Music megastar Taylor Swift is the “the poster girl for cat ladies”. So why does the trope persist as shorthand for a single, lonely, eccentric, sexless woman?
“I’ve always been interested in the labels that are placed on women and ‘cat lady’ just always stuck with me,” the Melbourne artist says.
In ancient times, felines and female deities went hand in hand with Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of domesticity, childbirth and women’s secrets portrayed as a half-cat, half-woman.However by the Middle Ages single, unmarried women faced accusations of witchcraft and rumours spread of women being able to turn themselves into cats.
“So long as you’ve got people like that making comments like that, it’s still a little bit scary,” McMonagle says. “It’s a joke still, but women no longer have to pretend to find it funny any more.” “The overarching idea with the cat lady stereotype is that the woman is single and doesn’t have children,” she says. “That idea reflects a very long history of women’s value to society and perceived value to society being hinged on whether she’s attractive enough to catch a husband and fertile enough to give him children.”
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