|
I've noted a disturbing and unfortunate tendency among posters to message boards (alas, even this one, where one would expect better) and callers to talk radio shows, to go out of their way to let people know how much they dislike cats.
It's almost always a male thing, and the tendency seems to 'pool' a bit over toward the Right side of the political spectrum, though even some progressive 'men' apparently feel the need to show off on the subject.
Is it a childish reaction to the (what they consider) excessive devotion they see some people display toward cats? (That's probably my favorite theory at the moment.)
Plenty of people don't like dogs, birds, ferrets, fish, but I seldom hear anybody going out of their way to put down those animals and the people who like/own/care about them.
Callousness toward animals in general, and cats in particular, seems to be one of those 'male' things (especially among those who view themselves as 'conservative') in our culture. Anybody who doesn't share that tendency is labeled (as I was recently in a Hunting thread that I started) a too-frequent watcher of 'Disney films'.
|