When Taylor Swift announced her support for Kamala Harris' presidential campaign last week, she signed her post “childless cat women,” a reference to Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance's 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, in which he said Democrats are “a bunch of childless cat women living miserable lives.”
journalist El Hunt and Helen Pidd I reflect on my own experiences as a cat owner and why the sexist trope of the “childless cat-loving woman” is no longer relevant in 2024.
Professor Diane Purkiss She explains the history of women's relationship with cats and how the idea of a lonely woman who is obsessed with cats has been widely used as a misogynistic insult throughout history. She wasn't surprised to see J.D. Vance's comments.
“I immediately interpreted this as part of a witch-hunt, misogynistic mindset that suggests that women who don't fit into very narrow stereotypes set by men, rather than women themselves, are somehow crazy, unworthy or worthless.”
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