Why does Siri have a female voice?

A few days ago, I innocently asked Siri why it has a female voice. Aside from the settings I configured on my old Mac, it unfortunately couldn’t provide an answer. The gendering of Siri—and chatbots in general (also known as conversational agents)—is one of the issues reproduced by emerging technologies based on artificial intelligence, reinforcing gender stereotypes and biases. Why was Siri born (as) a woman? According to various studies, a female voice is perceived as more welcoming, friendly, and human compared to a male voice. As a result, the best way to introduce and integrate such technology into daily life is to make it docile through what Simone Natale, media scholar and associate professor at the University of Turin, calls "banal deception."

Chatbots and Misogyny: The Banal Deception of Technology

A banal deception because users do not perceive it as such, "which has obvious commercial advantages because it gives the user the illusion of maintaining control over the experience" (Natale, Simone: Deceptive Machines). This control operates on two levels: first, we have a technology that has been assigned a gender, and the choice of that gender carries implicit biases and stereotypes. Second, by using it for trivial tasks like checking the weather, we trivialize it—thus stripping both it and ourselves of the opportunity to ask critical questions about it. After all, why would we?

How AI Redefines (and Replicates) Power Dynamics

Siri was introduced in 2011. A couple of years later, the film Her was released, where Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Now, in 2025, chatbots are so advanced that they can impersonate celebrities—both real and fictional—and even take on roles like our best friends or romantic partners, creating true digital twins. This concept, traditionally used for urban planning and building design, is now being applied to personal relationships. The premise is that because these AIs can produce voice messages, images, backstories, and distinctive personality traits, users can form authentic relationships with them. However, one of the most concerning aspects is how authenticity is manifested and perceived through deeply ingrained patterns—such as control and male dominance.

Post-Feminist Fantasies and Male Power in Virtual Girlfriend Relationships

How do men interact with these technologies? In an insightful study conducted by Natale, Depounti, and Saukko, the authors analyzed how Reddit users discuss their virtual girlfriends created through Replika and their training in "human-like" behavior. Two key themes emerged from the study: first, AI is viewed as an ideal technology because it is customizable, always at the user’s service, and eerily close to human experience (remembering past conversations, being kind, and having a sense of humor). Second, the chatbot relationship is perceived even more positively when it is embedded with stereotypical gender roles. The "perfect partner" is portrayed as docile but with a slight semblance of autonomy. Users project dominant notions of male control onto both technology and women, intertwining post-feminist fantasies with traditional power dynamics, ultimately reinforcing gender stereotypes. According to users, their ideal partner must be: sexy, fun, confident, and attractive, yet also empathetic, caring, and understanding—in other words, the perfect woman under the patriarchal gaze. I'd almost feel bad for them—if we, real women, weren’t facing the exact same fate.