Dear Dub: Three Cheers for Cat Lovers!
For those of you who don’t already know, the Dub is not only home to ten awesome and lovable humans, but also a precious and perfect little black cat named Merle. Naturally, since Merle is a staple of the household, when trying to figure out what to write my “Dear Dub” about, she came to mind. She reminded me how our society loves to gender everything. Something as simple and loving as a cat like Merle is shrouded in countless gender stereotypes.
I have found that there is a dichotomy of men and women liking cats. When a woman outwardly likes cats, she is dubbed (pun intended) crazy or lonely. However, when a man outwardly likes cats, he is seen as gentle and trustworthy. Why is this? Why is something so innocent as having a pet gendered, derogatory?
When I found out I would be living with a cat this year, I was beyond excited. Ever since I was little, I have loved cats. I like dogs too. I don’t believe liking both dogs and cats is mutually exclusive, but cats have a special place in my heart. To this day, I have two cats of my own. However, when I was younger, I was much less open about my love for cats. That’s because of the stereotype that I and all of the other children I grew up with knew and feared: that of the “crazy cat lady.” I was afraid that if people knew I liked cats more than dogs, I would be associated with the characteristics that accompanied the “crazy cat lady” – chronically single, lonely, lazy, pathetic, and crazy. None of these, by the way, are attributes most young women would want to be associated with.
I never quite recognized the other side of the “crazy cat lady” stereotype, the gentle and unassuming man, until recently when I took the time to really think about it. Men can have as many cats as they want, and they aren’t considered unlovable or unstable. Boys on the playground could like cats or they could not like cats, it didn’t matter. In fact, they were often praised and admired for liking cats because it showed how sensitive and kind they were.
The only explanation I can come up with for why this dichotomy exists is because cats are inherently associated with femininity and women associating with that femininity are something to critique. Instead of rejecting or hating her femininity like society tells her to, the “crazy cat lady” embraces it. She is comfortable with herself, and as a result, she is a threat to society.
In contrast, when men associate with that same exact femininity, they are seen as gracious, kind, and trustworthy. In self-reflection, I too am guilty of being disarmed by men who like cats more than dogs, subconsciously deeming them kinder and gentler. I will continue to question and challenge how and why that is not necessarily true. In the end, a cat is just a cat, and a person who likes cats is just a person who likes cats.