In a manner of speaking

Is it me or has anyone else noticed the curious way a lot of young women speak these days? So many seem to want to speak like little girls, with high pitched nasal intonation and copious grinning and simpering. I suppose I'm just a grumpy old bat, but I find this extremely irritating. On a recent Eggheads programme for example, three of the female challengers spoke like four year olds. They were all "stewdents" at "yewnee" and they twinkled and simpered their way through to the end of the quiz, in a very silly way. I was under the impression that we'd gained some level of equality over the last 40 years and that it was unnecessary to be excessively 'girly' to make one's way in the world?