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- Cat ladies unite. Many women were already mobilized to support Kamala Harris; now J.D. Vance has spurred even more of them into action. Donald Trump's VP pick, in a resurfaced 2021 Fox News appearance, said that "childless cat ladies," including Harris, were running the Democratic Party—to the detriment of the country.
Here's his full quote, via the Guardian:
We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our 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. And it’s just a basic fact if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC—the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.
Now that Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee and Vance is on the Trump ticket, Vance's comment has struck a nerve with women. To start, whether or not a woman has children obviously has nothing to do with her qualifications for a job—including the job of president. Vance seems to say that a woman is not a full member of society until she's given birth. And Vance's conclusion that women without children are "miserable" is far from the truth; single women who don't have children are one of the happiest demographics.
Then there's the fact that 59-year-old Harris does, in fact, have children. In 2014, she married now-Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and became stepparent to his two children, Ella and Cole Emhoff; they famously call her "Momala." Vance's comments seem to question the legitimacy of blended families—even though Vance's own running mate, Trump, has five children from three marriages. Ella and Doug Emhoff's ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff both rushed to Harris's defense. Kerstin Emhoff shared her appreciation for Harris as a "co-parent" for more than 10 years. Ella Emhoff, 25, posted on Instagram: "How can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I[?]"
Then, add another layer: Republicans in recent months have attempted to legislate access to IVF and other family-building technologies (while also trying to control whether women can choose to not have children). To Vance, it seems, the only legitimate way to form a family and, thus, to participate in society is to give birth to children "naturally." (His original comment also attacked Buttigieg, who adopted twins with his husband in 2021.)
Since the interview resurfaced, women have responded in outrage. "No president of America has ever given birth—I don't understand why it's suddenly an issue," one widely-shared tweet said. Republican commentator Meghan McCain has started warning conservatives that the comments have offended GOP women. And actor Jennifer Aniston, who for decades was hounded by tabloids speculating about whether or not she was pregnant, chimed in: "Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too."
People so often feel comfortable taking powerful women down a peg, in this case by going after one of the most personal choices a person can make. But the miserable "childless cat lady" has never been a stereotype rooted in reality, and it certainly doesn't apply to Harris as she reaches a career pinnacle and could make history as the first female president. Voters can see through this flimsy line of attack and draw their own conclusions about the candidate spouting it.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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