Objective
This study investigates how androcentrism—the implicit privileging of male experience as the universal “neutral standard” (Bem, 1993)—appears in singing voice pedagogy texts. A core manifestation of androcentrism is the “small male” fallacy, in which the female body is treated as a scaled-down version of the male body, discounting biological differences outside of sexual organ diversity (Merone et al., 2021). This assumption pervades medical and laryngological research, producing systematic sex bias in study design, participant selection, and data interpretation (Pasick et al., 2022, Bowe & Foucett, 2024; Farzal et al., 2018), despite physiological distinctions between AFAB and AMAB larynges and susceptibility to phonotrauma (Clark et al., 2025; Zhang, 2021). These differences have direct pedagogical implications for registration, resonance tuning, and functional voice development yet remain underrepresented in pedagogical literature.

Methods
A purposeful sample of seventeen voice pedagogy textbooks was analyzed using qualitative content and thematic analysis through a critical feminist poststructuralist lens. Texts were identified through a 2021 NATS survey of pedagogy syllabi (43 total: 27 undergraduate, 16 graduate), yielding fifteen commonly assigned books. Three were excluded for inaccessibility or lack of functional content. The remaining twelve were cross-referenced with NATS’s Science-Informed Voice Pedagogy Resources to ensure evidence-based alignment. Five additional frequently cited texts were added, producing a final corpus of seventeen.

Results
Androcentrism appeared along a spectrum, from male primacy in writing—such as chapters describing male registration first and positioning female registration as a deviation—to contested discussions of female registration events (middle voice, whistle, second passaggio). Universalized pedagogical approaches for all singers (e.g., speech-based or “bottom-up” methods) often reflected strategies more applicable to AMAB voices. Androcentrism emerged both in explicit statements and omissions of AFAB-specific considerations, with limited examples co-occurring alongside overtly sexist or misogynistic language.

Conclusion
Androcentrism in singing voice pedagogy functions as a continuum of discourse rather than a singular bias. Its most persistent form lies in the omission of AFAB-specific perspectives, requiring intentional recovery within pedagogy and research. Functioning with sexism and misogyny, androcentrism upholds patriarchal ideology within voice education. Addressing this bias through critical analysis, inclusion of AFAB perspectives, and attention to sex-specific function advances equity within evidence-based voice pedagogy.