This is the theory:
Women in America are becoming better educated and becoming more ambitious. The educational advantage leads to better jobs. Jobs for women are becoming better paid than jobs for men. This has lead to a dramatic increase in the percentage of households in which the wife earns more than the husband. This has lead to an increase in house-husbands because if one partner is to stay at home to raise the kids it must be the lower earner in a democratic and sensible household. This leads to more men looking after the family cat. We know that, in general, men prefer dogs and that, in general, women prefer cats. We know that the classic good cat caretaker is an intelligent, independent minded woman. We know that men lean towards the pack animal mentality. These are generalizations, of course, but in America there are more and more men looking after the family cat and that is less good than the wife doing it. So goes the theory.
To all feminists – please don’t take this article too seriously. It is just playing around with an idea that came to me as a consequence of reading a news item. I don’t really believe that American feminism is bad for the cat…
However, overall, life is improving slightly for the domestic cat, in America, because there are more divorces. This leads to the cat having a higher status in single person homes.
You can add some detail to the above “flow chart” type argument:
- The economy has changed in the USA. Jobs that men could have relied upon no longer provide a secure income.
- Mothers have become the main or sole earner in 40 percent of American households. A record figure.
- For married couples with children, 23 percent of wives earn more than their husbands.
- Men don’t really like to be house-husbands because they are hard-wired to be breadwinners. This means a dissatisfied man is looking after the cat while the wife is at work, working hard and getting in late.
- The shift towards an overall equality in earning power grates the feelings of man and woman because the millennia-old traditional roles are being reversed and undermined. This may cause stresses that work against good cat caretaking.
- Some women are embarrassed that they are the breadwinner.
Something similar: We are becoming more stupid….
Real feminism is not bad for a cat. Feminism opposes the idea of gender. Gender is socially constructed. What does not allow men to own a cat? We probably face gender stereotypes where cat is seen as ”women pet only”. Men want to be ”manly”. Who mostly has cats and why? Women. Very often men who own or wish to have a cat will be ridiculed by fellow men. Instead of blaming feminism we should acknowledged that it is more ”masculinity” issue than something else. Femininity role is hardly better. All of them are unnatural and oppressive. When we will start feeling ”humans first” instead of attributing all kind of stuff society forces us to identify with(for boys – blue – girls – pink; women nurturing, men – more logical etc. etc.) then maybe more males will not feel ashamed to have a cat…