Ladykillers

There was an interesting sidebar in Esquire this month by Chuck Klosterman on Cat Fights and cat torture. I couldn't find an electronic copy of the article so I've transcribed it here.

Please don't sue me Mr. Klosterman/ Esquire.....

"If you grew up in a place where even the richest people were still middle-class, you have undoubtedly encountered a certain kind of young, drunken male who enjoyed torturing cats. Cats, regardless of their gender, always represent femininity. (And dogs, regardless of their gender, represent masculinity.) As such, the kind of male who displayed this propensity was inevitably a closeted misogynist who (perhaps unknowingly) longed to kill actual women; I can't prove this but I know it's true.

The reason I bring this up is that my editor just gave me a copy of Cat Fights Unleashed, a DVD from the makers of similar documentaries like Ghetto Fights 3 is a collection of (primarily African-American) women beating the shit out of each other on bootleg video. And what I found myself dwelling upon while watching this DVD is the origin of the term "cat fight" (and why it is exclusively used for describing skirmishes between females). I think I have figured out why this is. Men sometimes claim they like watching women fight for sexual reasons, but I suspect they are lying; I think certain men enjoy watching women fight for the same reason they enjoyed torturing felines as teenagers (which is why we refer to physically violent females as "cats"). These men has interchanged them. So if you know someone who owns a copy of Cat Fights Unleashed and you can't figure out why, here is the explanation: He is unconsciously hoping to see footage of a woman being murdered."

While growing up I saw a lot of this puzzling behavior towards cats from my male peers. And I've had multiple conversations about the coding of cats as feminine and dogs as male. But the other interesting thing I've noticed is that dogs lovers (not all of them) seem to actively hate cats, where many of my cat loving friends wouldn't adopt a dog from a shelter or pet sit for one, but they wouldn't shoot a dog with a BB gun or drag one behind a car.

Something to think about......