August 10, 2026 • 34 mins
Why do we associate cats with crazy old ladies? What's the historical relationship between women and cats, and why do popes hate cats? Could bacteria in cat poop make people crazy? Join Caroline and Cristen as they answer these questions and more in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, Sammy and Samantha and all good stuff Never Told
You production by Heart Radio. So recently we did an
episode on cat Nights, which is an Irish legend about
(00:27):
witches and cats, and I really had a good time
researching it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But the history of tropes and stereotypes around women and
cats is a long and powerful and lasting one, and
the crazy cat ladio stereotype is one of them. And
this stereotype is going strong. I was looking into it
when we were doing that episode on Cat Nights, and
(00:56):
there was recent discussion about how has this lasted this long?
Why does it have such a foothold, And there's a
lot of history and reasons why people think this is
so past hosts Kristen and Caroline did an episode on
the crazy cat ladies stereotype.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I think we should probably come back and do a
little many looking at more recent things, but in the meantime,
please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from Houstuffworks dot Com.
Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
I'm Kristin and I'm Caroline, And since.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
We're talking about the crazy cat ladies stereotype, I have
a little story to share. I don't think that I've
shared on the podcast before. But Caroline, stop me if
this sounds familiar. Okay, I really hope I haven't shared
this before, because yeah, it's it's whole story about my
(02:08):
well meaning nephews who are.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Ten.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
They're twins, twin boys, and it got back to me
that they were a little concerned about me because their
aunt Kristen is unmarried and I hadn't brought a fella
to any kind of holiday dinners or other family events
(02:40):
in a long time.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
And they were talking to my.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
Sister, their mom about it, and they, like out of
the blue, just came up to her. We're like, mom,
we're worried about aunt Kristen.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
We understand that she lives with a cat, she is single.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Like they essential.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
We told my sister they were worried I was going
to become a cat lady.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
And where did they get this idea from.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
I asked them about it. I confronted them.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
I said, boys, I hear that you are worried about
my dating status.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
First of all, thank you for your concern.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Secondly, why what gives you the impression that I'm gonna
become a crazy cat lady?
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And die alone except with cats.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
And they they said, well, duh TV, they gotten it
from TV. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
What TV they were, Lady, they were watching that Sex
and the City episode where Miranda like flashes forward and
is worried, like sees herself dead on the kitchen floor
being eaten by her cat.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
I hope that's not one of my ten year old
nephews were watching. But it was hilarious because they were
so young and yet already had grasped onto this stereotype.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
Maybe they watch The Simpsons with the crazy cat Lady
cat's hanging off of her I mean, you don't seem
actually crazy, though, And I've never seen cats literally hanging
off of your bathrobe, so it's happened. I mean when
you walk through a patch of cats in the woods
and they just accidentally cling on to you like those brambles.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Yeah. Currently, I don't own any cats. I've owned cats
in the past. I love cats. I would say I'm
more of a cat person than a dog person. But
at times now living by myself and though cat free,
I still feel like a crazy catwoman sometimes because there's
a neighbor cat that comes over to that will visit
(04:41):
me when I'm sitting outside on my little terrace, and
I have a fake name for it that I think
its owner has probably heard.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And why should talking to my cat that way? Yeah, like,
my cat is not named sir Lancelot.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Sorry, it looks like a Lancelot.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
And I to catch myself because I will greet this
fictionally named cat and and also introduced it to friends
as though it were my own.
Speaker 7 (05:10):
Yeah, I thought it was yours. Yeah, well, well I
thought it was a stray cat, honestly, and that you
were just like calling it things and maybe you were
a little loopy. No, I guess it's better that it's
a neighbor's cat, not just astray that is your spirit
animal or something.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah, Lampslot's a little scruppy.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
But anyway, anyway, enough about me.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
How about how about historically why this association with women
and cats even exists because it has been around for
so so long.
Speaker 7 (05:39):
Yeah, I think it's it's it always has, like people
have always somehow associated women and cats, and going way
back to Egypt, let's let's take a trip down up
the Nile, down the Nile in the Nile. Okay, so
in Egypt, They had Isis, she was a cat goddess.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
They also had a bastett or bastet.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
Feline cat, got Us, who became a house cat and
protector of women, children and domestic cats. She was also
a goddess of family, fertility and birth. And she was
depicted by a cat head and a woman's body.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You know what I'm thinking though now too.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
No cats in the Bible, and I remember other cats
in the Bible. I don't know, but early Christians weren't
a big fan.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
No, not at all. No, I mean I'm surprised.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
So maybe like there was a verse in Genesis, like
right after Eve was created.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Then cat memes, Yeah, then cat and then a loll cat.
I ken has cheeseburger Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
The historically cats were ratters or mouses inside the home,
and of course women traditionally were working inside of the home.
So there, you know, there's a connection with the domesticity
and the cats hanging around, whereas the dogs were given
tasks outside with the men, like doing the hunting or
guarding the home or the property.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
And this line was drawn by animal expert Andrea Arden
and Forbes, and she also pointed out that look cats
know where the food is, and they hang out around
the women because those are the people who are traditionally
feeding and caring for everybody in the household.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
But then things got so twisted so quickly, And yes,
a lot of it is related to Christianity. For instance,
Clia Simon, who was the author of the Feline Mystique.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
How about that for a punny title.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
I'll see what she did then, mm hmm.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
She writes, there's a lot of linkage even in early
Christianity that women and cats were actually celebrated, But by
the sixth century, cats were seen as a manifestation of
women's sinful sexual lives, which is ironic because now crazy
cat ladies are the epitome of spinsterhood.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
Right exactly. Well, back in twelve thirty three it was
a bad year for women and cats in general because
as Pope Gregory the Ninth called for the death of
all cats and their female owners in an attempt to
rid Christendom of witchcraft. So there's that first connection between
women and witches. But there had previously been this connection
(08:14):
that people drew between black cats and the devil, you know,
and black cats being witches familiars and spirit animals and
stuff like that. Donald Ingalls and his book Classical Cats,
The Rise and Fall of the Sacred Cat, said that
the Pope's Vox in Rama was the first official church
document that actually condemns the black cat as an incarnation
(08:36):
of Satan, and from here on out until about the
early nineteenth century, black cats were just killed. They were
just slaughtered.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I had a black cat growing up.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
His name was Smudge. Are you sure it wasn't the ferret?
You sure it was a cat?
