Creativity Quote by Kristin Hersh

It lands like a casual anecdote, but it’s really a field report from inside the gatekeeping machine. Hersh isn’t describing a single rude DJ; she’s exposing an industry logic that treats “women” as a genre with a strict quota, not as artists competing on equal terms. The phrasing “supposed to be interviewing me” matters: she arrives expecting a professional exchange, only to discover the terms were never neutral. The interview was always conditional, always subject to a hidden policy that can’t be defended publicly, so it gets framed as a neutral programming concern.

The line “too many women right now” carries the whole scam. It implies there’s a natural ceiling to female presence on air, as if listeners will tolerate only so much of it before tuning out. That’s not taste; it’s risk management disguised as taste. Hersh’s blunt repetition - “play my record… can’t play your record” - underlines how quickly an individual body of work gets collapsed into a demographic problem. Her record isn’t being assessed; her category is being managed.

Contextually, this is the rock-era version of “diversity slots,” long before the language got polished. Radio rotation was power: it created hits, tours, careers. When stations tell an artist the quota’s full, they’re not just rejecting a song; they’re manufacturing scarcity for everyone who doesn’t fit the default. Hersh’s restraint makes it sting more. No grandstanding, just the absurdity stated plainly, letting the sexism convict itself.