People love to hate cats. Depicting them as cold, aloof and solitary, cat haters have long tried to validate their disdain for felines, but to no avail. Whether they like it or not, cats are popping up everywhere, from memes to cafes.
TikTok user @june_banoon’s famous video of Mashed Potato, a neighborhood cat to whom they sang the now famous sound “Here comes the boy, hello boy,” has around 42.3 million views and has received 9.5 million likes.
One of Taylor Swift’s cats, Olivia Benson, is currently the third richest pet in the world, with a net worth of approximately $97 million. The singer’s lyrics are also full of references to her furry friends. In “Gorgeous,” Swift resigns herself to stumbling home to her cats when she fails to entice her love interest. Additionally, in “Karma,” she portrays the titular force as a cat purring in her lap because it loves her.
With cats gaining so much attention in pop culture lately, it’s a wonder that they continue to garner so much negativity. Part of the reason may be due to cats’ historical association with women. The stereotype of the crazy cat lady often comes to mind. When women gossip about one another, they’re being “catty.” Further, when they get into an argument, it’s a “catfight.” The misogynistic undertones of this language go back hundreds of years.
Cats really weren’t despised until the Middle Ages in Europe; before then, there was evidence that cats and humans coexisted peacefully for thousands of years. In popular thought, ancient Egypt is conceived of as the first major cat-obsessed culture. However, scientists uncovered a burial site in Cyprus that contained the bones of a kitten that preceded the development of Egyptian civilization. The discovery of these skeletal remains places the domestication of cats between 9,500 and 12,000 years ago, which corresponds with the transition humans made from hunting and gathering to agriculture. In fact, it’s very likely that wildcats domesticated themselves so humans could protect them from other larger prey. In return, the wildcats hunted the mice that threatened humans’ stores of crops.
Later, ancient Egyptians transformed the cat into a symbol of divinity and protection. Not only did cats continue to ward off rodents but they also protected humanity from more dangerous pests, like snakes and scorpions. One Egyptian deity, Bastet, the goddess of domesticity and fertility, has been pictured with both the lead of a lioness and a domestic cat. Cats even followed their owners to the afterlife: tomb scenes depict them playing or chasing birds, and archeologists have even located their mummified remains within the tombs of their owners.
In the 13th century, however, things took a turn for the worse when Pope Gregory IX released his “Vox in Rama.” The document was the first piece of legislation from a pope that connected cats to witchcraft, thus creating a tangible link between women and the once-respected animal. And just like that, the original cat lady was born.
Within the “Vox,” the Pope described in graphic detail the Satanic rituals that witches took part in. Such practices included kissing a black cat and interacting with Lucifer, who was portrayed as a man with cat-like features. There was also a popular belief that witches used cats as familiars and could even transform into them in order to harm other people. As a result of the Pope’s “Vox,” both suspected witches and cats were persecuted and killed for their alleged crimes against the Catholic Church.
Later, even after witch hunts largely died down, cats were still associated with women in an effort to ridicule their attempts at independence. During the Victorian period in England, cats were viewed as the only companions of old maids who were doomed to miserable, childless lives. When women began fighting for the right to vote, anti-suffragette propaganda featured cats to undermine women’s emergence as a major political force. Even today, women who have trouble finding a partner may jokingly resign themselves to a life of adopting an ever-increasing number of cats.
Despite the socially entrenched idea of the “crazy cat lady,” no scientific evidence suggests that women who own a lot of cats will eventually fulfill this trope. Rather, studies show that cats can form intimate bonds with their owners and care deeply about their human companions. They can detect changes in their owners’ habits and emotions, and may be able to understand their own names when called. Furthermore, the relationship between cats and humans has evolved beyond the need for simple protection or pest control. Owning a cat has enormous health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure and releasing feel-good hormones like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.
There may be, however, some explanation for why cats tend to gravitate toward women. One study reveals that women are more likely than men to interact with their feline friends. Since cats typically reward kind behavior, it makes sense that they would have better relationships with women, so the connection between the two may not be entirely unfounded.
Still, it’s time to abandon the crazy cat lady stereotype. Portraying women as eccentric or lonely because they enjoy spending time with cats only functions as an outdated, misogynistic endeavor to mock their interests. Throughout history, those in power have altered the perception of women and their connection to cats to serve their own agendas. These perceptions are full of contradictions — women and cats are both seductive yet solitary, demonic yet domestic — that demonstrate the inability of those who wield this stereotype to solidify the message they want to project about either cats or women. Embracing cats and women in all of their complexities, as well as enjoying hilariously cute online cat content, is surely the best way forward.
