More Bad News for Single Men Who Own Cats
I have some bad news for single men who own cats, and it's worse than the fact they own, you know, a cat in the first place.
When it comes to gender norms, there is new evidence that we are still holding men to ridiculous standards and keeping them from living their best, most vulnerable, open life possible.
In essence, we are keeping them down. It's sad really.
In a study done by Colorado State University, women are less likely to swipe right for a man with cats in his dating profile pictures.
When shown the cat-free picture of one of the subjects, 38% of women said they were likely or very likely to casually date him, while 37% said they'd consider a serious relationship with him.
But a picture of the same man holding a cat gave the respondents paws for thought -- and those numbers dropped to 33% for each category. Meanwhile, the proportion of women saying they'd never consider getting involved with him rose from 9% to 14%.
Why I never!
My first instinct was "maybe a majority of women are just more into dogs?"
Nope. That's not why at all.
The premise of it is this. Women who are looking for a mate, instinctually are looking for a man with good genes. And I get that. You want to procreate with a man who is going to make the smartest, best looking babies possible. Someone whose DNA mixes well in a pot with yours. No to male pattern baldness, yes to abs, no to the transparent Powder skin tone, yes to conventionally beautiful facial features etc. etc.
But this study shows that women think men with cats are even worse than a dad bod and asymmetrical face.
"Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine; more neurotic, agreeable, and open; and less dateable," the women wrote.
Damn. Cold fucking piece. Sad news for those cat-owning single men!
This is just another shameful way society as a whole consistently oppresses men by imposing our beliefs on what masculinity looks like. It must be fucking hard to pretend they don't like the soft feeling of a kitten purring on their shoulders, or nuzzling inside of their armpit, all to make women feel comfortable with their manliness.
Listen fellas, I think we need to normalize this behavior and get women to fix their attitudes and implicit biases. Adopt a cat, or shit, just borrow one from your habitually single sexually ambiguous male friend with six tabbies and have yourself a shirtless photoshoot. The sooner we flood bumble and tinder with photos of jacked men with felines, the sooner we fix this injustice.
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I nominate Chris Hemsworth to be the poster man for cat owning males. In fact, any of the Hemsworths running their fingers softly over a toyger do wonders for the pale skinned skinny jean hipster cat owning man stereotype.
And as far as I'm concerned, I'm not really looking to mate, so this whole thing is moot. Personally I'm a dog girl, but I'm woman enough to admit that I wouldn't kick Thor out of bed for petting a pussy.