The CAT room!

WHY WOMEN PREFER CATS:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/07/1086460233965.html?oneclick=true

:wink:

As for cats being men substitutes, a truly great cat can be cute, arrogant, cuddly, self sufficient, smart, loving, vulnerable and interesting all at the same time, all in the same moment.

If men were as much fun as that, women would spend all their time tickling their tummies, too.

Yeah, I'll buy that! :wink:

Hmmm, I dunno, I like living with my cat and having sexual relationships with men. Best of both worlds.

Yes, but I found the article amusing, anyway, littlek!

Can you cut & paste the article, msolga? I'd rather not register to another newspaper's site.

Here you are Eva .... service with a smile!

June 8, 2004

WHY WOMEN PREFER CATS
A woman's best friend.

When it comes to a faithful companion, most females prefer to have a puss on the pillow. Barbara Ellen finds out why.

It has always amazed me how acceptable it is to mock and despise the many single women who just happen to prefer cats as pets.

We all know the stereotype ?- the sad, overlooked, dried-up desperado trawling lonely as a cloud around the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon.

Supposedly, to look into the female singleton's trolley is to gaze upon human despair in its purest form. The meals-for-one, the glossy magazines shrieking their self-help messages so loudly people three aisles away can hear, those furtive bars of high-quality chocolate brought as a substitute for the low-quality sex they were having before they decided enough was enough.

All these items could be exhibited as evidence in the socio-emotional kangaroo courts that even today persist in judging the solitary female as worthless and hopeless simply because she is mate-less.

However, the real clincher is the six-pack of top-of-the-range cat food. A kilo of heroin couldn't be more socially incriminating.

What cat food says about the single female is that she's got a cat and that's all she's got.

All rubbish, of course, and nicely disproved by a recent report that says a parasite living on cats can infect their female owners and make them sexy, desirable, fun-loving and unfaithful.

Great, we go from drudges to sluts, no middle ground, and isn't that always the way? Still, having known plenty of lovely cats, both when single and attached, I can't help but see it as progress of sorts for the female cat-owner to finally be acknowledged as a sex kitten.

Women with cats have had to get used to abuse over the centuries. Once denounced as witches, then mocked as socially inadequate, the female's relationship with her feline has always been considered suspect. Even today, she has enemies.

Militantly anti-cat Melanie Reid wrote recently; "Feminism has been blamed for many things but there is no doubt that it is also partly responsible for the rise of the cat."

Apparently, suffrage and equal pay were just the thin end of the wedge; those naughty feminists are now mollycoddling cats when they should be breeding.

A vivid and enduring cliche, the single woman living on her own with her cat has come to be viewed as one of the ultimate icons of neutered 21st-century femininity ?- all hope gone, all sexuality spewed out of them.

It is probably a rare woman who hasn't had at least one man say to her, "You're going to end up living alone with cats", which is only hurtful if you allow it to be.

I replied, "True, I could end up like that. Alternatively, it could go all wrong for me."

It goes without saying that single men don't get the judged-by-pet treatment when they dash around parks with their dogs.

While a woman who so much as coos to her cat is instantly written off as emotionally needy and possibly psychopathic, a man running around throwing sticks for his pooch is viewed as sensitive and desirable.

Indeed, a single man would have to literally marry his dog before it would be seen as a woman substitute in the same way that a single woman's cat is seen as a man/baby/life substitute.

As for cats being men substitutes, a truly great cat can be cute, arrogant, cuddly, self sufficient, smart, loving, vulnerable and interesting all at the same time, all in the same moment.

If men were as much fun as that, women would spend all their time tickling their tummies, too.

It's very easy to deal with boyfriends who complain you treat your cat better than you do them. Just say: "Once you've produced evidence that an ancient civilisation worshipped you, then perhaps we'll talk."

It could even be argued that some men end up being very poor cat substitutes. ("I just couldn't meet the right cat so I decided to have a relationship instead.")

In reality, women don't substitute cats for relationships, at the very most they might substitute cats for horrible relationships they're very glad they didn't have ?- their moggies providing a furry Linus blanket until someone nice comes along.

Which sounds intelligent enough to me. That's why even though this latest report could be considered mildly suspect (it is probably more the case that cat owners, like their pets, are naturally fun-loving and naughty), it should also be celebrated as a long overdue move away from the psychosexual stigma of female cat-ownership.

In the meantime, all female cat lovers out there should enjoy "catching" being fun-loving, sexy, desirable, even unfaithful.

Men have always blamed the dog for bad smells; it's only fair that we get to blame some things on the cat. - Observer

...and:

But not everyone loves cats . . .

So many cats, so few recipes.
David, Moorabbin

The only good cat is a flat cat. Mark, Richmond

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Winston Churchill

The trouble with a kitten is that when it grows up it's always a cat.
Ogden NashSource: kessels.com/hobby/cats/quotes.html

Famous cat haters
William Shakespeare, Dwight Eisenhower, Isadora Duncan, King Louis X1V [/color]

Yikes, they describe me! In this town, I'm almost equally likely to see a man buying cat food as I am to see a woman buying it. It still surprises me. Damn societal pigeonholing! What's this parasite all about?

It is a great article!

well, all of it besides the glossy self-help mags.

But they are such a SUPERIOR type of companion, littlek! Think of it as men coming & going, but the cat remaining the constant companion!

I think about that with BOTH my animals. Both of these critters have been with me for the absolute worst and some of the best times of my life. I have a few friends I can say the same about. I've actually had a guy not want to date me because I couldn't stay out late because I had to give screech an shot of insulin at a specific time. "You are obviously not the one for me!" said he. Pffft!

Glad you got your priorities right, there, littlek! Pffffffffft indeed! (It wouldn't have worked out anyway! )

I know what you mean about animals being the constants in our lives .... My cat, Polly was 23 when she died. She outlived my 20 year relationship, various jobs & she lived in 3 homes. BTW she was a lot more fun than my ex, too!

Grrrrrr! I hate when a guy uses any excuse to deflect their own short comings...Any man who doesn't appreciate or love animals is not for us, right littlek! What a super duper jerk face!

MsOlga - wow 23! That was a well-cared for cat!

Samandang - yep, he WAS a super duper jerk face. I think he thought IO was making excuses not to see him anymore. whatever.

<beaming with pride> Yes, she was! Just an ordinary, small grey tabby. Hardly ever sick in her life & very, very loyal!

Kind of like my sister's first cat sunny. She lived to be 20 or 21.

A tabby? They're incredible.

Hiya Olga and Deb, T'is I. Bleary-eyed but unbowed. I'm almost finished with a doozily nasty job. Sigh. Then I might be able to take a few days to myself. Myself, of course, includes the monster cat.

My friend visited me; her husband also visited. He'd never been here before. We were casually conversing in the living room. Mikey sauntered in. Bob's eyes widened, he stopped midsentence, and said, "That's the biggest cat I've ever seen in my life." Poor Bob. I think he was noivous.

Nothing much to report. What could there be to report. All I do is woik, woik, woik. And take Mikey breaks.