Oh ye cat lovers. Quick question, how do you do it? Actually, that is a general question to all animal lovers. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate animals. As a matter of fact, I am compassionate towards animals, just not enough to adopt one. I mean, I would adopt one if it was a guarantee that it would save me from the fires of hell, but even then, I would need time to think about it, ask for alternative bargains, revisit my wavering stand on the concept of divinity and related institutions such as hell, then left with no options I would get one. Why you ask? To which I reply with a slow down, I know I may have depicted myself as this overly emotional human being, but a girl got to draw the line somewhere. I can’t love everything. Simply put, animals and I have just never clicked. Plus, I have trust issues. My theory is, as domesticated as animals have become, they were once wild. And for that, I just cannot trust one. I know it sounds stupid. You could say they have adapted to living with humans but then again, human beings have been evolving for thousands of years, but look at us still blowing up buildings and killing each other. So yeah, if push comes to shove, I would rather adopt a snake. At least with that, I know not to expect goodness.

Let me get to the reason for this post before you crucify me. Over the course of my lifetime, I have noticed that I get much less spite when I say I’m not a cat person as compared to when I say I am not a dog person. I didn’t think much about it at first until one day I was just lazing about in my bed, letting my feminist brain wander and I realized that conventionally, males are dog people while females are cat people. Now there is nothing wrong with that. Only, it is somewhat okay to hate cats but a grave sin to hate dogs. Anyone see, where I am going with this? I know it sounds far-fetched, but that right there is an indication of how sexist our world is. And I know it sounds like I am being an irrational male-hating female, but I of all people know that it is those seemingly trivial things that shape how we view things. In a small way, it conditions people to think that being female is not as grand as being male. It is like this kids television show in Kenya that has a segment called “hot numbers” and “cool words.” It is an educative segment and all but I always wonder, why is math associated with heat, something that makes us uncomfortable while the languages is associated with comfort. Don’t you think in a way we are conditioning our kids to think that math is much harder than the languages?

So while I may not be much of an animal person, I am a firm believer in the equality of the genders. And for that, I owe it to women everywhere, especially my roommate who loves her cat, misses her kittens and what not. I may not know the feeling of being attached to an animal but I do know that just because that animal is a cat and you happen to be an unmarried woman doesn’t make you weird, or incapable of attracting a husband and starting a family, which apparently is what being a woman is about. I know that having a cat doesn’t mean you are lonely and, as Mitchell in Modern Family would put it, have a child hole shaped in your heart and so you are looking to cram a cat in there. And staying on Modern Family, there is this episode Alex asks, “so smart boys, go for dumb girls, and dumb boys go for dumb girls. So what do smart girls get?” to which Phil replies, “cats mostly.” While, it is funny and I still laugh about it, I’m just going to say that if you are a smart woman, don’t ever for one second think that you need a man to complete you, to validate you as a normal member of society. Because you are enough. And a soft spot for cats does absolutely nothing to take that away.