General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSorry JD Vance, but being a 'childless cat lady' is actually not a bad thing (Guardian)
Arwa Mahdawi
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Anyway, Im not really here to write about what a hateful and self-serving hypocrite Vance is*. A million thinkpieces have been published on that already. If youre in a masochistic mood please do read up on how excited he is to force rape victims to give birth and how he thinks divorce laws have gone too far and how he reckons Britain is an Islamist country.
No, what Im really here to say is that, rather than being the insult conservatives seem to think it is, childless cat lady is a state that more women actually ought to aspire to. Rather than being miserable, as Vance said, women who are childfree by choice are often happier and healthier than men and married women with children. This isnt my opinion; theres data that backs this up. Back in 2019, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, made headlines when, during a speech at Hay festival, he cited evidence that women are happier without kids or a spouse.
[I[f youre a man, you should probably get married; if youre a woman, dont bother, Dolan joked about the longitudinal data suggesting the healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children. Dolan didnt say anything about cats but Im sure theres a case to be made that a feline friend only adds to life satisfaction. Of course, theres no point telling the likes of Vance that their misogynistic and anti-cat assumptions are wrong. Republicans dont like to have facts get in the way of their feelings.
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more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/20/jd-vance-childless-by-choice
*But she does a pretty good job of that, with links in the article.
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ck4829
(35,519 posts)hlthe2b
(104,705 posts)Walleye
(33,709 posts)Men have been lying about marriage for a long time. Its really set up to serve the man. Some men act like its some kind of jail sentence.
Ocelot II
(119,038 posts)"I'm A Childless Cat Lady And I Vote."
spooky3
(35,502 posts)And get a royalty for each one they sell.
By the way, I have several friends who are proud cat daddies and theyd surely like a bumper sticker or magnet, too.
spooky3
(35,502 posts)Denigrating dog owners in that way. In fact, an old guy and his loyal dog are admired.
Ocelot II
(119,038 posts)Cats are about the same size as human infants, they have round faces and big round eyes and make squeaky baby-like sounds, ergo they must be baby substitutes for sad, homely old maids who never could get a husband or have children of their own, so they adopt these little baby-like animals to fill that great empty void in their lives that attractive, sexy, real women with husbands were able to satisfy.
Actually, the great thing about cats is that they aren't much like children at all. Some have compared them to deranged toddlers with fangs and claws and the ability to leap six feet straight into the air, but the similarity ends there. You don't have to buy them clothes or take them on play dates or impoverish yourself to save for their college or wipe their butts (usually) or step on their Legos barefoot or worry that they're going to crash your car. Life with cats has its own challenges, but I've never envied people with children, and I sure as hell don't care what a hateful fake-hillbilly neckbeard like JD Vance thinks.
bhcodem
(234 posts)If childless cat ladies are so effective in running the country, how can that be a bad thing??
KT2000
(20,735 posts)what a crazy thing to come up with - angry childless cat ladies running the country?!?!?!? But I do get it - his dream of the male dominated family is ruined by childless cat ladies who are not under anyone's thumb, except for maybe the cat. They are out of his control.
spooky3
(35,502 posts)In general by calling them girls.
RobinA
(10,037 posts)I didn't get this reference when he made it ànd I don't today. Where are childless cat ladies, and I am one, running the country? Most of the childless cat ladies I know go about their business, spend time on what interests them, and generally seem to enjoy their lives of friends and family.
WarGamer
(14,071 posts)I was a "dog person" all my life until I was in my 40's...
Then I discovered that cats are loving and sensitive, fun and energetic and brighten the home by their presence.
As I'm getting older... we recently lost both our dog and our cat and I'm not sure I'll get another dog.
Three cheers for people surrounding themselves with LOVE whether it's a spouse, friends, children, dogs or yes, cats.
womanofthehills
(9,095 posts)I was photographing a friends kids and their sweet puppy took a liking to me whenever I would kneel down. By the time I left, I told them I was in love with their puppy. Months later they text me their dog keeps jumping over the fence & they need to rehome him. They said lots of their friends wanted him but I seemed to love him the most.
