Radio station says it’s honoring women by only playing songs by male singers for ‘Day Without A Woman’

An Alabama radio station has sparked controversy with its unusual method of celebrating “A Without A Woman.”

WUHT/Hot 107.7 announced Wednesday that two of the station’s female disc jockeys would be skipping work to show solidarity with the strike, organized by the group who led the Women’s March on Washington after the inauguration in January. The station also said it planned to only play songs featuring male singers.

“This was an easy decision for us,” Ken Johnson, the station’s operation manager, told AL.com. “Women are our core listeners and these women contribute a great deal to our sound. Honoring women by highlighting to the community how important they are is a no-brainer.

“Plus, hearing more Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross is not a bad thing.”

However, the decision to remove female singers from the airwaves was slammed by some activists as counter-productive to the strike’s stated aims. The strike’s organizers called for women across the country to take the day off from work to recognize “the enormous value that women of all backgrounds add to our socio-economic system.”

Critics say the station’s action instead quite literally silenced women’s voices and argued that because the songs by female artists have already been recorded and distributed, the move does not fufill the strike’s goals.

Instead, commenters said the station would have been better served by playing only female artists Wednesday, which is also International Women’s Day.

Still, the move was also praised by some, who said the absence of women’s voices on the airwaves would highlight how integral women are to the recording industry.

This story was originally published March 8, 2017 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Radio station says it’s honoring women by only playing songs by male singers for ‘Day Without A Woman’."