Donald Trump’s, running mate for the 2024 US election, JD Vance, has proven a liability after his criticism of prominent Democrats as “childless cat ladies” has resurfaced. The expression (and resulting meme) has unleashed anger from childless celebrities and cat-owning single women. The US election again is generating memes around words as we discussed with coconut tree.
Why has cat lady caused such a stir?
“Female”, “woman”, and “lady” are, in language terms, gender modifiers (when used as adjectives). All three began life as nouns, with woman from the 8th century; and lady and female from the 12th century. But, unsurprisingly, their meanings have shifted and changed. These shifts in meaning point to why “cat lady” has become an insult.
Meaning of female
Female first referred to a woman or girl (a human being of the sex which brings forth young) and then became used for the gender of animals. Originally “female’ was also used as an adjective, with a clinical and biological preciseness. “Female” comes from Latin and meant “she who suckles”. By the 20th century it had become insulting by being used for both humans and animals.
Meaning of woman
Woman has retained its original meaning of “an adult female human being.” It comes from Old English “wimman” which literally meant woman-man. This was an alteration of “wifman” for woman or female servant. It is descended from “wife” that originally just meant woman (still seen in words like midwife and housewife).
Meanding of lady
Lady was first used for a woman who ran a household or who had charge over servants; and later for a woman who held high rank. It comes from Old English “hlæfdige” meaning mistress of a household or wife of a lord. It literally means one who kneads bread, from “hlaf” for bread” and “-dige” for maid.
Lady is still a polite word for a woman of “rank” although it has also been used to dignify jobs such as cleaning lady, tea lady, and canteen lady. But in modern usage, where there is a choice between using woman or lady, the use of lady now tends to be used to ridicule. This is the case with cat lady (also bag lady).
And cat lady?
The BBC drew attention to the contrasting use of catwoman and catlady as “a persistent dichotomy between the hypersexual and the unsexual … The cat lady stereotype is a spinster; a woman without a man, or shorthand for a lesbian. In her most common form, she is a cardigan-wearing, bespectacled recluse who owns at least one cat, if not several.”
Sexually provocative women (i.e. the “hypersexual”) by contrast, are called “sex kittens“. The leather-body-suited Batman protagonist in the DC Comic universe is Catwoman (always more interesting than Batgirl).
So what does it all mean?
Women, in response, are reclaiming catlady to mean a woman who owns a cat, thus taking away the cruel, misogynistic meaning that Vance was intending.
I love having cats around—they are less demanding than dogs. We have had up to three cats in our house at any one time. If that makes me a cat-lady-man (haha don’t you dare go there) so be it.