FYI, JD Vance Isn't The First Man To Resent Cat Ladies — They've Always Been Politicized

Anna Moneymaker / GK Hart/Vikki Hart // Getty Last week, JD Vance doubled down on his comments about “miserable” “childless cat ladies” running the government while having no “direct stake in” the future of the country. And the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true,” Vance said, before criticizing the low birthrate in the U.S. Vance’s weird pet peeves about childless women and their cats plays on a century-old trope: Unmarried, “Grey Gardens”-esque spinsters living with their cats and very little human contact. Before women gained the right to vote ― in 1920 in the U.S. and in 1918 in the U.K. ― anti-suffrage propaganda used cats to emphasize that women would not be effective voters “because of their naturally more docile, weak, and feline-like tendencies,” according to Kelly L. Marino, a lecturer in the department of history at Sacred Heart University and the author of “Votes for College Women Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign.” The idea was that a woman voting would be as pointless and comical as a cat casting a ballot. “That was true when women fought for the right to vote, to have all the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy, and it is true today, when the two political parties present such different views of what women can do, like whether women can be trusted with the right to decide about our own lives and bodies.” Bettmann via Getty Images Smartly, those in the women’s rights movements reclaimed the image of the cat as a symbol of quiet strength, said Kelly L. Marino, the author of “Votes for College Women Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign.” Women with cats ― and cats themselves ― were maligned long before the suffrage movement, though. For many on the right ― Vance included ― the relationship women have with their cats is still threatening today, said Corey Wrenn, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Kent and the author of “A Rational Approach to Animal Rights.” “It’s a direct threat to the unfair bargain that patriarchy has traditionally forced on women, necessitating that the human-nonhuman bond be admonished by male institutions,” Wrenn said, noting the stereotype about lesbians owning cats.