Calling all Cat Ladies!

Cat ladies are everywhere in pop culture and, these days, even in politics. From Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange to Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, this trope has been featured in film and television for a long time. But while it might seem to be a 20th-century contemporary media phenomena, its roots go back to the 13th century - and a fear of female power.

In the ancient long ago, women and their cats were something to be celebrated. Freya, the Norse goddess of love and fertility, rode a chariot driven by cats - a great mode of transportation for sure! And she’s not the only goddess whose relationship with cats was acknowledged -  there’s also the Chinese goddess, Li Shou, and the Egyptian half-woman, half-cat goddess, Bastet. 

Jump to the early 20th century, when women began to campaign for the right to vote. There was something potentially threatening about this. If women had a say in politics, what else would they want? Access to their own money or a job? What more? Cats quickly became the image of the anti-suffrage movement and were used in propaganda to show how silly suffragettes were. In posters, cats were dressed up in women’s clothing to portray women as animalistic and trivial and to show that women’s rights activists were lonely old, furry spinsters who hated men.

This image has carried on ever since and was captured in media in a more nuanced way throughout the 20th century. Women who own cats are still an easy target and a sneaky way to ridicule an entire gender - and we all know that cats aren’t evil but are beautiful and multi-faceted pets.

It seems that finally, in the 21st-century, we are moving towards reclaiming the crazy cat lady trope. Some of us proudly shop for women designed cat lady gear. Even celebrities are self-proclaiming their cat lady status, including Taylor Swift who is absolutely in love with her three cats. She takes them out and about on day trips to New York City and even includes them in her music videos - obviously the best Cat Mom of them all.

So, if you’re gifted a cat-lady t-shirt, button, or tote bag for your birthday, especially this year, wear it with pride for all the cat ladies before you, and the ones that will follow! The cat lady label should be something to wholeheartedly embrace.