Taylor Swift will get it: Cats are higher than (some) males

Reader, I’ve a confession to make: I’m a lady who owns cats. 

This will look like an odd factor to name a “confession.” The phrase is related to secrets and techniques and disgrace. Like most cat homeowners, I battle to cease bragging about my cats. Like all cats, they’re the funniest and sweetest and cutest pets to ever grace Instagram. However with regularity, certainly one of my many male critics will hunt down my Instagram profile, and, in a tone suggesting they’re exposing my darkest secret to the whole web, unveil their accusation: That I’m a “cat girl.” Often on a submit about my cats. 

I giggle each time, as a result of it is humorous how misogynists cannot provide you with contemporary materials. “Cat girl” has been aimed for many years at any girl who believes there’s extra to life than snagging a marriage band. Would you like a profession? An training? A bit of enjoyable in your youth? Your “punishment”: To reside alone with cats. 

Taylor Swift’s reply to the “cat girl” insult? Do not threaten me with an excellent time. 

Swift was declared “Individual of the 12 months” by Time in 2023, which was already going to attract quite a lot of ire from people who find themselves skeptical that both girls or artists could be essential individuals. (Loads of overlap in these views!) So, like a cat proprietor dangling an irresistible toy in entrance of her pet, Swift baited her haters by posing for the duvet together with her cat.  

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In my conversations with Swifties, I’ve discovered quite a lot of pretty issues about why they adore her. A giant a part of it’s, with a cheeky humorousness, she channels their anger over the stress on girls to clip their very own wings to reside a lifetime of home servitude. In a world the place even the Washington Publish editorial board is begging girls to decrease their requirements to marry Trump voters, Swifties love that one of many world’s greatest pop stars presents her counternarrative: Given a selection between cats and a few bossy, ungrateful husband, we select cats. Whine all you need, dudes on the web, however there is not any altering info. Cats are clearly higher. 

And boy, quite a lot of males are responding to this cat image by proving that cats are higher. Like this prince, who calls himself the “host at @HardMenPodcast.” (Finest a part of that is he accurately assumes his out-of-touch viewers will not know who this girl is.)

One take a look at his beard and you understand it is higher to have a cat in your mattress. Studying his Twitter feed ends all doubt. A number of crap about how a person’s “mission is the glory of building godly households & generations.” Laborious to think about what that man has to supply, moreover a sinkful a dishes and a lifetime of ennui. The hilarity continued within the responses of Mr. Beardy Patriarch’s followers, all apt illustrations of web slang like “cringe” and “cope.” Most of it within the type of fruitlessly claiming that Swift is sad and lonely, or that she will regret being a famous pop star as a substitute of an nameless housewife. Or my favourite, the guy who threatened that she would end up like Madonna, whose music catalog he believes has been largely forgotten. 

Fact informed, these male tears are so tasty as a result of, as foolish as it could sound, the “cat girl” stereotype as soon as held quite a lot of energy. In a patriarchy, even the dumbest male opinions dominate. However greater than a stereotype, “cat girl” needs to be understood as a risk: Adjust to sexist calls for on girls, women, or you’ll die alone and unhappy. It is usually paired with the “tradwife” propaganda or the extra distinguished op-eds telling girls happiness is barely achievable by settling for an insufficient man. 

All this “cat girl” speak says little about girls’s precise lives, and extra concerning the anxieties of the individuals who push the parable. These fixations are each deeply sexist and racist. On the sexism entrance, there’s anger at girls for not subsuming their lives and labor to be unpaid help methods for males. On the racism entrance, which is turning into much less hidden within the MAGA period, there’s quite a lot of anger at white girls for not marrying younger and having oodles of youngsters, in order that white individuals can preserve the demographic dominance proper wingers consider is their due. 

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Swift has turn into a lightning rod for this racist, sexist rage, and never simply because she’s a phenomenal blonde who appears in no hurry to surrender her freewheeling life as a well-known musician. It is also due to her creative evolution. She began off as a rustic western ingenue from rural Pennyslvania, however has remade herself right into a New York-dwelling icon of cosmopolitan sophistication. She’s the alternative of these Hallmark films that relentlessly inform reactionary tales of the wayward skilled daughter coming to her mum or dad’s suburban/rural dwelling to marry the boy subsequent door.

Swift could also be a billionaire with preternatural attractiveness, however her story nonetheless resonates together with her millennial-and-younger fan base, as a result of their life trajectories usually map hers: Out of the constricted lives of conservative America and into the extra thrilling and fulfilling lives of city professionals. Swift’s music, not simply her persona, speaks to this as properly. Her songs are sometimes concerning the difficult dilemmas that crop up as extra girls embrace the comparatively latest alternative that’s true independence, particularly with regards to the place love suits of their lives. However it’s additionally romantic, optimistic music that displays the experiences of listeners, who would relatively have lives which are complicated and attention-grabbing than easy and boring. 

Lives that embody cats, in fact. As a result of cats are the right pets for an individual who generally works late, goes on dates or has a number of nights out with pals. Cats like to have you ever round, however will not come unglued in case you’re not round to scrub up after them for just a few hours. If solely extra males might be like cats! 

Definitely, the “cat girl” insult was on its manner out lengthy earlier than Swift provided us a horny reminder that single girls with cats will not be unhappy and homely spinsters. A lot of this is because of feminists sharing evidence that single women are, on common, happier than married girls — partially because they don’t have to work as hard. A lot of it is because of abnormal girls telling the reality about their lives, displaying that it is completely potential to reside freely whereas additionally having quite a lot of love and pleasure in your life. Many people have even revealed — shocker! — that one can have each a companion and cats, even when it makes the mattress a bit crowded. Cats have additionally finished their half, by becoming the internet’s favorite animal, making it appear downright bizarre to hate on cats.

Nonetheless, I feel will look again at Taylor Swift’s Time cowl as the ultimate nail within the coffin of the dumb “cat girl” slander. The dudes who responded with whining confirmed everybody the male insecurity fueling those that sling the smear. Fellas, in case you’re having a lot hassle competing with cats for a lady’s affection, that could be very a lot your drawback to resolve, not hers. Taylor has decreed it so.