Speaker 4 (08:50):
It was the.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Cat, and he was fantastic, And I used to after breakfast,
I would go out to see him and sometimes takes
him treats of pans cakes.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
It's much loved pancakes. I can't eat anything.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
Uh Anyway, Yeah, speaking of popes, popes popes hated cats.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
Yeah, Catholics none too big a fan. Maybe maybe there was.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
A cat allergy in Christendom that was causing all of
this ill will because Pope Innocent the eighth also officially
excommunicated all cats and decreed that any found in possession
of quote unquote witches should be.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Burned along with them.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
So if you were a Catholic cat, you were just
out of luck. You could not go to communion. This
continues through the Middle Ages, when, like I said, black
cats were thought to be witches, familiars, or actually witches
in disguise. And what's interesting is around this time there
was this male demon correct me if I pronounced this wrong, Bapphamet. Bapphamet,
(09:51):
who encompasses actually many of Bastet's characteristics that Egyptian cat
goddess and was sometimes betrayed portrayed with female breasts. Rem
missn't of the Egyptian statuettes of Bastets. So this little
cultural thing, like you know, worms its way through all
the way up to the Middle Ages, and people are like, well,
you know, cats are just evil, particularly if they're black,
(10:13):
and let's just give them boobs and that makes them
more evil.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yeah, and they're evil in their relationship specifically with women.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
It's a strange. It's like there's a discomfort.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
In a way with how close women and cats may
tend to get. And it's a question that we are
still asking today why women love cats so gosh darn much.
For instance, there was an article published in Forbes recently.
I was talking about how it's all about the cat's personality.
(10:49):
You know, cats can seem independent and aloof and getting
their approval is not so easy. So maybe for women,
we like cats so much because it's just like a guy,
you know, and a guy, well, he's so aloof and
playing hard to get.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
Is my cat gonna call me later?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Though?
Speaker 7 (11:05):
Can I text my cat?
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
So we like put out food, pet the cat.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
I don't know what.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
A lot of people draw lines between women being all
cold and aloof and playing hard to get and cats
being that way, whereas dogs are more like affable yay,
well anyway, so they're asking in the Forbes article, why
are women supposedly okay with less obvious displays of affection
from cats as opposed to dogs and p A Salt,
(11:32):
who's a psychologist and animal welfare advocate, said that it
may be that women are more intrinsically gratified by nurturing
others and therefore do not need an external reflection to
reinforce caretaking behavior. And my eyebrow is raised.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Ooo.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
I mean I enjoyed Smudge so much, you know, because
he would thank me for the pancakes in the form of,
you know, you do little tricks.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
You'd stand up on his hind legs I'm sharing too much. Really, I.
Speaker 7 (12:01):
Have no cats. Well, I don't have any good cat stories. Really.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Well, this was going on during the homeschool years, so
maybe Pe sometimes was cat training time with Smudge. I
also find this correlation between supposedly like catlike behavior of aloofness,
and independent independence compared to how women supposedly are. And
(12:27):
I'm going to put out a wackadoo theory that all
of this concern over cats and women is really a
reflection of an internalized fear that women don't actually quote
unquote need men.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I can now probably write a book.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Tell me more?
Speaker 7 (12:47):
Is there more? Tell me more?
Speaker 6 (12:49):
Well, I will tell you what's going on in my
head right now, which is the dating advice book that
I'm about to write based on how women should just
act like cats to get men.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, okay, call me up. Book published. Do you have
to wear a tail?
Speaker 6 (13:05):
No?
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Please don't.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
Okay. So it's beyond just the idea that cats are
aloof women play hard to get women? Are cats cats
or women? It's weird. There's also these feline images of
women in pop culture. And this is coming from a
San Francisco Gate article that talks about characters like catwomen
and Josie from Josie and the Pussycats who were sexy, kittenish,
(13:28):
wild and independent, and that author Clia Simon that we
Christin mentioned earlier said that that just rubs men the
wrong way. And she says, think of the negative words
that can be used for women, cattie or sex, kitten,
And when people describe cats negative traits, they call them aloof, demanding, promiscuous,
the same thing people find threatening about women exclamation point.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Yeah, I mean the fact that women of all phases
of their life can be described in cat terms and
are described in cats.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Yeah, that's so.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
It's very odd, everything from kitten to cougar.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Now, there is some valid research to back this up,
not just my mindless ramblings about how someone could probably
make money drawing connections between cats and dating in the
human world. There was a study published in the journal
Behavioral Processes in twenty eleven that found that cats attached
(14:27):
to people, particularly.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Women, but not just for food.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
They looked at observational interactions between cats and their human
owners and found that the dynamics and human cat relationships
are similar to those in human bonds.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
Yeah, it's interesting. John Day, who's a co author of
that study, said that the way cats and humans interact
with each other when it comes to food is similar
to the interactions between caregivers and infants, and he says
that both ca and human infant are at least in
part in control of when and what they are fed,
because I've been around moody cats, you know, I've been
(15:08):
around moody baby, and they can let you know when
they are hungry. So, yeah, they chalk it up to
cats having a different type of relationship to people than
dogs do.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
Yeah, and especially there is the gender difference, and this
has come up in multiple studies where there does seem
to be a stronger connection of sorts between cats and women.
Although I have met many cat guys, like guys who
love cats to a degree, I've never seen.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
In a woman.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Well, my friend Claire, she and her husband adopted their
neighbor's cat, and for the longest time, the cat would
not go to her. For the first year that they
adopted it, it would avoid her like the plague and
only go to her husband and be all over her
husband and not have anything to do with her. And
she thinks eventually the cat, you know, the cat has
warmed up to her. She thinks that maybe the lady
who owned the cat before was mean to it, So
(16:05):
maybe cats just learn an aversion to Meani's whatever the gender.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
And speaking of women, another finding from this behavioral process
of study was the extroverted women with young active cats
had the strongest relationship. Right.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
All the cat had to do was like flick his
tail and be like I want attention, and the woman
would get it.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
She'd be like, yeah, let's play a cat.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
But there's that whole, that whole attention giving thing where
cats remember kindness and return the favors. This study says,
if owners comply with the cat's wishes to interact, the
cat will often comply with the owner's wishes at other times.
