I'm not the empress of the childless cat ladies, nor even a minor local aristocat. However, I am the official childless cat lady of my subdivision, and I am issuing an order to all my minions. I, Dowager Vicatess Old Biddy of Southwoods, aka the Eldridge Witch, hereby proclaim that our first order of business with regards to "childless cat lady"-gate, is to embrace the title and not spend one iota of time trying to change anyone's minds with how you're not one of those childless cat ladies because you are infertile/met the right person too late/a man/ a dog-owner/allergic to cats/too young/etc. I know you have good intentions and are trying to change some minds, but it's just playing into their hands. Don't feed the narrative. Embrace the title, laugh in their faces, fight for change in big ways and small, and vote.
We already made the same mistake with the narrative on abortion and birth control. Lots of people coming forward with stories of medically necessary abortions, rape, fertility treatments etc, and lots of handwaving from the anti-abortion crowd that no, they're not going to stop that, just the run of the (abortion) mill abortions for slutty sluts. And of course, as expected, they lied. What we need to do is to live our lives proudly and tell our stories all the time, not just when Republicans are trying to take our rights away from us or scapegoat us. We are all Lady Spartacat.
Now for the TL/DR. It's fun to go on a rant about it. I get that, I really do. I spend a lot of time on Substack now that mElon mHusk bought Twitter and turned it into a cesspool and my Facebook feed is primarily cats, Gen X humor and FB marketplace ads for shoes and furniture. Much of the feed and posts are from people writing about their own personal experiences, so in response to CCL-gate there have been posts from women who are struggling with infertility or not finding a partner when they were still able to have biological kids. I get it, I really do, and Substack is the right place for it but please don't let it drown out the real story, which is about the election and trying to keep the MAGA Republicans from gaining any more power. The single cat lady trope preceded the childless cat lady one by at least 30 years and I know it well. I'll joke about it with friends, but it's not going to change any minds if I tell people that it's different because I was married/am a widow/met Joe too late to have kids.
For what it's worth, of all my close friends and colleagues, I think that I am actually the only single childless Democratic cat lady. I know lots of married Democratic or Republican cat people, a lot of single or married Democratic or Republican dog people, lots of temporarily petless people and some single Libertarian/Independent childless dog and cat people.
