When I bring up the subject of cats on this blog, as I so often do, it’s party because, well, I’m a bit of a fan. But it’s also because I know it confuses and irritates the misogynists who read this blog, inveterate cat-haters all (or almost all). I’ve never quite understood the depth of the animosity the guys in the manosphere seem to have towards cats.
But now one of these cat haters has provided us with a theoretical explanation for his catphobia. In a post with the suggestive title “Limp-Wristed Cat Lovers, Beautiful Dog Lovers,” the guy behind the PUA blog LaidInNYC explains why real men — and real women — hate cats and love dogs instead.
Dogs are loyal, obedient, and affectionate.
Masculine men love these qualities in our companions, and they are qualities we want in our women as well.
Cats are selfish, independent, and alpha.
Masculine men hate these qualities in our companions. This is because masculine men are the owners, not the owned.
Huh. It’s weird how these descriptions of “alpha males” often read like confessions of massive insecurity. So “masculine men” are so insecure they can’t stand being challenged even by their pets? They’re so threatened by the independence of other creatures that they can’t tolerate a pet that might sometimes wander off into another room to take a nap?
But according to Mr. LaidInNYC, it’s the cat-loving dudes who are the sissies:
95% of men who love cats are either gay or have sub fantasies*. If you like cats, you like not being in control.
Well, all except for a small-percentage of super-alpha dudes who are so manly they can tame even the mighty housecat:
There are a small percentage of straight alpha seducers that like to own cats. The reason is they love dominating an already dominant living thing. They like to stare down and dominate their cats just because they can.
Welcome to my world.
Well, ok, sometimes the cats stare me down.
But what about the women? If masculine men love dogs, shouldn’t feminine women love cats? Then why do manosphere dudes so regularly hurl abuse on women with cats?
Well, LaidInNYC has an answer for that: it turns out that truly feminine women actually prefer dogs to cats, but for a totally different reason than men.
While men love the loyalty and obedience, girls are much more likely to coo over a dogs unconditional love, furry cuddles, and “look how cute he looks when he does that thing with his paw” type stuff.
Feminine girls love their dogs but they don’t enjoy training them, letting them run in an open field and feeling pride when the dog comes right back when called, punishing them when necessary, etc. …
Most of the feminine dog lovers I know already have strong male dominance types in their life, be it a strong father, boyfriend, or husband, and they just like the dog as another source of love. … cats are superfluous when you have a man to obey.
It’s a different story indeed for “the masculine, ugly, old, short-haired, barren feminists who end up being cat ladies.”
Ugly masculine girls, on the other hand, cannot find a male to dominate them in their social life because they lack the beauty. Since being dominated by a strong independent entity who doesn’t need her is so important to a woman, she must seek out that domination. Ugly girls find this in either a career, feminism, cats, or some combination of the three.
A job, a cat, some feminism: the holy trinity of MISANDRY.
I’m not not exactly sure how any of these things “dominate” women, but since Mr. LaidInNYC doesn’t actually seem to know anything about anything, I guess I’ll let that one slide.
In the meantime, I would like to treat you all to pictures of some of the evil independent creatures that make alpha males tremble in fear:
What is it with cats and shoes? Maddie’s the same. Sorry about the crappy video, I took this on my phone.
http://youtu.be/UkUYjXp3AYU
I can understand the feline fascination with shoes on account of odours from elsewhere being brought in on the sole, but am at a loss to discover why playing hide and seek with imaginary objects inside the shoe is so compelling. One of my two is totally obsessed by my partner’s slippers, and has a liking for my flats. Anyone care for some Biscuit and Cheese?
This is the only context in which it makes sense to say, “Biscuit and Cheese, SOOO SWEEET!”
Yeah, slippers, too. Mads loves mine and Mum’s. She even loves shoes that have never been worn.
Cats, they just do it to mess with our heads.