So your cat has an elephant's memory when it comes
to playing and being nice.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And maybe since the female owner's at least according to
these studies.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
This is nothing against any guys who love cats out there.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
I know you're out there. You care for cats better
than I do. I'm sure that cats will will approach.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
The female owners more frequently, maybe because we are more
attuned to those.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Nurturing behaviors as I'm sure some.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Psychologists would would say, to which we would both probably
raise our eyebrows our.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Eyebrows the race.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
But getting back to the crazy old cat lady stereotype,
because that suggestion that extroverted women with young, active cats
have the best relationships. That's still kind of going against
this idea that only cuckoo older females are.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Crazy for cats.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:42):
Well, Forbes talks about some kind of common sense stuff
if you think about it. They point out that women
live longer than men, so they are more elderly women
than elderly men. At a given time. These elderly women,
maybe they get lonely and they may take in hungry,
straight straight cats who might reap produced quickly. Then they
point out, hey, you know, cats are more self sufficient
(18:03):
than dogs, so they are easier for older women to
care for. So maybe this relationship develops. Like if a
woman loses her husband and she's alone and you know,
maybe she doesn't have the best mobility. Yeah, the cats
are more independent. You know, you can just leave food
out or whatever, and that you don't have to walk them. Typically.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
Typically, and on a very downer note, some suggest that
this kind of elder cat behavior could be a sign
of dementia. You know, the women are older, women are
by themselves by this point, and they're just caring for
more and more cats, and they don't know that they
have too many cats on their hands. And this also
(18:44):
gets us into pet hoarding, and animal hoarding is statistically
more frequent and older, isolated, socioeconomically disadvantaged women.
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Right, And they point out that, like we said, women
might be drawn to stray cats because they're smaller and
easier to round up. There there was a an article,
I guess it was on the Today Show website about
some women who it kind of ranged everywhere from just
a young woman who had a cat and she got
teased for being a cat lady by our friends and family,
all the way up to a woman who had started
(19:17):
out as a cat rescuer, like, let me help these
stray cats and it turned into a really bad, unhealthy
situation in her house.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Yeah, there's a whole documentary made in two thousand and
nine called Cat Ladies that follows a range of women
who have lots of cats. And we did an episode
on hoarders and hoarding behavior way back when, and I
saw since then, I've seen an episode of Hoarders that
was dealing with a cat hoarder, and it was it
(19:51):
was I could you could almost smell the ammonia, you know,
from the from the excessive litter boxes.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, well, screen, So we've got this idea of cat
ladies regardless of age. And when you talk about hoarders,
these people often have major dysfunction in work, social and
daily activities. So maybe these people do just seem unstable.
But the thing that they're hoarding instead of I don't
know what you hoard, but instead of whatever it is,
it's the animals.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
Yeah, but also but still that doesn't that doesn't answer
our question about like why the stereotype of crazy cat
lady is so pervasive because cat hoarders are a small population.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
I really think it ties into witches, all the witchcrafts, yeah,
the early Christianity, Like you're a witch, you have a familiar,
you know, you have this animal that's black and evil
and associated with the devil. So yeah, I think it
goes back to the idea of witches.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And all the felineaphobic made that word up, felina phobic popes. Yeah,
nothing against Catholic listeners out there, but really popes got
a cat a break, but there has been some our
scientific research possibly suggesting that there could be a parasitic
(21:06):
link going on between cat craziness behavior male or female.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Really and this parasite.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Yeah, not to alarm you, but cats are taking over
the world very slowly. So evolutionary biologist, oh gosh, jerislev Flegger,
We're gonna go y Roslev Flegger. So this biologist has
been pursuing the connection between a parasite called Toxoplasma Gandhi
(21:37):
or Tea Gandhi in mood and personality changes in people.
And he had done all this research and reading and
he was like, you know what, it's kind of strange
that I will just willingly cross the street and situations
that scare and stress out other people don't seem to
bother me, and you know what, I dress kind of sloppy.
He actually tested positive for Tea Gandhi And okay, so
(21:59):
we'll explain that. We'll explain in a minute. But this
is a parasite that is excreted by cats in their
feces and it causes toxoplasmosis, which is the reason that
pregnant women are told to avoid cats litter boxes because
if they're infected, it can result in severe brain damage
or death for the child. So anyway back to this biologist,
he did years and years of studies, which kind of
(22:21):
sounds like crazy town, but he's gotten a lot of
support from other biologists.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Well, yeah, and we should explain what the life cycle
of this parasite because the cats will and it's kind
of a gross.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Life cycle, but let us go for it.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
And if you're eating a sandwich right now, just put
it down for a minute because we're about to talk
about poop. Because first off, the parasite gets pooped out
of the cat. Now the parasite wants to find another
host so that it can get back into the cat, right.
Speaker 7 (22:57):
Yeah, so it can so can hear its whole little
life cycle in the cat stomach?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, and it and it can reproduce.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
So this theory is that the cats poop out this parasite.
Humans get in contact with the poop, get the parasite,
and then engage because of the parasite wreaking havoc in
our brains, engage in reckless behavior such as crossing the
street willy nilly without looking to see if cars are coming,
(23:24):
so that we will then die and the parasite can
get back into the cat, which will come up, you know,
a straight cat.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
We'll wander up and start licking.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
Our just like in Batman when what's her name falls
out of the window, Selena and all those cats crawl over. Yeah,
and she's probably infected because she had so many cats.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
She probably handled the cat litter box, got the parasite,
probably got tea gandhi. And then those cats come back
start eating your spilled guts, only to get the parasite
poop it out again in the circle of life continues.
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Yeah, take that, Elton John. So he found that study subjects,
He did a ton of studies just across the board,
all different types of people, and he found that study
subjects had significantly delayed reaction times. Those who tested positive
for the parasite were about two and a half times
more likely to get into a car accident.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
This reminds me of when we were doing the podcast
on Luck we talked about that one study finding that
traffic accidents go up on Friday the thirteenth. So listen,
if it's Friday the thirteenth, and you might have this parasite, stay.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
Hold take the bus.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Well.
Speaker 7 (24:35):
So he found that and this. You know, Kristen made
the comment earlier about extroverted young women and having young
active cats that goes against the typical stereotype of a
shut in spinster cat lady. Well, this also does because
infected women tend to be more outgoing, trusting, image conscious,
and rule abiding, whereas infected men are the opposite. They
(24:56):
become more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to others opinions of them,
and inclined to disregard roles. And so you're thinking, well,
if they have the parasite, if a man and a
woman have a parasite that's the same, why are they
acting differently? And he brings up his anxiety theory, which
we Chris and I have talked about stress and anxiety
responses in men and women, and how women want to
(25:16):
go forth and be around people when they are stressed
and nurture, whereas men withdraw. And so he thinks that
this parasite is like bringing out some of our anxiety responses.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Huh yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
And not only that, infected men have elevated testosterone, which
would make sense for increased risk taking behavior, and women
shown photos of these men rated them as more masculine
than pictures of uninfected men. Whoh, this parasite is quite powerful,
I know.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
And it's funny because so there is a New York
Times article about it and the author was, you know,
she had flown to Prog to have interviews with this
guy and all throughout this because you hear these things
and you're like, oh, I'm feeling out going in image
conscious today. I hope I'm not infected. Well, she she
got tested and of course it turned out negative, right,
(26:07):
So I mean, you can't blame a parasite for everything,
or can you?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Or can you?
