Childless cat ladies (stepmothers or not) of the world unite!
Although I prefer child-free, so much less judgy
My name is Sam and I am a childless cat lady and a stepmother to boot. In the eyes of Trump running mate/ sidekick/ henchman/ mouth piece and all-round-bootlicker JD Vance I am, therefore, all that is wrong with the world and then some. I have, apparently, no stake in giving a shit about other people because I haven’t produced one.
According to Vance, women who haven’t given birth, like me, like Kamala Harris, are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they made.” Consequently, they cannot possibly have a “direct stake” in America. This, apparently, is “just a basic fact”.
If you’ve seen the noise around this clip that’s doing the rounds on the internet, you’ll be forgiven for not actually noticing that Vance didn’t say this in the last few days, in reaction to Harris’s new status as imminent threat. He said it in 2021 on the Tucker Carlson Show when Harris was newly the VP. But it tells us what we need to know (should we not have worked it out already from the boundless red flags his paymaster has been waving) about the way a certain sector of society thinks women should still be tethered to their fertility, or lack thereof.
(It also reminds me of Andrea Leadsom’s tone deaf comments about Theresa May during the 2016 Tory leadership election (if you can bear to cast your mind back through that many Tory leadership elections) when she patronisingly pointed out that she was sure, “Theresa will be really sad she doesn't have children…but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake." Whatever your view of Theresa May, her child-free status is surely the least of it.)
It starts with “When are you planning to start a family?” and, when it becomes evident that the answer to that is “no time soon buddy”, that extends to, “But why?” *Head tilt, pitying eyes*.
Anyone who doesn’t have children for whatever reason – whether you have struggled to conceive, it just didn’t happen, or you felt all along that motherhood was not for you (or, like me, a combination of the last two); whether you are the greatest aunt and/or godmother since Cinderella – will be used to this kind of dismissal.