Hello Kitty!

The sexism and racism faced by Kamala Harris were predictable (though really low and ugly). But what's up with the cat lady stuff? Is this what women running for political office have to put up with?

Well, I’ll say this much about J.D. Vance’s now infamous cat lady comment, at least it was only sexist!

You might even call it benign. In comparison, some of the slurs cast against Kamala Harris have been really low and ugly—a toxic cocktail of sexism mixed with racism. (The term for that is “misogynoir,” in case you’re curious).

“America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris,” declared conservative pundit Charles Gasparino in a New York Post op-ed before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. As a bonus, Gasparino threw in some favorite hits of sexism directed at female politicians, citing Harris’s “manifest ­unlikability; her word salad whenever she tries to sound smart; her cackle when she laughs; her vaulting ambition.” 

Politics is a meritocracy? Really?

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) wasted no time picking up that thread: “One hundred percent, she was a DEI hire,” Burchett told CNN. “When you go down that route, you get mediocrity.” (Excuse me, but since when has politics been a merit-based profession? Not to state the obvious but some of the glitterati of the GOP—e.g., Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and the Grand Pooh-Bah himself, Donald Trump—aren’t exactly exemplary of the best and the brightest. Just sayin’.)

And it gets worse. Not only is Harris the DEI Queen, she’s also—what else?—a slut! “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics,” insisted Megyn Kelly on X. In case that’s too subtle, try this: “Whore is the Biblical term for @KamalaHarris,” chimed preacher Jackson Lahmeyer, the head of Pastors for Trump, on X.

Not exactly a high level discourse about Harris’s qualifications. And, coming from members of a party that denigrates the educated “elites” and celebrates wanton ignorance, it’s rich. 

Sadly, the racism and misogyny were totally predictable. But of all the crazy insults hurled at Harris so far, the one that gets top prize for sheer weirdness is that she’s unqualified because she’s never birthed a child. 

“Really simple, underdiscussed reason why Kamala Harris shouldn’t be President,” posted Will Chamberlain, a former Ron DeSantis staffer (and one-time Quinn Emanuel associate) on X. “No children.”

And Harris’s status as “a step-parent to older teenagers doesn’t count,” he added. “The concerns of parents and families will always be abstract to her,” as she lacks “skin in the game, a stake in the future, and the lived experience of raising children.” (To be fair, he also said the same about the unmarried Sen. Tim Scott, R.-S.C., though he didn’t seem to have problems with other [white] childless leaders, such as our founding father, George Washington, or his presidential successors James Madison, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and James Buchanan.)

Meow

J.D. Vance echoed Chamberlain’s points—and more. In 2021, he ranted to Tucker Carlson that the country was “effectively run” by Democrats and “corporate oligarchs'' who are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” In particular, he singled out Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Not sure why he included Buttigieg as one of the “cat ladies.” Is it because he’s gay?)

I’m genuinely baffled by this tirade. First of all, I had no idea that cat ladies—or ladies of any sort—ruled the corporate oligarchy. Last time I checked, women made up only 10.4% of the CEOs of the Fortune 500. But even if childless women were part of that power elite, why are they living in pathetic “one-bedroom apartments in New York City,” as Vance contends?

Prove your fecundity!

Besides gratuitously insulting cat lovers and childless women (who also vote, I might add), where is he going with this? I don't know what Vance’s true values are (does anyone?) but he seems to be trying awfully hard to cast himself as the standard bearer of the traditional family. In this narrative, men are men, and women have a moral duty to pop out babies. (Query: Why are Vance and his cronies so obsessed with the state of a woman's uterus?)

It's not the first time that Vance has gone after career women. “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” scolded Vance on X in 2022. (It was a tad ironic—and hypocritical—that he made those comments when his wife Usha was working as an associate at the high-power law firm of Munger Tolles & Olson.)

All this makes me wonder what it would take for the right wing to find women palatable as leaders. If they’re childless and ambitious, they’re morally bankrupt (not to mention angry and unstable); but if they do have children, their top priority must be being a mom and not their careers. Simply put, women can’t win—and maybe that’s why no woman made it to Trump’s shortlist for VP. 

Of course, in Harris’s case, her race—specifically, her mixed race—adds another layer of complication, which is why the right is going totally bunkers. As Rep. Burchett complained about Harris: “She checks all the boxes. She’ll say she’s of Indian descent one day, then she’ll say she’s of Black descent.”

That’s right, she does indeed check all those boxes. What’s more, she’s married to a Jewish man. Is that too complex for you to comprehend, Rep. Burchett?

Some other posts related to this topic:

Usha Vance, The Good Wife

Is It Sexist to Blame Jill Biden?

Contact: chen.vivia@gmail.com

Twitter (X): ViviaChen