Cats and their women owners are having a moment in America. Thanks to JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential pick, cats and women were snared in the right-wing spotlight. Women and dogs and women with horses and women and cockatoos, not so much.
By now, it’s doubtful that anyone has missed Vance’s offhand remarks. When he was running for Senate, he said on Fox that one of the biggest problems facing America was that it’s being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
Vance didn’t stop there, he went on to namecheck Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Never mind that the Vice President has two stepchildren, while the Secretary and his husband Chasten are now parents of twins.
Even for an aspiring senator from a right-wing state, Vance’s rhetoric was remarkably insensitive, an insult to women over 45 who have never had a child. In one fell swoop, he managed to alienate one-sixth of the voters. It apparently was his clumsy attempt to paint the GOP as the pro-family party and smear Democrats as anti-family, anti-child radicals.
Vance’s remarks prompted Sen. Patty Murray, among others, to push back, saying, “I can’t believe I have to say this but a woman’s stake in our society has nothing to do with having children or owning cats.” She identified it as “weird and off-putting.”
When much criticized, Vance tried to pass off his harsh words as mere “sarcasm,” a ploy not unlike Donald Trump dismissing his intemperate rhetoric as “making a joke.” Vance described not having children as “a catastrophic problem,” but he backed off enough to add “I have nothing against cats.”
It is doubtful Vance can sidestep responsibility for this gaffe – not after having authored the introduction to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. That’s the 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” aimed at turning the clock back – way, way back. Heritage wants to return to the years prior to the 1970s, when women began once again to assert their rights. That coincided with the Supreme Court approving Roe v Wade in 1973.
What cats have to do with our country’s present or past is not obvious. But there were frightening undertones to Vance’s “childless cat ladies” phraseology. During the Middle Ages in Europe, cats were linked to paganism and witchcraft. The first woman condemned as a witch, Dame Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, was suspected of heresy and sorcery. She had a black cat, seen by some as a devil-like incubus. After conviction, Dame Alice fled to England, leaving behind her unfortunate maid servant Petronella who was whipped, tortured and burned at the stake.
Cats also figured prominently in convictions during the 17th Century Salem witch trials.
In the early 20th Century, cats somehow became symbolic of women’s right to vote. They were pictured in anti-suffragist propaganda to portray single women as shrill and unable to find a mate, forced to seek companionship with cats.
That JD Vance decided to attack women on how they should live their lives and with what choice of companions is supremely offensive to any thinking person. Was he saying women are not full and legitimate members of society if they have not given birth? Who is he to dictate choices others should be able to make for themselves?
There is the worrisome thought that, if Trump is elected, he will give JD Vance carte blanche to push the scary details of the 2025 project’s reactionary thinking. For example, will his administration enforce the report’s recommendation to cut federal funds to any state that fails to hand over detailed reports on abortions that take place within its borders?
It is incredible in the third decade of the 21st century that this nation is faced with making a choice between polar opposites on citizen freedoms. In one camp, there are people like Vance who want to take away or severely limit women’s right to decide about having children. In the other, there are those who want to protect a woman’s right to choose.
The “childless cat ladies” slur has become an ugly stain on a Republican party that once celebrated freedom and that now has allied itself with those who would curtail reproductive rights if not totally obliterate them. One is left to ponder why Republicans like Vance loathe childless women so much. The question now is whether they’ll drop all pretense – leaving cats aside – and flat-out target women, childless or not? It’s a party that risks sabotaging its future.
No one who knows me would say I have much in common with JD Vance, other than describable as “White guy with beard.” However, since Vance bungled his attempt at apologizing for his now-famous slur, I feel someone should apologize on Vance’s behalf to everyone offended by Vance’s commentary on “childless cat ladies”, not only because it is an offensive statement, but because I have known “cat ladies”, and have used that descriptor in a pejorative fashion. So here goes.
“Dear people who read these words: It is a sad fact that at times we human beings speak of our fellow humans in derogatory or demeaning terms. I have done it, and most of you probably have done so as well, at one time or another. For my failings in this regard, I am sincerely regretful, and mindful of the hurt I may have caused others.
One of our current candidates for high office has spoken disparagingly of people who have cats, but not children. I am not a supporter of his, and won’t be voting for him, but I am a man and an American. On behalf of all American men of whatever political stripe, I apologize for his behavior.”
Of course, no one cares what I have to say in this matter, since I am not a public figure and basically no one should give a hoot what I have to say on anything.
To Mr. Vance — in the unlikely event he is reading this comment — I say, “JD, your comment was a disparagement and inappropriate. Your ‘apology’ was bumbling and sounded insincere.
Now repent, go and boor no more!”
Thank you.
Apology accepted with a heartfelt smile.
For all the childless women who were left sterile when their mothers took the miscarriage prevention drug diethylstilbestrol (1945 – 1971) that left them sterile (~80%) and with a high risk for cancer – we had no choice in having children.
One final thought to contemplate: No U.S. president has ever birthed a child.
Apparently, childless and single dog guys are not an offense to Mr. Vance. Slightly off topic: Donald and Melania Trump have neither a cat nor dog. They don’t have a pet bird, a snake, a rat, a lizard, nothing. If Barron Trump pleaded for a puppy, they ignored him. I find it hard to trust people who don’t like animals but like to collect hunting trophies. And by the way: Does J.D. Vance have a dog or a cat? He won’t say.
Dear Jean,
Thank you for your excellent evisceration of another Republican Idiot. It is remarkable how many emotionally crippled, mean-spirited and poison-mouthed men flock to the Republican standard. The party trawls the partisan sewer and comes up with Trump and Vance! This is a party with a crowded bench. Keep at them! Hoist them on their own petards!