I’m loving all the controversy that reporters stirred up recently when they resurfaced comments J.D. Vance made about crazy childless cat ladies. But Vance isn’t the only one. A recent HuffPost article also outed Blake Masters, an Arizona Republican congressional candidate, for similar comments.
A lot of celebs have weighed in. Jennifer Aniston, with her very personal take on why she’s remained childless all this time, and Chelsea Handler’s child-free clap-back are among my favorites.
It’s good to see strong women speaking up like this. And empowering. Which is ironic because that’s exactly what Vance and Masters and other misogynists fear the most. Women who can both think and speak for themselves. Now these buffoons have gone and kicked the hornet’s nest and are surprised they’re getting stung.
What Vance and Masters Said About Crazy Childless Cat Ladies
CNN reported that during an appearance on a conservative podcast in November 2020, Vance said “that childless Americans, especially those in the country’s ‘leadership class,’ were ‘more sociopathic’ than those with children and made the country ‘less mentally stable.'”
Vance and other Republicans love to try and portray the Democratic Party as “anti-family” and “anti-child.” Something he recently reiterated in a chat with Megyn Kelly on her podcast while trying to defend his “crazy cat lady” comments.
But he revealed the depth of just how clueless a comedian he is when he explained, “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats.”
Duh. No one questioned that, Captain Obvious. Not even the cats, who know what a woman-hater you are.
HuffPost highlighted similar comments Masters made, which included criticizing unmarried childless women as “dysfunctional,” “sick,” and “demented.”
I’ll give him props for utilizing the thesaurus to find synonyms for “crazy,” but it sure doesn’t help with his logic.
Semantics Matter
Childless vs. Child-free
What Vance and Masters clearly don’t get because they’re too clueless and insensitive is that some folks are “childless” while others are “child-free.” There are reasons for both.
In the childless camp, you have some who experience fertility problems. Others have spouses who don’t want kids so not having them is a compromise they made as a couple for the sake of their marriage. Some even fall into the childless camp because they had kids, but they died. There’s no word for that like there is for “orphan” or “widower,” though. So Vance, with his argument that “childless” people have less of a stake in America’s future, is a particularly painful slap to those whose children no longer have a future.
Then you have the child-free camp. That’s the word Vance and Masters would be better advised to summon in their attacks. It’s who they really fear.
Not everyone should have children, and a lot of child-free people understand that. Maybe they had a toxic upbringing and don’t want to risk re-creating that. Maybe they fear the process of childbirth and the physical toll it takes on a person’s body. Perhaps they don’t have the money and subscribe to the “don’t breed ’em if you can’t feed ’em” mentality.
Child-free folks should be praised rather than blasted for being selfish. They’ve made a thoughtful decision. I’d be more impressed if people like Vance and Masters took time to understand the complexity of all that. Then again, that’d be asking a lot because if it’s not black or white, they’re ill-equipped to appreciate nuances.
Sociopath vs. psychotic
As for Vance and Masters’ rhetoric when it comes to the “crazy” component of the scary cat ladies they fear, they need to pick a lane and stick to it. Especially because this crazy cat lady is about to argue the “crazy” they’re describing is not cat ladies, but rather the mentality of their unhinged Republican party.
Verywell Mind summed up sociopaths vs. psychopaths thusly:
Sociopaths have a conscience, albeit a weak one, and will often justify something they know to be wrong. By contrast, psychopaths will believe that their actions are justified and feel no remorse for any harm done.
I only need two words to highlight the insanity of their arguments against crazy cat ladies: gun control. Guns are arguably more harmful and pose a bigger threat to society, especially to children with all the school shootings, than do childless “elites” in the “leadership class.” Those are exactly the type of people trying to pass measures to save children’s lives with gun reforms, while Republicans are doing what?
{Insert crickets here.}
That’s right. They’re doing nothing. Except sucking the teat of the NRA for their own personal gains. Who’s the selfish one again?
Why Child-free Crazy Cat Ladies Are the Scariest of All
Let’s face it. Kids keep women occupied. It frees up men to do whatever the hell they want, which honestly usually is one of two things:
- Not doing much at all, or
- Getting into trouble.
Women without kids are free to think, and that can only lead to problems when we start questioning things. Like how Christianity is a rape religion, and the men who wrote the Bible martyred Mary. Then they marketed that story to women as piety and a virtue to aspire to. While the subtext has always been “rape is acceptable because that’s how Jesus was born. So you should always be okay getting raped.”
If women start questioning control mechanisms like that, men are screwed. They’re smart enough to know that.
And while they want to “make America great again,” they’re too ignorant to realize technology will never let that happen. I despise social media for a lot of reasons, but when it allows voices to rise up and be heard and call out asshats like Trump, Vance, Masters, MTG, and all the other despicable, unhinged, un-patriotic terrorists trying to divide the United States, I’m all for it.
Because they did more than kick a hornet’s nest by trying to mask their misogyny with a seemingly innocuous term like “crazy cat lady.” It serves as a rallying cry to us. Now they’ve got a whole clowder with voting power on their hands to contend with.
Meow.
Which is crazy cat lady kitty speak for, “You’re toast come November, motherf–ckers!”
So, yeah. When they say “crazy cat ladies” like it’s a bad thing, it is. For them.
Something Even Worse
But there’s something even worse than a childless crazy cat lady: A child-free crazy skeleton lady.
Oh yeah. I own my crazy all day long and am a proud MOM to both a cat AND a skeleton. So come at me, you woman-hating boys. I pity the fool who tries to constrain me with any sort of literal or figurative straightjacket. Let’s go!
Here we go…in November! 🙂