There is a clip circulating of Anne Hathaway joyfully moving and singing at a recent Taylor Swift concert in Germany. I watched it with a smile, but then I started reading the comments underneath. Oh my gosh, why is she alone? I’m glad she’s enjoying herself, but how sad no one went with her.
What?? You’re fretting over her clear, unabashed joy?
Big fat sigh.
Here I was, once again astounded by this aversion some people have to solohood (a word I just made up, I think). The fact that the actress was there with her son is beside the point.
Of course I made the leap to the recent column Newsweek deigned to print about Swift not being a good role model because she’s childless and has cats. WHILE SHE IS CRUSHING A GLOBAL TOUR THE LIKES OF WHICH NO ONE HAS SEEN BEFORE.
Yes, I’m shouting. This is some warped shit that those who cannot stand female power are putting out there. And it has reemerged in politics this week.
By now you’ve surely heard the pertinent JD Vance quote, but let me refresh your memory:
“We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via the corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
You can call this absurd and laugh it off. That’s a legit reaction.
But I’m asking you to dig a little deeper. Think about the mentality you have to have to see the female body put here for one purpose – childbirth – and then labeling everything else the “misery” option. It is precisely that kind of mindset that creates laws limiting a woman’s reproductive choices, whether we’re talking about safe abortion, safe miscarriage, birth control access, IVF, etc.
Vance wonders in that same interview how we can turn our country over to people who don’t have a “direct stake” in it since they don’t have kids.
I’m past the point where I take offense at people’s judgment on my own decision not to become a parent. I had the following exchange with a woman in my workplace about 20 years ago.
Her: I couldn’t imagine my life without kids.
Me: No one is asking you to.
A little light went on for her. Sometimes people don’t mean offense, they just never considered that some of us can’t in a million years imagine our lives WITH kids.
What some of these dim Republicans are now doing is giving this wackadoo mindset national traction. The tool that wrote the Swift piece in Newsweek, for example. What possesses a once-reputable magazine to not ask itself, do we really want to be this? Not a publication sharing differing viewpoints, but one that says, hey, Swift is good for clicks, let’s give voice to this guy who’s skipping over her artistic and financial accomplishments and zeroing in on the cats.
And then a presidential candidate decides his best choice for a running mate is the guy with the weird childless cat lady obsession?
OK.
Buckle up, folks, because much like the pop star who hasn’t procreated, our Vice President likes to cook for people she loves. Oh no! Not a batch of brownies or Sunday dinner. Can Taylor still sing? Can Kamala still govern?
I’ve also seen a great deal of evidence that both Swift and Harris like to laugh and that sometimes it’s contagious. But there must be festering misery under there, right, fellas? Hope she doesn’t start cackling in the Situation Room.
Oh, and the dancing. Swift had so many people making fun of her dancing that she made a song telling herself to shake it off. And, uh oh, Kamala Harris has been known to strut it out – dancing, marching. The clips are already recirculating. So much scandal.
I happen to be a fan of Harris’ fashion sense and found it amusing when in 2020 someone decided that was my shallow reason for wanting her to be President. Why? Because I wore a blazer with jeans and sneakers and credited Harris for the look? People, she’s qualified up and down for the job. It’s not like we’re pushing Squeaky Fromme or one of the Real Housewives here.
Women relate to each other in a myriad of ways, just like men do. I’m not going to generalize here, but I will say that I’ve enjoyed seeing WNBA coverage that includes light commentary on the athletes’ pre-game “fits” as they call them now. It doesn’t take away from their performance on the court; fashion is fun.
Let’s mobilize, DEI hires. Sometimes we wear our power. I know I do. But I think I’m going to need a cat to complete the look.
[Editorial Note: This is my 31st installment in a series I began in order to give my writing some flow after being in a healing phase from knee surgeries for a year (2023-24).]