Speaker 7 (26:11):
They also tie it to schizophrenia, which is interesting. They
say that it could very well trigger schizophrenia in genetically
susceptible people because in schizophrenia, dopamine production is ramped up
in your brain, and the parasite actually, coincidentally or not,
has two genes that allow it to boost dopamine production
(26:33):
in the host brain. So these antipsychotics that schizophrenics take
that are designed to quell delusions because of their disease
blocks the action of dopamine. But the scientist Flegger thinks
that it could actually be blocking the parasite.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Now listen to this when it comes to schizophrenia, okay, And.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I feel like this is this is when we should.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Be pulling in Matt and been from stuff they don't
want you to know, because I feel like I'm getting
very conspiracy theory esque, because brace yourself.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Psychologist E.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
Fuller Tory, when talking about the possible connection between schizophrenia
and TI Gandhi, points out that schizophrenia didn't rise in
prevalence until the latter half of the eighteenth century, when
people in Paris and London started keeping cats as pets.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Dun dun, dum.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
What is much done to me?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Now?
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I'm wondering.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
I don't know. But you can't get tested. But the
thing is, what are you gonna do? You can't do
anything because uh, these little weird parasites cysts that end
up getting all over you. Not all over you, that's
an exaggeration, but they are. You can't take antabiotics for them.
So you're just gonna be that way.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So you're just gonna be.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
So maybe you should go into u evilutionary biology like
your slow flager who's been studying this.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Start a club, yes, and wear sloppy outfits.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
No.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
No, As a woman, you would be dressed very nicely. Oh,
because he noticed that in all of his studies when
the women who were infected would come in to be tested,
they were all dressed like to the nines.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
And men would come in all like, so okay, well
if his parasite could help me dress better, I mean,
all right, yeah, who knew? But then again, doesn't that
seem to be debunking the crazy cat lady stereotype, Because
so far, even with this parasite, even with the personality connections.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
All that is.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
All that I'm hearing is that women who own cats,
maybe to the extent that we are contracting parasites from them,
are well dressed, social, outgoing gals.
Speaker 7 (28:52):
Yeah you know, well yeah, in the literal crazy I
have a parasite cat ladyway, maybe you're better off.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Yeah. I mean, if anything, this is an argument to
drop what you're doing, head to your nearest animal shelter
and pick up a kitten.
Speaker 7 (29:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Wish I had a kitten right now.
Speaker 7 (29:12):
I'm right now in the studio. I will admit I'm
more of a dog person, and this whole thing got
me a little scared about paraside.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Whereas I'm got totally gung ho for cats.
Speaker 7 (29:22):
Now, okay, well, I really want to hear from our
cat lady listeners. Do you ever get accused of being
a cat lady? Are people very insensitive? How many cats
do you have?
Speaker 6 (29:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Do children like my nephews approach you and.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Worry that your cat status and your dating status are
not looking too good?
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Yeah, let's know your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Mom.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can email us,
And before we get into your emails, we have a
quick word from today's sponsor, bring you.
Speaker 7 (29:59):
This episode of SOF Mom've Never Told You, which is.
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(30:28):
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Speaker 5 (31:02):
And now back to you are letters.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
And here we have an email from Melissa about our
sleepover podcast. She says, I went to a lot of
sleepover slash slumber parties when I was younger, but I'm
debating on whether I will let my own children have them.
Most of my slumber party experiences, the ones I can
still remember, didn't end well. My past sleepover experiences include
wetting the bed, getting the stomach fluent, throwing up, sleep walking,
(31:29):
and having horrific night tars that freaked out the parents
and children present. I even made a girl cry at one,
but that requires a backstory. Okay, here it is six
girls all agree that the first one to fall asleep
would get their sleeping bag tape to the floor. So
when the first girl fell asleep, I dutifully taped her
to the floor. This was followed by the girl waking
up and crying in a panic, calling her mom and
going home. Her mom made me apologize to her, which
(31:52):
was really embarrassing. So that does sound Yeah, you and Melissa,
You and I we did not have good slumber party experiences.
That's cool, it's all right, you know, just if your
child is ready, let them go.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Well, speaking of whether or not your child is ready,
I've got an email here from Julia about our episode
on kids and makeup, and she has a different perspective
and starts off, we need a social reform. All anyone
talks about is body image or what age is appropriate.
Nobody ever thinks about what's in the makeup, who it's
(32:26):
tested on, and the damage it does to your physical body.
There are animal sources and byproducts in makeup tested on
innocent animals, packaged and harmful plastics and are full of
chemicals that cause breakouts and aging. Nobody ever discusses this,
and if they do, they simply shrug off the facts
and continue to put on their face. There are ethical
makeup products, but they're expensive and not as saturated as
(32:48):
theyre harmful counterparts. If six year old girls saw some
of the rabbits I've seen with fur fallen out, bloody skin,
and rotten eyeballs, I'm sure they would feel more reluctant
about applying that makeup.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
On their own skin.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Women don't care because they've already sold their soul to
their particular brands and consider makeup quote putting on their face.
As a teenager in high school, I couldn't recognize myself
in the mirror without a few layers of foundation, powder, eyeliner, eyeshadow.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
And mascara.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
I had a lot of acne problems and self esteem issues.
Now I rarely wear makeup, and if I do, it's handmade,
vegan and very very light. My skin is completely cleared up.
I find myself beautiful on a daily basis. I'm reducing
my harmful impact to the planet and animals, and I'm
saving a whole lot of money to boot, all.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Of which are pretty convincing arguments.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
So thank you, Julia, and thank you to everyone who's
written in mom Stuff at Discovery dot Com is our
email address. You can also find us on Facebook and
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and check
out our tumbler It's stuff Moomnever Told You dot tumblr
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if you'd like to get smart this week, head over
(33:56):
to our website, it's how Stuff Works dot com for more.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
On this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
Visit HowStuffWorks dot com.
