Dumb Macho Man Hate Stuff
JD Vance is trying to win votes by hating on cats and women who like cats. He’s reaching out to a specific male audience that thinks dumping on small animals is masculine. It is noteworthy that people who tend to abuse animals also tend to abuse humans, which might account for Vance’s dislike of all programs that help people.
But JD has a bigger problem. He can fool people into voting against their own financial security. But people like cats.
People Like Cats
Men like cats. Cats are fun, funny, smart, do tricks, and seek affection without pandering. Scientists have debunked the cat-hating cliches. Cat memes are funny. Cat videos are popular. The Kitten Lady and her husband, The Cat Photographer, are popular. Famous cats like Henri, le Chat Noir, Grumpycat, and Lil Bub are appreciated even long after death. The most well-known cat behaviorist is a man. Men and women are about equally likely to own a cat.
Do Real Men Eat Quiche?
None of this is new. The fake masculine Reagan era brought us Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, a humor book by Bruce Feirstein that he wrote to satirize stereotypes of masculinity, not promote them. Yet, in the Reagan era, satire was lost on the mindless, and right-wing activists seized on the notion, using the book title to browbeat men into hating…
