hormonal journey, self‑compassion, and the use of song to empower midlife women.
Chapters
The relationship between hormones and the voice has been known since the 8th and 9th centuries, but only as it affected male vocal development. It wasn't until the 1940s that the effect of hormones on the female voice was considered in scholarly articles. There was little understanding about the evolving stages of the female voice through the entire lifespan, or how our hormones, emotional health, and physical health are interdependent. Each impacts the others. Relatively few studies have been done on singing and the female voice through midlife as compared to all other studies on men and women in their life changes. Now that we are beginning to understand and respect what women are experiencing, it is clear that the changes aren't all in our heads. There are real biological and physiological processes happening to our bodies Minds and voices, causing them to evolve. The more we know, the more we can help ourselves and each other. So my co-authors are Kate Fraser Neely, and Kate is a big picture person. She really understands the philosophy and the woman's journey like no one else, and she's had so many physical challenges and, and brilliant. My other co-author, Joanne Hayes-Bozman, is a deep thinker. She goes deep on research. She's always talking about rabbit holes that she goes into. But what we found is that very few women in their 30s and 40s were aware of what perimenopause was and the perimenopausal journey, or that the changes to the hormones— that yeah, sure, they affect our cycles, our monthly cycles, but they also affect our ears, our eyes, our skin, our throat, everything. That estrogen has impact in the entire body. And When you run into rough situations with your body, especially 40s, do not accept self-blame. Don't think there's something wrong with me, or I'm embarrassed to even go to a doctor about this, or I can't talk to my partner about this. It's not your fault. It is the journey that our body is on. So your spirit needs to accept that, hey, I can honor this and I can move forward in this. Now, my passion is singing. And what I have found is that there is kind of this cliff that, uh, women who sing fall off of sometime right around menopause. That they'll be singing, singing, singing. When you see the opera stars, when you see, uh, pop and rock stars, sure, there's the, the sexy element, but you cannot tell me that Tina Turner was not sexy in her '60s and '70s. So something happened there to their voices where they stopped singing. And so that was the impetus for the book, is what's going on, what can we do about it? Because I know I sure as heck don't want to stop singing. And both of my co-authors did indeed stop singing and needed to look for solutions. So this was a book of healing for them. The healing of singing happens in mind, body, and spirit, and that's all highly documentable and researched. Throughout time, singing has been the most important vehicle for communication for communities. For, uh, imagine prior to current modern times with technology, sitting around the fire or being in a worship service or in a communal service singing together. We still see pieces of that in our culture when sporting events have singing, when political events have singing, we realize the community building of singing, right? How it brings us together. And that's been true through all time. But also the idea that mothers, as long as we've been human, we have always sung to our babies and our children to comfort them, to give them ease, right? And sometimes life is so exciting that you just wanna burst out in song. And that's what all of Broadway is about, is bursting out in song because things are so exciting. So there's an eons-old need for humans to sing, and it helps us with our parasympathetic nervous system and how our body talks to itself. But if you believe that we are vibration, that our spirit is vibration and energy, then oh my goodness, we have these two little vocal folds in our throat that right now are— in my voice are fluctuating about 250 times per second that they're coming together. That is the essence of vibration. And if I were to close my eyes and just listen with every nerve in my body, I could feel I can feel the vibrations of my voice through my whole body. So there's that physical health healing side, right? So we've got the emotional connection, the community connection, the spirit and the body, all enhanced by singing. The concept of woman for me is not spirit but body. From a physiological perspective, being woman means someone whose body is washed with estrogen and progesterone for a a good chunk of the life, also not so much washed with testosterone. There's more there than, than I'm aware of for a physiological standpoint. But what does it mean with how the culture treats and values us as women, including women in that culture? What are we given? What gifts do we have as women that are exciting, that we should appreciate and accept? But also What has been denied us as women by men or by others? There's a lot to this complicated picture of what is a woman. I do think that women are becoming more empowered, but for me, it's not becoming more clear because I live in the world of the arts where gender is certainly not binary and can often be fluid. And just realizing that some of us may call ourselves a female but land very close to the androgynous middle line where others might be on the far side. And so seeing the whole spectrum of gender definitely doesn't add clarity, but it helps me see people with more grace and love.