@Kitteh, even though I had always pegged your Mr. K as a dog man (from what I’ve read of him, which admittedly isn’t much), somehow that doesn’t surprise me. I suspect a lot more men love cats than are willing to admit publicly that they do (or whose biographers are willing to admit it, anyway ;)). My Mr. AK is a bit hesitant to talk about his cats in public, even though if you look through his phone you see that out of 1,000 photos on it approximately 900 are of his cats, and once you do get him talking (especially after a few beers) he’ll go on for hours about them.
I think the idea that pets are somehow gendered is bizarre. I think it’s more a lifestyle thing…I love cats and dogs, but if I had to pick one I’d pick dogs because I love to train them and compete in dog sports as well as the affection and cuddles, and my hobbies tend to be dog-friendly (like hiking/backpacking/running where I actually feel more comfortable when I have a pooch with me than if I’m alone). Mr. AK loves cats and dogs, but if he had to pick one he’d pick cats because he loves the affection and the cuddles but both his job and his hobbies require him to travel a lot, often to places where bringing a dog would be impossible or at least impractical, and he works long hours and in his free time prefers team sports like softball that aren’t exactly pet-friendly, so cats are perfect for him. It’s really just a lifestyle thing, not a value judgment.
Sounds like Mr AK is the only man I can think of I’d like to talk to when he’s had a few beers! 😀
The pet gendering seems to go back a long way. It’s strange, because even if one thinks of dogs and hunting, that wasn’t a male-only pastime among the nobility, even if it was heavily coded with the whole knightly schtick. Plus “feminine” lapdogs have been around for centuries (at least) too.
Cats were certainly associated with women in ancient Egypt – the whole fertility thing – and seem to have had that connection turn sour with Christianity and the women/cats/Satan/witchcraft stuff. I suspect a lot of the present day hostility (from unregenerate reactionaries and misogynists, surprise) descends from that.
If ugly women can’t find a man to dominate them, what happens to ugly dogs? Do they have to get a cat and a job?
“Cats, they just do it to mess with our heads.”
http://media-cache-ec2.pinimg.com/736x/e7/43/00/e74300ffd769b912ce125870babf8d35.jpg
::head asplodes::
@kittehserf I was lucking to get that film when I did. Usually I get out the camera and she stops what she is doing to stare at me blankly.
*lucky.
Oh gods yes, the “Me? Iwasn’tdoinganythingwhyareyoupointingthatthingatme” reaction to a camera. Though with Mads it’s often more like STOPTAKINGMYPHOTO.
Or the cat-sitting-looking-adorable which instantly becomes cat-photobombing-by-marching-up-to-camera version, of course. Many a great blurry picture of ears and tails has been taken that way.
Troll boy, you are a very small and insecure little man aren’t you?
MRAs believe in slaves, not equals.
The guy who wrote this is also very little and sad.
“…cats are superfluous when you have a man to obey.”
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a witch and have a cat companion. See, when I was a girl, I thought witch’s were some of the few women characters to not be helpless in fairy tales, so I respected them.
So, it’s totally fun that I now live with a black cat named Alice. She picked me for an owner, since she showed up at my house one day and decided to stick around. I like that she’s independent, does what she wants and still sees me worthy as a friend. No conditional love required. No slavery needed.
I’m not that pathetic, you see.
AK- dog training discussion theoretically over (though I’d have loved to continue it!), I just wanted to say that I actually HAVE heard a canine analog term of jerk-and-spur training- yank-and-pat.
So what does having mice say about a person?
Me and four tiny ladies want to know.
@LabRat…I’ve heard that one, but I’m not sure it’s the same…jerk-and-spur refers to a style of riding where the legs (spurs) are used to force the horse on, and the reins (jerk) are used to punish it for going forward. Basically, the horse can’t win and just shuts down eventually.