Hey, Sammy and Samantha and all good stuff Never Told
You production by Heart Radio. So recently we did an
episode on cat Nights, which is an Irish legend about
(00:27):
witches and cats, and I really had a good time
researching it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But the history of tropes and stereotypes around women and
cats is a long and powerful and lasting one, and
the crazy cat ladio stereotype is one of them. And
this stereotype is going strong. I was looking into it
when we were doing that episode on Cat Nights, and
(00:56):
there was recent discussion about how has this lasted this long?
Why does it have such a foothold, And there's a
lot of history and reasons why people think this is
so past hosts Kristen and Caroline did an episode on
the crazy cat ladies stereotype.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I think we should probably come back and do a
little many looking at more recent things, but in the meantime,
please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from Houstuffworks dot Com.
Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
I'm Kristin and I'm Caroline, And since.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
We're talking about the crazy cat ladies stereotype, I have
a little story to share. I don't think that I've
shared on the podcast before. But Caroline, stop me if
this sounds familiar. Okay, I really hope I haven't shared
this before, because yeah, it's it's whole story about my
(02:08):
well meaning nephews who are.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Ten.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
They're twins, twin boys, and it got back to me
that they were a little concerned about me because their
aunt Kristen is unmarried and I hadn't brought a fella
to any kind of holiday dinners or other family events
(02:40):
in a long time.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
And they were talking to my.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
Sister, their mom about it, and they, like out of
the blue, just came up to her. We're like, mom,
we're worried about aunt Kristen.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
We understand that she lives with a cat, she is single.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Like they essential.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
We told my sister they were worried I was going
to become a cat lady.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
And where did they get this idea from.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
I asked them about it. I confronted them.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
I said, boys, I hear that you are worried about
my dating status.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
First of all, thank you for your concern.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Secondly, why what gives you the impression that I'm gonna
become a crazy cat lady?
Speaker 5 (03:23):
And die alone except with cats.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
And they they said, well, duh TV, they gotten it
from TV. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
What TV they were, Lady, they were watching that Sex
and the City episode where Miranda like flashes forward and
is worried, like sees herself dead on the kitchen floor
being eaten by her cat.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
I hope that's not one of my ten year old
nephews were watching. But it was hilarious because they were
so young and yet already had grasped onto this stereotype.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
Maybe they watch The Simpsons with the crazy cat Lady
cat's hanging off of her I mean, you don't seem
actually crazy, though, And I've never seen cats literally hanging
off of your bathrobe, so it's happened. I mean when
you walk through a patch of cats in the woods
and they just accidentally cling on to you like those brambles.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Yeah. Currently, I don't own any cats. I've owned cats
in the past. I love cats. I would say I'm
more of a cat person than a dog person. But
at times now living by myself and though cat free,
I still feel like a crazy catwoman sometimes because there's
a neighbor cat that comes over to that will visit
(04:41):
me when I'm sitting outside on my little terrace, and
I have a fake name for it that I think
its owner has probably heard.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And why should talking to my cat that way? Yeah, like,
my cat is not named sir Lancelot.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Sorry, it looks like a Lancelot.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
And I to catch myself because I will greet this
fictionally named cat and and also introduced it to friends
as though it were my own.
Speaker 7 (05:10):
Yeah, I thought it was yours. Yeah, well, well I
thought it was a stray cat, honestly, and that you
were just like calling it things and maybe you were
a little loopy. No, I guess it's better that it's
a neighbor's cat, not just astray that is your spirit
animal or something.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah, Lampslot's a little scruppy.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
But anyway, anyway, enough about me.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
How about how about historically why this association with women
and cats even exists because it has been around for
so so long.
Speaker 7 (05:39):
Yeah, I think it's it's it always has, like people
have always somehow associated women and cats, and going way
back to Egypt, let's let's take a trip down up
the Nile, down the Nile in the Nile. Okay, so
in Egypt, They had Isis, she was a cat goddess.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
They also had a bastett or bastet.
Speaker 7 (06:03):
Feline cat, got Us, who became a house cat and
protector of women, children and domestic cats. She was also
a goddess of family, fertility and birth. And she was
depicted by a cat head and a woman's body.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You know what I'm thinking though now too.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
No cats in the Bible, and I remember other cats
in the Bible. I don't know, but early Christians weren't
a big fan.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
No, not at all. No, I mean I'm surprised.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
So maybe like there was a verse in Genesis, like
right after Eve was created.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Then cat memes, Yeah, then cat and then a loll cat.
I ken has cheeseburger Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
The historically cats were ratters or mouses inside the home,
and of course women traditionally were working inside of the home.
So there, you know, there's a connection with the domesticity
and the cats hanging around, whereas the dogs were given
tasks outside with the men, like doing the hunting or
guarding the home or the property.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
And this line was drawn by animal expert Andrea Arden
and Forbes, and she also pointed out that look cats
know where the food is, and they hang out around
the women because those are the people who are traditionally
feeding and caring for everybody in the household.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
But then things got so twisted so quickly, And yes,
a lot of it is related to Christianity. For instance,
Clia Simon, who was the author of the Feline Mystique.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
How about that for a punny title.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
I'll see what she did then, mm hmm.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
She writes, there's a lot of linkage even in early
Christianity that women and cats were actually celebrated, But by
the sixth century, cats were seen as a manifestation of
women's sinful sexual lives, which is ironic because now crazy
cat ladies are the epitome of spinsterhood.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
Right exactly. Well, back in twelve thirty three it was
a bad year for women and cats in general because
as Pope Gregory the Ninth called for the death of
all cats and their female owners in an attempt to
rid Christendom of witchcraft. So there's that first connection between
women and witches. But there had previously been this connection
(08:14):
that people drew between black cats and the devil, you know,
and black cats being witches familiars and spirit animals and
stuff like that. Donald Ingalls and his book Classical Cats,
The Rise and Fall of the Sacred Cat, said that
the Pope's Vox in Rama was the first official church
document that actually condemns the black cat as an incarnation
(08:36):
of Satan, and from here on out until about the
early nineteenth century, black cats were just killed. They were
just slaughtered.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I had a black cat growing up.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
His name was Smudge. Are you sure it wasn't the ferret?
You sure it was a cat?
