An American manufacturer of novelty, fun items, Archie McPhee, has created a Crazy Cat Lady Coloring Book which contains, on at least two pages, sexist references to women. I think this book should be removed from their inventory until they clean it up.
On one page they have a quiz entitled, “Find the kitty-related words in the puzzle below”.
The photograph of the page is self-explanatory. You can see that the hidden words describe the crazy cat lady variously as: insane, lonely, depressed, on prozac, reclusive, a spinster, anti-social and disturbed. You get the obvious message: women who love cats and who quite possibly look after several cats are mad, lonely people who are anti-social.
This is completely incorrect. Yes, there are some female cat hoarders who have borderline personality disorders (and some men too) but the phrase “crazy cat lady” does not solely describe cat hoarders but all women who like cats a lot and who look after several. The vast majority of them are good, intelligent, sociable people who simply like cats and make a conscious decision to live as they wish.
On another page (see below) there is a drawing for coloring in. I can’t read all the words at the base of the image but you can see from the image that the lady is depressed when dressed quite smartly but happy when her clothes and home are in a mess. Once again this is unnecessarily derogatory of women who love cats and who keep more than one cat.
This sort of stuff promotes sexism in my opinion and an unpleasant and unnecessary attitude towards cat loving women. It is particular obnoxious because a coloring book in designed to be used by young, impressionable persons.
I don’t like it. What do you think? Am I being overly sensitive and politically correct? I wonder if someone would make a formal complaint. The book may be in breach of sex discrimination laws in the USA. But, that said, many people will see the book as a bit of harmless fun. It all depends on your point of view about women and cats. Some men don’t like either. It looks like the author may be one of them. However, I am obliged to say that in order to write a balanced page, a lot of the pages are just fine.
Another prop in the war on cats. Bring shame and loathing to those who love and care about cats. So sick of everything being politicized these days.
I agree it is another subtle part of the war on cats.
Should never have passed publishing scrutiny.
This looks like a Woody-like project.