Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance sparked controversy this week when a 2021 interview resurfaced in which he labeled women without biological children, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, as “childless cat ladies” with “no direct stake” in America.
In the interview with Tucker Carlson on FOX News, the Ohio senator said that the government was being run by people “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.”
Harris doesn’t have any biological children, but she is a stepmother to her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s two children, who fondly call her “Momala.”
The comments could haunt Vance, particularly in the 2024 presidential contest, which for many is not only a referendum on abortion access, but women’s rights and freedoms to choose what happens to their bodies. In separate interviews also from 2021, Vance said that people who choose not to have children should have less political power and should face a higher tax rate.
Democrats feel the wind at their back after winning consecutive ballot initiatives upholding abortion access in reliably Republican strongholds like Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio as well as a swing state like Michigan, but Vance’s assertion that childless Americans are a problem speaks to a growing chasm between the two parties that dives into sexual values, gender roles and personal life choices that make up American families.
Conservative activists, athletes and lawmakers, pushing back on what they say is an overreaching liberal social agenda, don’t necessarily disagree with the Ohio Republican, and have trumpeted a need to openly discuss why traditional views are still necessary even if they wince at the acerbic presentation.
Democrats, including a flood of women and men speaking out online, see it as another attack on their freedom to make decisions about their bodies and that elected officials should be looking at ways to lift all Americans.
“It feeds the narrative of division to try to pick and choose amongst which families are preferred,” said Jocelyn Frye, President of the National Partnership for Women & Families Fund.
“Particularly, when you’re the leader of all the people, you’ve got to be able to recognize the differences that all of those families face and be willing to think through how do we make sure that regardless of the type of family you have that you can still live a healthy life, and an economically stable life where you and your family can be successful and thrive.”
Vance sought to dispel the controversy Friday, telling media personality Megyn Kelly: “Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats. … People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance … and the substance of what I said, Megyn — I’m sorry, it is true.”
In an election already framed by the loss of reproductive rights for millions of American women in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision that ended Roe v. Wade, Vance’s comments may be an ill-timed reminder for Republicans and a good one for Harris’ allies of what’s at stake this year.
A Gallup survey released in June found a record share of voters, 32%, say they would only support a candidate who shares their views on abortion. Of those 23% identify as supporting a woman’s right to have an abortion versus 8% who identify with the antiabortion position.
Jennifer Aniston, Meghan McCain and others denounce Vance
The comments by former President Donald Trump’s running mate triggered outrage across the country.
Celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, who traditionally stays out of politics but has been open about her fertility struggles, said on Instagram she couldn’t believe the remarks were coming from a potential vice president.
“All I can say is… 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.”
Actress Whoopi Goldberg said on The View: “How dare you. And women, you heard how he thinks of you. This is not good for you, JD.”
Political commentator Meghan McCain, daughter of former Arizona Sen. John McCain, said the 39-year-old father of three, “caused real pain” and is is “activating women across all sides” including Trump supporters.
Harris, who has two step-children, did not personally respond to the remarks, but her children and Emhoff’s ex-wife have.
In a statement to CNN, Kerstin Emhoff, Ella and Cole Emhoff’s mother and ex-wife to second gentleman Doug Emhoff, said that, “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
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Professor Nadia Brown, chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University, said Vance’s comment was meant to play into the “cat ladies stereotype” of being someone who is unlovable, who uses their maternal instinct for animals or non-human beings.
He’s saying “if women cannot find love or fulfillment in romantic ways and their children, then somehow they are deserving [of] ridicule,” Brown said.
The comment seeks to tie women back to the home or to their private life as opposed to thinking about women finding fulfillment and love in their careers or with their animals, Brown said.
Vance is absolutely terrified of the power of American women, said Mini Timmaraju, CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All.
“It’s that simple. He can see as clearly as the rest of us that voters are turned off by the GOP’s extremist agenda,” she said. “He’s spewing whatever kind of nonsense he can think of to discredit the undeniable political power of the 8 in 10 Americans who support the legal right to abortion.”
Social media quickly filled with photos of women with their pets, alongside snarky memes and many embraced it as a badge of honor. Democratic groups have arranged an organizing call titled “cats and dog ladies unite” for Tuesday evening. Shirts proclaiming the wearer is a “miserable childless cat lady” and “childless cat lady for Kamala” are for sale on Etsy. Childless dog and cat dad’s are also jumping on board.
Delia Cintron, 70, a retired manager at Estee Lauder, said she has been “fuming mad at this absolutely backward individual” ever since she heard Vance’s comments.
Cintron said she chose not to have children of her own free will.
“It’s absolutely sad. We are a country that moves forward, that comes to a higher level of consciousness and thinking and education. We lead the world,” she said. “I think that the choice is very clear. Women have to be in the room where decisions are made, where they lead, where this patriarchal society nonsense that want to keep women down and as functionaries to have children does not become a reality.”
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“It’s no surprise that JD Vance is appalled by ‘childless cat ladies’. His plan is to keep women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen with no human rights,” said Carol Evans, 71, of West Asheville, N.C., a retired CEO of a nonprofit focused on cancer care for women. “I see JD Vance’s “Childless cat ladies” comment as just one more effort to deny women their human rights.”
Mary Refling, 70, a retired college professor from New York who never had children of her own, said her first thought when she heard J.D. Vance’s “ridiculous” comments was that she was going to have fun with it.