Speaker 4 (08:50):
It was the.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Cat, and he was fantastic, And I used to after breakfast,
I would go out to see him and sometimes takes
him treats of pans cakes.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
It's much loved pancakes. I can't eat anything.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
Uh Anyway, Yeah, speaking of popes, popes popes hated cats.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
Yeah, Catholics none too big a fan. Maybe maybe there was.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
A cat allergy in Christendom that was causing all of
this ill will because Pope Innocent the eighth also officially
excommunicated all cats and decreed that any found in possession
of quote unquote witches should be.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Burned along with them.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
So if you were a Catholic cat, you were just
out of luck. You could not go to communion. This
continues through the Middle Ages, when, like I said, black
cats were thought to be witches, familiars, or actually witches
in disguise. And what's interesting is around this time there
was this male demon correct me if I pronounced this wrong, Bapphamet. Bapphamet,
(09:51):
who encompasses actually many of Bastet's characteristics that Egyptian cat
goddess and was sometimes betrayed portrayed with female breasts. Rem
missn't of the Egyptian statuettes of Bastets. So this little
cultural thing, like you know, worms its way through all
the way up to the Middle Ages, and people are like, well,
you know, cats are just evil, particularly if they're black,
(10:13):
and let's just give them boobs and that makes them
more evil.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yeah, and they're evil in their relationship specifically with women.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
It's a strange. It's like there's a discomfort.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
In a way with how close women and cats may
tend to get. And it's a question that we are
still asking today why women love cats so gosh darn much.
For instance, there was an article published in Forbes recently.
I was talking about how it's all about the cat's personality.
(10:49):
You know, cats can seem independent and aloof and getting
their approval is not so easy. So maybe for women,
we like cats so much because it's just like a guy,
you know, and a guy, well, he's so aloof and
playing hard to get.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
Is my cat gonna call me later?
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Though?
Speaker 7 (11:05):
Can I text my cat?
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
So we like put out food, pet the cat.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
I don't know what.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
A lot of people draw lines between women being all
cold and aloof and playing hard to get and cats
being that way, whereas dogs are more like affable yay,
well anyway, so they're asking in the Forbes article, why
are women supposedly okay with less obvious displays of affection
from cats as opposed to dogs and p A Salt,
(11:32):
who's a psychologist and animal welfare advocate, said that it
may be that women are more intrinsically gratified by nurturing
others and therefore do not need an external reflection to
reinforce caretaking behavior. And my eyebrow is raised.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Ooo.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
I mean I enjoyed Smudge so much, you know, because
he would thank me for the pancakes in the form of,
you know, you do little tricks.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
You'd stand up on his hind legs I'm sharing too much. Really, I.
Speaker 7 (12:01):
Have no cats. Well, I don't have any good cat stories. Really.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Well, this was going on during the homeschool years, so
maybe Pe sometimes was cat training time with Smudge. I
also find this correlation between supposedly like catlike behavior of aloofness,
and independent independence compared to how women supposedly are. And
(12:27):
I'm going to put out a wackadoo theory that all
of this concern over cats and women is really a
reflection of an internalized fear that women don't actually quote
unquote need men.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I can now probably write a book.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Tell me more?
Speaker 7 (12:47):
Is there more? Tell me more?
Speaker 6 (12:49):
Well, I will tell you what's going on in my
head right now, which is the dating advice book that
I'm about to write based on how women should just
act like cats to get men.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, okay, call me up. Book published. Do you have
to wear a tail?
Speaker 6 (13:05):
No?
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Please don't.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
Okay. So it's beyond just the idea that cats are
aloof women play hard to get women? Are cats cats
or women? It's weird. There's also these feline images of
women in pop culture. And this is coming from a
San Francisco Gate article that talks about characters like catwomen
and Josie from Josie and the Pussycats who were sexy, kittenish,
(13:28):
wild and independent, and that author Clia Simon that we
Christin mentioned earlier said that that just rubs men the
wrong way. And she says, think of the negative words
that can be used for women, cattie or sex, kitten,
And when people describe cats negative traits, they call them aloof, demanding, promiscuous,
the same thing people find threatening about women exclamation point.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Yeah, I mean the fact that women of all phases
of their life can be described in cat terms and
are described in cats.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Yeah, that's so.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
It's very odd, everything from kitten to cougar.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Now, there is some valid research to back this up,
not just my mindless ramblings about how someone could probably
make money drawing connections between cats and dating in the
human world. There was a study published in the journal
Behavioral Processes in twenty eleven that found that cats attached
(14:27):
to people, particularly.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Women, but not just for food.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
They looked at observational interactions between cats and their human
owners and found that the dynamics and human cat relationships
are similar to those in human bonds.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
Yeah, it's interesting. John Day, who's a co author of
that study, said that the way cats and humans interact
with each other when it comes to food is similar
to the interactions between caregivers and infants, and he says
that both ca and human infant are at least in
part in control of when and what they are fed,
because I've been around moody cats, you know, I've been
(15:08):
around moody baby, and they can let you know when
they are hungry. So, yeah, they chalk it up to
cats having a different type of relationship to people than
dogs do.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
Yeah, and especially there is the gender difference, and this
has come up in multiple studies where there does seem
to be a stronger connection of sorts between cats and women.
Although I have met many cat guys, like guys who
love cats to a degree, I've never seen.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
In a woman.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Well, my friend Claire, she and her husband adopted their
neighbor's cat, and for the longest time, the cat would
not go to her. For the first year that they
adopted it, it would avoid her like the plague and
only go to her husband and be all over her
husband and not have anything to do with her. And
she thinks eventually the cat, you know, the cat has
warmed up to her. She thinks that maybe the lady
who owned the cat before was mean to it, So
(16:05):
maybe cats just learn an aversion to Meani's whatever the gender.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
And speaking of women, another finding from this behavioral process
of study was the extroverted women with young active cats
had the strongest relationship. Right.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
All the cat had to do was like flick his
tail and be like I want attention, and the woman
would get it.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
She'd be like, yeah, let's play a cat.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
But there's that whole, that whole attention giving thing where
cats remember kindness and return the favors. This study says,
if owners comply with the cat's wishes to interact, the
cat will often comply with the owner's wishes at other times.
So your cat has an elephant's memory when it comes
to playing and being nice.
