Why Do 'Crazy', Childless Cat Ladies Scare Men So Much?

US Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance's 2021 comment about "childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made'' has set the cat among the pigeons. Well, not so much among pigeons, but certainly among a lot of women who have come out breathing fire that he dared to make such a disparaging remark about women who do not have children. They have slammed his misogyny, his contempt for the choices that women make, and his portrayal of women without children as joyless creatures who try to fill their empty lives with their cats. (Clearly, Vance thinks that a mewling cat fits his vision of a pathetic childless woman much better than a barking dog).

Vance's remark was, of course, a political one, meant to belittle women leaders in the liberal Democratic fold - women like Vice-President Kamala Harris, for instance - who do not have biological children. Nevertheless, there's no doubt that it sprang from his deeply held belief that there is something lacking in women who are childless. That they are incomplete, incompetent, socially detached, and, hence, unworthy of respect. 

Sounds familiar? Of course, it does! We Indian women are all too acquainted with this belief system. So much so that we could be forgiven for wondering what the caterwaul over Vance's comment is all about. Heck, the guy merely verbalised his belief as offensively as he could, but isn't this hostility exactly what childless women in our society are subjected to? Which makes one wonder if Vance's sterling opinion about childless women was also bolstered by his Indian wife Usha, who is a serious procreator and has produced three children.