Jack may be annoying, but Jill's an airhead

BEING A WOMAN and all, I'm supposed to like woman-ish things. Like soy drinks. And ceramics. And any cable show that combines wall stenciling and spontaneous crying. "Women's culture" is everywhere; the cable companies do us the favor of grouping the female-oriented channels together like bunches of daisies, and the entire front sections of chain bookstores are mostly devoted to the coffee-table books and chick lit that women apparently devour in far greater numbers than men.

Maybe that's why I've always loved radio. Its lack of a visual element has always implied a sort of gender neutrality.

Sure, there are hyper-masculine shock jocks and earnest, feminine call-in advice shows, but there's something about radio -- maybe the fact that most of us listen when we're alone -- that's personal rather than social and, by extension, taps into our "personhood" rather than our maleness or femaleness.

But no more. I've recently realized there's a radio station in Southern California that's just for women. Think of it as calcium supplements or Secret deodorant for your ears. It's called Jill FM, and it can be found at 92.7, although, because of its relatively few transmitters, it can't yet be found very easily.

It plays artists such as Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Faith Hill, as well as some "deep cuts" from the past. Even though you can hear this stuff on regular, coed radio stations, we know Jill FM is a girl thing because the logo, on the website, is a lipstick smudge. Also, the promos feature a saucy female voice saying things like "Jill says: 'The only thing more unreliable than an Italian car is the man who drives one.' "

I stumbled on Jill FM when I veered slightly to the left of 93.1 Jack FM, that no-request, no-DJ station that purports to be absurdly eclectic but, I've noticed, seems to play the B-52's "Rock Lobster" at least 500 times a week. I thought Jill was affiliated with Jack, but when I called up Robert Christy, general manager of Jill FM, I learned that she's very much her own woman.

"We decided that Jill isn't a radio station but a person who owns a radio station," Christy told me (in reality, the owner is Amaturo Group of L.A.).

"Sure, women listen to Jack FM," he said. "But it's really for guys. Women like lyrical music. For instance, they like Queen's 'Killer Queen' but not 'We Will Rock You,' at least not all the time."