Speaker 6 (16:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And maybe since the female owner's at least according to
these studies.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
This is nothing against any guys who love cats out there.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
I know you're out there. You care for cats better
than I do. I'm sure that cats will will approach.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
The female owners more frequently, maybe because we are more
attuned to those.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Nurturing behaviors as I'm sure some.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Psychologists would would say, to which we would both probably
raise our eyebrows our.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Eyebrows the race.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
But getting back to the crazy old cat lady stereotype,
because that suggestion that extroverted women with young, active cats
have the best relationships. That's still kind of going against
this idea that only cuckoo older females are.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Crazy for cats.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:42):
Well, Forbes talks about some kind of common sense stuff
if you think about it. They point out that women
live longer than men, so they are more elderly women
than elderly men. At a given time. These elderly women,
maybe they get lonely and they may take in hungry,
straight straight cats who might reap produced quickly. Then they
point out, hey, you know, cats are more self sufficient
(18:03):
than dogs, so they are easier for older women to
care for. So maybe this relationship develops. Like if a
woman loses her husband and she's alone and you know,
maybe she doesn't have the best mobility. Yeah, the cats
are more independent. You know, you can just leave food
out or whatever, and that you don't have to walk them. Typically.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
Typically, and on a very downer note, some suggest that
this kind of elder cat behavior could be a sign
of dementia. You know, the women are older, women are
by themselves by this point, and they're just caring for
more and more cats, and they don't know that they
have too many cats on their hands. And this also
(18:44):
gets us into pet hoarding, and animal hoarding is statistically
more frequent and older, isolated, socioeconomically disadvantaged women.
Speaker 7 (18:56):
Right, And they point out that, like we said, women
might be drawn to stray cats because they're smaller and
easier to round up. There there was a an article,
I guess it was on the Today Show website about
some women who it kind of ranged everywhere from just
a young woman who had a cat and she got
teased for being a cat lady by our friends and family,
all the way up to a woman who had started
(19:17):
out as a cat rescuer, like, let me help these
stray cats and it turned into a really bad, unhealthy
situation in her house.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Yeah, there's a whole documentary made in two thousand and
nine called Cat Ladies that follows a range of women
who have lots of cats. And we did an episode
on hoarders and hoarding behavior way back when, and I
saw since then, I've seen an episode of Hoarders that
was dealing with a cat hoarder, and it was it
(19:51):
was I could you could almost smell the ammonia, you know,
from the from the excessive litter boxes.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, well, screen, So we've got this idea of cat
ladies regardless of age. And when you talk about hoarders,
these people often have major dysfunction in work, social and
daily activities. So maybe these people do just seem unstable.
But the thing that they're hoarding instead of I don't
know what you hoard, but instead of whatever it is,
it's the animals.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
Yeah, but also but still that doesn't that doesn't answer
our question about like why the stereotype of crazy cat
lady is so pervasive because cat hoarders are a small population.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
I really think it ties into witches, all the witchcrafts, yeah,
the early Christianity, Like you're a witch, you have a familiar,
you know, you have this animal that's black and evil
and associated with the devil. So yeah, I think it
goes back to the idea of witches.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And all the felineaphobic made that word up, felina phobic popes. Yeah,
nothing against Catholic listeners out there, but really popes got
a cat a break, but there has been some our
scientific research possibly suggesting that there could be a parasitic
(21:06):
link going on between cat craziness behavior male or female.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Really and this parasite.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Yeah, not to alarm you, but cats are taking over
the world very slowly. So evolutionary biologist, oh gosh, jerislev Flegger,
We're gonna go y Roslev Flegger. So this biologist has
been pursuing the connection between a parasite called Toxoplasma Gandhi
(21:37):
or Tea Gandhi in mood and personality changes in people.
And he had done all this research and reading and
he was like, you know what, it's kind of strange
that I will just willingly cross the street and situations
that scare and stress out other people don't seem to
bother me, and you know what, I dress kind of sloppy.
He actually tested positive for Tea Gandhi And okay, so
(21:59):
we'll explain that. We'll explain in a minute. But this
is a parasite that is excreted by cats in their
feces and it causes toxoplasmosis, which is the reason that
pregnant women are told to avoid cats litter boxes because
if they're infected, it can result in severe brain damage
or death for the child. So anyway back to this biologist,
he did years and years of studies, which kind of
(22:21):
sounds like crazy town, but he's gotten a lot of
support from other biologists.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Well, yeah, and we should explain what the life cycle
of this parasite because the cats will and it's kind
of a gross.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Life cycle, but let us go for it.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
And if you're eating a sandwich right now, just put
it down for a minute because we're about to talk
about poop. Because first off, the parasite gets pooped out
of the cat. Now the parasite wants to find another
host so that it can get back into the cat, right.
Speaker 7 (22:57):
Yeah, so it can so can hear its whole little
life cycle in the cat stomach?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, and it and it can reproduce.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
So this theory is that the cats poop out this parasite.
Humans get in contact with the poop, get the parasite,
and then engage because of the parasite wreaking havoc in
our brains, engage in reckless behavior such as crossing the
street willy nilly without looking to see if cars are coming,
(23:24):
so that we will then die and the parasite can
get back into the cat, which will come up, you know,
a straight cat.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
We'll wander up and start licking.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
Our just like in Batman when what's her name falls
out of the window, Selena and all those cats crawl over. Yeah,
and she's probably infected because she had so many cats.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
She probably handled the cat litter box, got the parasite,
probably got tea gandhi. And then those cats come back
start eating your spilled guts, only to get the parasite
poop it out again in the circle of life continues.
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Yeah, take that, Elton John. So he found that study subjects,
He did a ton of studies just across the board,
all different types of people, and he found that study
subjects had significantly delayed reaction times. Those who tested positive
for the parasite were about two and a half times
more likely to get into a car accident.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
This reminds me of when we were doing the podcast
on Luck we talked about that one study finding that
traffic accidents go up on Friday the thirteenth. So listen,
if it's Friday the thirteenth, and you might have this parasite, stay.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
Hold take the bus.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Well.
Speaker 7 (24:35):
So he found that and this. You know, Kristen made
the comment earlier about extroverted young women and having young
active cats that goes against the typical stereotype of a
shut in spinster cat lady. Well, this also does because
infected women tend to be more outgoing, trusting, image conscious,
and rule abiding, whereas infected men are the opposite. They
(24:56):
become more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to others opinions of them,
and inclined to disregard roles. And so you're thinking, well,
if they have the parasite, if a man and a
woman have a parasite that's the same, why are they
acting differently? And he brings up his anxiety theory, which
we Chris and I have talked about stress and anxiety
responses in men and women, and how women want to
(25:16):
go forth and be around people when they are stressed
and nurture, whereas men withdraw. And so he thinks that
this parasite is like bringing out some of our anxiety responses.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Huh yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
And not only that, infected men have elevated testosterone, which
would make sense for increased risk taking behavior, and women
shown photos of these men rated them as more masculine
than pictures of uninfected men. Whoh, this parasite is quite powerful,
I know.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
And it's funny because so there is a New York
Times article about it and the author was, you know,
she had flown to Prog to have interviews with this
guy and all throughout this because you hear these things
and you're like, oh, I'm feeling out going in image
conscious today. I hope I'm not infected. Well, she she
got tested and of course it turned out negative, right,
(26:07):
So I mean, you can't blame a parasite for everything,
or can you?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Or can you?
