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Discussion‘Childless Cat Lady Discourse in Politics
Even those of us not from the US cannot have failed to see how the American election discourse online is dominated by ‘childless cat lady’ narratives with JD Vance and many on that side frothing at the mouth at the idea of childless women and opining that a woman who is not a parent (although being a stepparent doesn’t count, apparently) could not possibly lead a country or even be very good in politics because she would have no investment in the future.
Recently Konstantin Kisin from Triggernometry, who I mostly like, posted a video on the subject and the gist was that being a parent changes your worldview and priorities. It does not make you a better person but gives you a different perspective which was mostly unknown to you prior to the arrival of your bundle of joy. One thing struck me about his piece: he is assuming parenthood is the same shift for women as it is for men. And I don’t think that’s true.
His gist was that becoming a parent means you find an empathy and focus outside yourself for the first time. This is true for men in general. It took the birth of a daughter for JayZ, for example, to finally realise that lyrics calling women slurs wasn’t actually a very nice thing to do. Women, on the other hand, do not usually require a child to develop empathy or a sense that other people matter. It’s this empathy that right wingers criticise in ‘liberal white women’ who advocate for various people (sometimes misguidedly as TRAs).
So, in summary I’m coming to the conclusion that men think childless women can’t act in the interests of a country’s future because they only develop empathy post child and assume this must be true for women. Do you agree that’s what’s going on? (Obviously also general misogyny - right wingers criticise Ursula von der Leyen who is no leftist and has seven children so there is clearly ‘whatever a woman does will be wrong’ in play).