CLEVELAND -- The 1940s Christmas classic "Baby, It's Cold Outside" no longer stands the test of time.
Not when its lyrics suggest a man who won't take no for an answer. Not when women who have felt silenced for decades have finally found a voice in the "Me Too" movement.
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That's why Cleveland radio station WDOK, also known as Star 102, has decided to cease playing the song, according to the station's website.
Weekday host Glenn Anderson noted the song was written in a different era, but "now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong."
Anderson went on to say, "In a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place."
"Even if the intentions aren't sinister, it’s simply exhausting to be a woman in that situation," wrote USA TODAY's Mary Nahorniak. "In the original score, the male part is written as a 'wolf' and the woman as a 'mouse' — that speaks volumes about male predatory behavior. Many women know what it’s like to feel trapped by a man, whether emotionally or physically. In those situations, it doesn’t matter how it began or why she wants to leave, it only matters that she wants to go, now."
Others have countered to say it ought to be considered from a historical standpoint: after all, it was written in the 1940s, a time when it would have been a scandal for an unmarried woman to spend the night at a man's house.
A "kind of culture of repression that would forbid this kind of hanging out,” Karen Tongsonm an English and gender studies associate professor at the University of Southern California, told USA TODAY last year. "The song itself is an effort to furnish female sexuality with a set of excuses as opposed to a coercive song.”
The song's lyrics include lines such as "I simply must go. The answer is no," and "Say, what's in this drink?"
WDOK also posted a poll to its website, asking listeners if they think the song should be aired, though results are not publicly viewable.