So I ended up the the sweetest most affectionate dog I ever had & he is so attached to me - he had such anxiety if I left him alone, II had to go to the shelter & get him a female. They love each other & now in my old age I have 2 big super sweet dogs. Oh well!!
WarGamer
(14,071 posts)Jilly_in_VA
(10,606 posts)J.D. can kiss my.....well you get the idea. My cats' too, if he can catch them! I vote, every time, and they would if they were allowed to.
Hissssss! Spit!
barbaraann
(9,273 posts)They are the most remarkable creatures in the universe!
Metaphorical
(1,997 posts)For a number of reasons, we live in a pretty nice apartment complex that allows pets. It is basically the manifestation of the pet parent culture - lots of single or divorced women and men of various ages, (though trending younger, not surprisingly) quite a few couples both traditional and not, relatively few children. About 1 in 3 have pets, primarily dogs and cats.
We are reaching a point in our society where marriage and childbearing is no longer considered a mandatory activity. Fewer people own homes (or can afford to), birth control has reduced the number of accidental children dramatically, religion (which generally encourages children "within the faith" is diminishing in importance, and companionship, rather than sex, is becoming the biggest motivator for couples to stay attached to one another. So it's not even remotely surprising that pets are replacing children on people's bucket lists.
This is bad news for conservatives in particular. The male conservative mindset is one of dominance, and this begins by dominating your spouse and your children. The worst thing that you can call a conservative man is henpecked - it implies that they don't have "control" over their families. Conservatives have strong ideas about roles and dominance in society as well, and even in many corporations, you can't get into senior management if you aren't married (and male), partially because being married also means that you are not likely to up and reroot your home and your family if a better opportunity comes along. Single men are less religious, yet married women also tend to create their own societies within churches that tie the men to those churches as well. Religions have always encourage large families as well, because this equates to more true believers indoctrinated in the church from the time that they are in diapers.
There's a reason that cats have long been seen with suspicion by churches. Men "need" women for many reasons, but women for the most part only "need" men because bearing and raising children (and all of the attendant work that comes with it) means that they aren't spending time developing their own economic foundation. An independent woman with cats for companionship doesn't fall within the control structures of either churches or their contemporary corporate counterparts, and this gives them power of their own. This is a very thing not only to conservative men, but also incels (who for some reason would probably find life much more enjoyable if they got a cat).
Confession: My wife and I have two female adult children and two cats, though the younger of the two, a shorthair calico, thinks that she's a dog (she was raised around dogs and has a very high pitched voice that she uses to howl with), while the older is a 14-year-old Russian Blue kitty who is, as the vet has told us, borrowing lives from other cats, and we're already preparing for the time when she leaves us.
So I may be a bit biased.
roamer65
(36,891 posts)Not everyone is meant to be married with children.
To each their own.
alarimer
(16,410 posts)Men's happiness is all that matters to misogynists. Women do not have their own lives, thoughts, opinions, etc. They exist only to serve men; their only purpose is to have and raise kids. Women's happiness or well-being is entirely irrelevant in this worldview.
Women are not even people to these folks. So they especially hate women (with or without cats) that they cannot control.
LetMyPeopleVote
(151,425 posts)This made me smile
Link to tweet
https://www.rawstory.com/jd-vance-women/
The Ohio senator and freshly minted Republican presidential nominee once dismissed Vice President Kamala Harris now the likely Democratic presidential nominee as a legitimate stakeholder in the nation she hopes to lead because, he argued, she did not have any children of her own and instead kept cats as pets.
"We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they've made," Vance told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021.....
After that clip aired, the show's producers cut to Brzezinski sitting at her desk and stroking a cat on her lap.
"I've just got to say," she said dryly as others on set laughed, "My kids are older. Does that make me childless? I want to qualify."....
"If people are saying, well, this is just because Joe was a member [of Congress] so long ago, I keep talking about the guy in Iowa," Scarborough added. "What's his name? Steve King, yeah, they got rid of him in 2015 or 2016 for saying things then that would have put him, like, at the Republican National Convention in primetime giving speeches. I'm not joking, like, I'm not joking. That is how quickly the Republican Party has gone. They keep losing elections. Just run as a Republican, a traditional Republican. You'd be shocked at what might happen on the national level."