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:
I seem to have created a monster. A cute, fluffy, pricked-up-and-happy-to-see-you horse ears monster. I’m okay with this.
Oh my goodness, SittieKitty, is that a fennec fox?
I don’t like this post, these people make even owning a dog seem disturbing. I love dogs because they love me back, not because they are obedient loyal servants that I delight in punishing. *shudder* The way they describe it you can just tell they are indulging in a masturbatory power fantasy over women, presumably writing those things gets them in the right mood. *shuddershudder*
Yep, it sure is!
I am a dog lover, and looking forward to when I move in a few weeks from Hawaii to Montana, and can get a doggie! I grew up with dogs in the family, so I always had a weakness for them. That’s not what makes me “feminine,” though. My definition of femininity is certainly different from theirs.
I like cats too, but I’m allergic. It’s not as bad as when I was younger, though. As long as I don’t let any traces of cat come in contact with my face, my eyes and throat will be okay. There’s a cat named Mew Mew who stays at the place where I’d go for my singing lessons. At first she seemed like the “purr-purr-BITE!” type, but I realized that she just liked certain kinds of touches and disliked others. I learned where she liked being scratched, where not to scratch, and when to pause so she doesn’t get over-stimulated. So whenever she’s in the room and I arrive, she’ll trot over to me and hop on the chair next to me. I shouldn’t risk itching up my throat before singing, but…
Anyway, I think that’s a big part of pet ownership, and relationships really, that these jerks either don’t grasp or don’t care about; getting to know the other creature or person.
—
On another note, I never had a bird, but to me they appear even more independent than cats. For one thing, they bathe themselves.
Actually, the dominance/punishment model of dog training reminds me of nothing more than authoritarian/abusive parenting–with similar results.
OMG THAT FENNEC
::dies::
misery – think of it this way: they’re demonstrating their abusive loserness in all aspects of life. It’s not owning a dog or cat that’s creepy, any more than “humans in loving/happy/consensual relationships” is creepy. It’s these fishshits who can only see any relationship in terms of dominance or submission, and even then it’s all about dominant=abuser=winner and anyone not dominant=loser. They may not be diagonsable sociopaths but the empathy fail is strong in them. About the only thing that is, come to that. Strange, sad little men, but they don’t have my pity.
And on the topic of dogs, check this out:
http://cheezburger.com/7603940608
thekidwiththereplaceablehead |
Couple reasons:
1: As noted, it’s a very big theme among religious sects that require women to cover their heads and wear hair long, while men are short-cropped. It’s worth remembering that a lot of these old rules, even when the official religious justification is gone, get recycled. In Scripture, long hair = femininity, so the idea stuck even among people who ditched the Book.
2: Long hair, like much of fashion, is a pain in the ass to take care of properly. Thus, a woman who maintains waist-length or longer hair is thus accepting her proper role as an ornamental object, rather than as a person.
*****
Oh, this link is for David; I’m sure he can get use out of them the next time he’s dealing with an idiot who thinks that only men-children suffered in the factories, farms and coal mines of yore:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/30-shocking-photos-of-child-labor-between-1908-and-1916
Those awful awful beta men do end up spending less time cleaning up their pet’s shit than the supposedly dominant dog owners. If they have well-behaved outside cats, anyway.
How much of a drag must it be going through life wondering about how every little thing will affect how alphalpha you are?
And if we’re having a cute animal party, I’ll bring this mob of little ostrich chicks.
And cats bathe themselves too! It’s one of their biggest hobbies, usually.
There’s a maritime magazine here at work and I get the giggles every time I see this on its cover: “[company] delivers foil-assisted passenger cat”. Never fails to make me think of Monorail Cat.
@SittieKitty, that article is a good summary. There’s been a lot of history on the matter that I oversimplified, and Mech was actually the researcher I was thinking of as he’s renounced his previous findings as inaccurate after studying wolves in the wild (http://www.davemech.org/news.html). But yeah, the basic point is that our ideas of Alpha and beta wolves, strict hierarchy, unrelated wolves living together, etc. are not based in reality.
@wordsp1nner, it amazes me how much crossover there is between dog training and raising kids. Parents who use operant conditioning on their kids (even though they wouldn’t usually call it that) also tend to be better dog trainers; people who hit their kids to get results also tend to hit their dogs. I’ve also been reading parenting articles lately as Mr. AK and I plan to start trying for kids in the next couple of years, and it always cracks me up because like any non-medical parenting article could be written about dog training too, just substituting a few words. It makes sense though, since learning about operant conditioning I’ve used it on myself to break some bad habits and establish some good ones (consciously, even!), so why wouldn’t it work on kids? 😉
Oh hi, memories of my abusive ex terrorizing a dog. Control control control.
I’m sorry, that wasn’t very clear. What I’m trying to say is that LaidInNYC’s author is a terrible human being who has admitted to enjoying hurting pets and probably enjoys hurting women.
I see people with dogs almost every day in the park. They don’t seem to be hung up about OBEDIENZ, they’re out socialising and letting their dogs play. Nothing like these shitbrains say, in other words. If the dogs don’t come when called, the reaction’s a sort of rueful “Yup, I know who’s the boss/zie will come when zie’s good and ready” amusement for the most part, and sure as hell not punishment.
One thing I think most likely to spur me to violence would be someone trying to hurt my kitties. It was what I was most afraid of the one time I’ve been in a DV situation, back in my teens. Not that the person involved (my brother) had ever shown signs of violence to our pets, but then he’d never come home drunk and attacked our mother, either.
Viscaria – it was clear enough. Whether he’s hurt anyone (of whatever species) or not, he sure fantasises about it.
That’s actually a lot more accurate than what I said. I should have said he’s admitted to liking the idea of hurting pets, since I don’t know if he’s actually done it or not. Either way gross person is gross and should have nothing to do with animals.
Seconded – and that’s animals of any species.
Well, maybe except cane toads. They’re even more poisonous than MRAs. Whole crocodile populations are being wiped out in northern Australia because of them.
Kittehs, if I’m to put my misandrist hat on for a bit (shaped like a hard chair, or a mortarboard in the style of a scented candle, perhaps) I think you just mentioned another animal that’d probably be fine around MRM types. . .
David, I’m sure you’ve seen the top two stories on r/mr just now (on chivalry and rape), but just in case not, they are terrrrrrrrrrrrible. 0_o
Beware the horse ears
@cloudiah
re:that chivalry link – has anybody ever encountered this legendary woman who scowls upon having the door held for her? I’ve been holding doors all my life, for men and women alike, and have never once had this happen. I’ve had the awkward moments when it’s not quite clear whether to hold or carry on, and one time when an angry-seeming middle-aged dude berated me for holding the door for him because he’s a MANLY MAN MAN and not a LADY, but that’s it and I imagine the second scenario is pretty bloody uncommon.
I’ve even done this in the buildings of university social sciences departments, where everyone knows all the cat-loving hard-chair-installing short-haired misandrist feminazis gravitate for their Womyn’s studies classes which are all totally called that.
@Katz
Shame on you, stealing images from jo-eks.com! 😮
Whoever believes all dogs are obedient and cute and trainable and dopey and whatever never met MY dog, or apparently any terrier, ever.
Of course there’s also a reason I call him Catdog, besides the awesome cartoon, which, if you like that, makes you bicurious, or possibly transgender.