“I immediately started posting memes on Facebook, and I posted pictures of me with my cats with a snarky look on my face,” she said.
A lot of her friends who don’t have children do love cats and dogs, she said.
“The idea that because we are childless, we’re miserable is a completely twisted way of looking at the modern structure of the family,” she said.
For Refling, who is married and has two stepchildren, it was a conscious decision to not have children because of the demands of an academic career. With her step-children, she had help from her husband’s ex-wife, she said.
“Kamala Harris is talking about looking to the future and not looking backwards,” she said.
Harris finds her voice on women’s issues
The vice president, who is the first woman to hold the seat, has arguably found her best political footing on the issue of abortion, regularly warning voters that they shouldn’t trust Trump’s promise not to pursue a federal abortion ban.
Earlier in the year, Harris broke a political barrier by touring a Minnesota-based Planned Parenthood clinic, the first for a president or vice president. There she spoke in blunt terms about women’s reproductive health care needs. She’s held over 100 events related to abortion access after Roe v. Wade in the year since it was struck down.
Harris speaks about sex and access to reproductive health care as “freedom” and “uses this language of liberty and government interference” in a way that makes her a particularly poignant speaker on the topic, said Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
“Not only does Harris hit hard on unbridled government power violating bodily freedom, she reframes abortion as routine health care that 1 out of 4 American women will access in their lifetimes,” Liebell said.
Some women were quick to step to Harris’ defense after the Vance remarks.
“First of all, she has kids. She’s in a family, they’re blended family. I think it’s really just not appropriate and insulting to many different types of families in our nation to define the concept of family so narrowly. I think that’s just unfair and doesn’t really merit a response in any meaningful way,” Frye told USA TODAY.
Frye noted that male candidates’ worth is not dependent on their number of dependents.
“Truthfully, there’s baked into those sorts of narratives, a lot of gender bias. People don’t have a concern about single men. It’s really women, just trying to diminish the accomplishments and perspective that they bring,” she said.
Conservativesagree with Vance’s point, but not his rhetoric
Vance’s remarks have offended many women, but it sparked a debate on the political right with roughly 100 days until the fall election.
Former Senate candidate Blake Masters, of Arizona, who Vance has endorsed for Congress, said elected leaders, “should have children” to make better decisions for future generations.
“Skin in the game matters,” Masters said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Vance’s female relatives and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,R-Ga., have rushed to publicly defend him, too. Far right commentator Alex Jones posted on Truth Social that Vance “makes an important point about the misery of leftist cat ladies.”
Social conservatives have long upheld the traditional family as an American foundation, and that having children is a glue for the country’s social cohesion.
Vance’s remarks reveal a cavernous debate on the political right where many argue he is correct on the substance, but that his style is wrong-headed. Jokes about childless cat women have long been common in some conservative circles.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, said in an interview she wasn’t offended by Vance, and urged Republicans to engage the debate more in a way that appeals to rank-and-file conservative women.
“As women we’re sold this lie that we have to have this uninterrupted career in order to build our resume, and that any interruption to that kind of career track is going to be harmful,” she said.
Hawkins said she knows countless professional GOP women who live in the Washington, D.C. area who leave their careers to return home.
“It was because, ‘I can’t find my husband here. There are no men,’” she said.
“This is a real conversation that plays out on social media, in coffee shops and with your female friends who are looking for a spouse.”
Other conservative thinkers warn against browbeating women when it comes to the debate around a rising tide of unmarried, childless voters. They contend there is an argument to be made about its negatives impact on America’s society without personal vitriol.
“I would agree with the substance of Sen. Vance’s concerns,” Andrew T. Walker, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told USA TODAY.
“But there’s legitimate conversation to be had about the way that it was expressed, which was probably a little bit irreverent, acerbic and perhaps condescending to a constituency that obviously they’re going to need in order to build a coalition to win.”
In 2020, for instance, exit polls found 63% of unmarried women and 55% of childless women voted for Biden over Trump. That is worrisome to Republicans given the trends over the past few decades as more Americans remain single and without kids.
“This is tied to what we think is at the absolute bedrock foundation of a stable social order,” Walker said.
“My challenge to conservatives would be not to appear hectoring or condemning, but show why children are intrinsically worthwhile, and that’s not just a child issue that’s a marriage issue.”
Study: More Americans are avoiding parenthood
A new study released Thursday amid the fiery online debate underscores how Vance may have stepped into a larger hornet’s nest politically with voters.
The Pew Research Center finds 47% of U.S. adults under age 50 without children say they’re unlikely to ever have them. That is up 10 percentage points compared to when the center asked the same question in 2018.
Respondents gave various reasons for declining being a parent, such as focusing on different things in life (44%); the state of the world (38%); can’t afford them (36%); and infertility (13%).
But the largest reason was 57% of Americans age 18-49 who said, “they just don’t want” children.
Younger women were more likely to say such, the Pew study found, with 64% saying they don’t want children versus 50% of younger men who said the same.
Some Harris supporters have explicitly highlighted how they identify with vice president as a professional woman who was single until age 49.
Walker said social conservatives shouldn’t shrink from the family debate and calling for certain policy reforms, such as making childbirth free or further incentivizing marriage through the tax code.
But they should avoid demonizing a person or their life choices, he said.
“We really as conservatives are needing to flip the moral imagination to understand that yes, children are costly, yes, they impede upon your time,” Walker said.
“But as a parent of three daughters myself, there are immaterial values to having a child that money and time can’t measure for.”
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