Speaker 7 (26:11):
They also tie it to schizophrenia, which is interesting. They
say that it could very well trigger schizophrenia in genetically
susceptible people because in schizophrenia, dopamine production is ramped up
in your brain, and the parasite actually, coincidentally or not,
has two genes that allow it to boost dopamine production
(26:33):
in the host brain. So these antipsychotics that schizophrenics take
that are designed to quell delusions because of their disease
blocks the action of dopamine. But the scientist Flegger thinks
that it could actually be blocking the parasite.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Now listen to this when it comes to schizophrenia, okay, And.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I feel like this is this is when we should.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Be pulling in Matt and been from stuff they don't
want you to know, because I feel like I'm getting
very conspiracy theory esque, because brace yourself.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Psychologist E.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
Fuller Tory, when talking about the possible connection between schizophrenia
and TI Gandhi, points out that schizophrenia didn't rise in
prevalence until the latter half of the eighteenth century, when
people in Paris and London started keeping cats as pets.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Dun dun, dum.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
What is much done to me?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Now?
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I'm wondering.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
I don't know. But you can't get tested. But the
thing is, what are you gonna do? You can't do
anything because uh, these little weird parasites cysts that end
up getting all over you. Not all over you, that's
an exaggeration, but they are. You can't take antabiotics for them.
So you're just gonna be that way.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So you're just gonna be.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
So maybe you should go into u evilutionary biology like
your slow flager who's been studying this.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Start a club, yes, and wear sloppy outfits.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
No.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
No, As a woman, you would be dressed very nicely. Oh,
because he noticed that in all of his studies when
the women who were infected would come in to be tested,
they were all dressed like to the nines.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
And men would come in all like, so okay, well
if his parasite could help me dress better, I mean,
all right, yeah, who knew? But then again, doesn't that
seem to be debunking the crazy cat lady stereotype, Because
so far, even with this parasite, even with the personality connections.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
All that is.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
All that I'm hearing is that women who own cats,
maybe to the extent that we are contracting parasites from them,
are well dressed, social, outgoing gals.
Speaker 7 (28:52):
Yeah you know, well yeah, in the literal crazy I
have a parasite cat ladyway, maybe you're better off.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Yeah. I mean, if anything, this is an argument to
drop what you're doing, head to your nearest animal shelter
and pick up a kitten.
Speaker 7 (29:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Wish I had a kitten right now.
Speaker 7 (29:12):
I'm right now in the studio. I will admit I'm
more of a dog person, and this whole thing got
me a little scared about paraside.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Whereas I'm got totally gung ho for cats.
Speaker 7 (29:22):
Now, okay, well, I really want to hear from our
cat lady listeners. Do you ever get accused of being
a cat lady? Are people very insensitive? How many cats
do you have?
Speaker 6 (29:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Do children like my nephews approach you and.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Worry that your cat status and your dating status are
not looking too good?
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Yeah, let's know your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Mom.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can email us,
And before we get into your emails, we have a
quick word from today's sponsor, bring you.
Speaker 7 (29:59):
This episode of SOF Mom've Never Told You, which is.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Audible dot Com.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
At audible dot com, you can choose from thousands of
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(30:28):
heading over to audible dot com and downloading The Taming
of the Cat by Scientific American. I believe it's only
twenty three minutes long, so just a quick audio documentary
of how cats even got into our homes.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
To begin with, So.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
Those Egyptians Egyptians and popes. So at audible dot com,
thank you for sponsoring this episode of stuff Mom Never
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Speaker 5 (31:02):
And now back to you are letters.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
And here we have an email from Melissa about our
sleepover podcast. She says, I went to a lot of
sleepover slash slumber parties when I was younger, but I'm
debating on whether I will let my own children have them.
Most of my slumber party experiences, the ones I can
still remember, didn't end well. My past sleepover experiences include
wetting the bed, getting the stomach fluent, throwing up, sleep walking,
(31:29):
and having horrific night tars that freaked out the parents
and children present. I even made a girl cry at one,
but that requires a backstory. Okay, here it is six
girls all agree that the first one to fall asleep
would get their sleeping bag tape to the floor. So
when the first girl fell asleep, I dutifully taped her
to the floor. This was followed by the girl waking
up and crying in a panic, calling her mom and
going home. Her mom made me apologize to her, which
(31:52):
was really embarrassing. So that does sound Yeah, you and Melissa,
You and I we did not have good slumber party experiences.
That's cool, it's all right, you know, just if your
child is ready, let them go.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Well, speaking of whether or not your child is ready,
I've got an email here from Julia about our episode
on kids and makeup, and she has a different perspective
and starts off, we need a social reform. All anyone
talks about is body image or what age is appropriate.
Nobody ever thinks about what's in the makeup, who it's
(32:26):
tested on, and the damage it does to your physical body.
There are animal sources and byproducts in makeup tested on
innocent animals, packaged and harmful plastics and are full of
chemicals that cause breakouts and aging. Nobody ever discusses this,
and if they do, they simply shrug off the facts
and continue to put on their face. There are ethical
makeup products, but they're expensive and not as saturated as
(32:48):
theyre harmful counterparts. If six year old girls saw some
of the rabbits I've seen with fur fallen out, bloody skin,
and rotten eyeballs, I'm sure they would feel more reluctant
about applying that makeup.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
On their own skin.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Women don't care because they've already sold their soul to
their particular brands and consider makeup quote putting on their face.
As a teenager in high school, I couldn't recognize myself
in the mirror without a few layers of foundation, powder, eyeliner, eyeshadow.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
And mascara.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
I had a lot of acne problems and self esteem issues.
Now I rarely wear makeup, and if I do, it's handmade,
vegan and very very light. My skin is completely cleared up.
I find myself beautiful on a daily basis. I'm reducing
my harmful impact to the planet and animals, and I'm
saving a whole lot of money to boot, all.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Of which are pretty convincing arguments.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
So thank you, Julia, and thank you to everyone who's
written in mom Stuff at Discovery dot Com is our
email address. You can also find us on Facebook and
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and check
out our tumbler It's stuff Moomnever Told You dot tumblr
dot com, follow us over there, and, last but not least,
if you'd like to get smart this week, head over
(33:56):
to our website, it's how Stuff Works dot com for more.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
On this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
Visit HowStuffWorks dot com.
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