The rise of Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee has ushered in a much-needed boost of positive energy to this election season.
For the last couple of weeks, I have been swept up in the excitement flooding my social media feeds. My algorithm has been full of bratty Charli XCX coconut tree mashups, viral Chappell Roan “Kamala-nomenon” edits, and Gen-Z creators registering to vote on TikTok. This has led me to wonder, “Am I… hope-scrolling?”
Despite the online enthusiasm in our personalized echo chambers, this is still a close race. In November, we will have to choose between former prosecutor Kamala Harris, convicted felon Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.
Since Vance was welcomed into the MAGA-fold, a Fox News interview from 2021 has resurfaced after Hillary Clinton shared it on X with the caption, “What a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn’t hate women having freedoms.”
In the clip, Vance told Tucker Carlson:
“We are effectively run in this country … 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 … How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
He named the vice president as an example.
After a few days of taking heat online, Vance finally spoke about his disparaging comments on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” claiming his quotes were taken out of context. He suggested he was only “criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children.”
While Vance was calling the VP a “childless cat lady,” it is important to note that Harris is the stepmother of her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Cole and Ella.
Regardless of intention or attempt at humor— Vance’s comments highlight a misogynist attitude that goes back centuries. From witch trials to the suffragette movement and beyond, this sentiment reemerges whenever women’s rights are on the table.
In her book “All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation,” Rebecca Traister writes, “Women, it turns out, have been fighting their own battle for independence against politicians, preachers, and the popular press, since our founding.” Nothing has changed.
The “cat lady” comment didn’t surprise me. It is a tired joke akin to the classic, “Go make me a sandwich.”
“Cat lady,” a modern variation of “spinster,” is a term for unmarried, childless and career-oriented women. This stereotype is used to paint women like me as unattractive man-haters who lead miserable lives because we don’t live in ways that align with traditional gender rules.
Where did this “cat lady” stereotype come from?
Cats have always been associated with femininity. Our feline friends have been the victims of patriarchal society in ways some of us may not realize.
This has bonded our species in many respects. We share a similar history.
During the witch trials, Pope Innocent VIII declared war on cats, torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of them. He claimed they were conduits of Satan.
As Christianity gained popularity during the Inquisition, there was a strong condemnation and vilification of pagan deities and goddesses— many of whom took cat-like forms, like Bastet from Ancient Egypt.
During this period, cats and their owners were often killed together. In some instances, cats were suspected to be human witches in disguise, so they were killed because they obviously could not prove their innocence.
As centuries passed, our association with cats only became stronger.
The “cat lady” trope took off during women’s suffrage movements. Anti-suffragette propaganda included cats in its imagery to “represent the ‘loss’ of a man’s role in the family if women got the right to vote.”
This propaganda reinforces the stereotype by suggesting women own cats and other pets as a way to cope with loneliness caused by independence, career ambition, singleness and childlessness. It presumes the only way to feel safe and secure is to be protected by marriage.
It is a false assumption that all single women are miserable people. That’s not to say we don’t experience sadness or loneliness like everyone else, but the root cause of those issues is not inherently linked to our marital status.
Using terms like “cat lady” is designed to shame single, childless women into marriage and motherhood so they can be seen as “good” and “right.” It encourages us to view childless, unmarried women as mysterious, modern-day witches set on destroying our communities and breaking down the Christian family unit.
While I don’t have a cat (I am allergic, unfortunately), I am unmarried and childless. This is intentional— motherhood has never appealed to me and I am not actively seeking marriage.
The insinuation that my life has no real purpose, meaning, or value unless I am a part of someone else through marriage or parenthood is offensive.
Many women like myself have worked hard to live out a different dream: working well-paying and fulfilling jobs that provide a safe place to live, where they can spend time with friends and family. They also take up hobbies, travel, and spend their money how they want.
How I live my life is neither the wrong nor the only right way to live. The beauty of feminism is that it grants us the option to choose our own paths.
This does not suggest marriage and motherhood lack purpose, fulfillment, and meaning. I have so much respect for my mother and all the mothers I know.
They do so much for us and should be celebrated and held in high esteem. We would not be here without our mothers.
In fact, I don’t think we do enough to support parents. The United States is the only developed country without guaranteed paid parental leave.
My problem is with the outdated notion that women have only one socially acceptable path to walk and that our lives amount to nothing if we don’t have a family of our own. There are many ways to leave a legacy.
As a Christian, I have been taught to love my neighbor, look out for the less fortunate, care about justice for all, and be involved in my community. Those principles will remain true to my life, with or without children. Investing in the future of this country without having to have kids is called empathy.
Traister writes, “[W]omen have responsibilities to other human beings, to their work, their colleagues, to families who are not their own.”
What is most troubling is Vance’s ideas regarding voting power:
“When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids … If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”
Not only is this outrageous, it is anti-democratic. It is an alarming example of the MAGA infatuation with policies like those of far-right authoritarian leaders like Viktor Orbán, who have sought to do this exact thing in Hungary.
This position is incredibly hurtful to women who do want kids but, for whatever reason, are unable to achieve their dream of becoming a mother.
At the creation of our nation, the only group that could vote were white male landowners. We are not going back to unfair voting advantages for the few. Our reproductive choices and health should not dilute our voting power.
Vance argues that childless people have no stake in the country’s future and then suggests we should have less voting power. It sounds like we do have personal stakes in this election and the future of this country.
We all have a civic duty to protect and participate in our democracy, regardless of whether we have children. Trump’s latest tirade about “not having to vote anymore” and details surrounding Project 2025 should concern us all.
His criminality, greed and bigotry, paired with Vance’s catty, careless comments and anti-choice history, only make us so-called “cat ladies” even more determined to make a statement this November.
Be ready for Election Day at Vote.org.
Creative coordinator for publishing and marketing at Good Faith Media. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Missouri Southern State University and her Associate of Arts degree from Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri. Chisholm was an Ernest C. Hynds Jr. intern with GFM for the summer of 2021.