It does seem to describe the same sort of forceful training, though. I guess maybe it just says more about how bad horse training can be than anything…
I heard the term used to describe a pattern up in the thread- harsh collar corrections until the dog does something “right’ by stopping trying to do anything at all, which is then patted/praised. Which, yes, not quite the same as giving contradictory signals until the animal shuts down in confusion and exhaustion…
Katz: mixed-species sanctuary would be a good idea. I get kind of twitchy around dogs the way LBT gets twitchy around horses, though, so maybe it would be best run with someone else.
Will accept felines, though. Possibly other hooved animals on a case-by-case basis. Zebras are amazing, although they are feral and sort of vicious. Donkeys are great, but very stubborn (and extremely loud when they want to be!) Try to imagine an MRA meeting a goat. It would probably not go very well for the MRA.
Donkeys bite. How do I know this? Let’s just say I got a free pumpkin out of it.
So what I’m getting from this is that MRAs and PUAs like having dogs because (they think) dogs are easy to bully. Which means that they shouldn’t be allowed to own pets at all.
If I didn’t know that it would end up in the dog being put down when it bit its stupid owner I’d be tempted to buy one of these clowns an Akita as a gift just to see their frustration when that whole bully it into loving and obeying you thing didn’t work out as planned.
As I’m buried in data for y’all, I feel I’m entitled to one random item! Regarding negative reinforcement, cognitive psych wise that would include a simple “NO!”…which is the worst I ever gave my former roommate’s poodle puppy. His poodle mother was a terrible mother, he had no concept of play biting versus “ow dude, no!” — but he’s a flippin’ toy poodle (well, 75% poodle, but tiny) so I let him nibble my fingers, and yelped when it hurt. He was so eager to please me that that was all it took for him to quickly learn the difference between “is my finger yummy? I haz a flavor?” and “ouch!” and knock off the later.
And that was basically the only thing I had to teach him — the roommate owned both his parents, and his father was much better trained and the little guy followed his lead and was way too smart (like, “roll over? Now why would I do that? If I just lie here belly up we both know you can’t resist”)
Oh, the question there was what you actual dog trainers think of non-punishment negative reinforcement. I’m really not sure how else I’d have taught him that biting hurts since his mother was completely incompetent (no, literally, he was dropped on his cute little head when she decided to drag him along by the cord, luckily she’s a toy poodle, so it was a short trip — I punctured the sac when she wasn’t doing it — she was in no way ready to have pups)
And my roommate’s dog *scoffs* puppy didn’t think so! Even when we brought him and his father up here (roommate gave the poodle and the other puppy to a friend and her mother once the pups where weaned) my mother was amazed that this four month old puppy totally listened to her, she figured it was because he aimed to please me, and she clearly outranked me, so obey her too! Probably right, smart little ball of fur…
I must say that the comments of a cat-related post on Man Boobz of all places would be the last place I’d expect to see doggie discussion.
And when puas talk about dominance and wanting women who are submissive, they don’t even mean dominance and submission in the sense of like a bdsm relationship, so things like trust aren’t even on their radar.
Their idea of being dominant is like what a particularly self-obsessed 15 year old boy would think of as dominant. So dominant to them means being like the uber ultimate macho manly alpha male who has the biggest muscles and the most stuff and is the strongest and the best and has sex with all the hottest girls and always gets everything he wants and gets to stay up as late as he wants and I HATE YOU MOM I SWEAR I CAN’T WAIT TILL I GET OUTTA THIS DUMP GEORGE’S MOM LETS HIM STAY OUT TILL 12 WHY CAN’T I IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!!
So yeah, not a lot of nuance there.
Their idea of submissive woman just means a woman who they can boss around and lets them do whatever they want.
They also expend lots of energy obsessing about their own status around other guys and worry about not coming across as the most dominant guy in the room, and have special tactics for “out alpha-ing” other guys.
Yeah, I also know a couple of GSD:s who eventually turned on their owner after being fed up with constant punishments… in these cases, the dogs were lucky and became re-homed with sensible owners. HOWEVER, often the dog ends up paying with zir life for not taking infinite amounts of crap.