On the power of childless cat ladies

A Susan B. Anthony appreciation post

Recently the Republican nominee for vice president expressed a fear of our country being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable about the choices they’ve made.” 

I presume that he has not seen the data saying that single, child-free women are the happiest people [Assuming it’s by choice. For those struggling to build a family, I see you.] Or perhaps he does know that and the truth of it has scared him deep in his bones. As it should! Single, childfree women have free time, their own money, and no husbands/children to exhaust them, which means they have time, money and energy to devote whatever they want, including voting and organizing for freedom and equality.

If we look to the Suffs (as I always do), single women were the secret superpower of the movement. No one exemplified this more than Susan B. Anthony (although she did not have a cat).  

Susan was once called a “catankarous cross eyed old maid” and a dozen other cruel names. Being such a public figure for the cause meant she endured much of the abuse for all the Suffs and women’s suffrage in general. I fear she is the one we all think of when someone says dried up old spinster or cranky feminist. We think that because the Anti-Suffs of the 19^th century made sure we did: they put out a ton of political cartoons depicting women interested in their rights as unattractive failures of womanhood. For example:

But the truth is that Susan was beloved by all her lady friends. Someone who admired her once wrote: 

“There was Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, which men think wonderfully fascinating in a belle, but utterly unforgivable in a plain, middle-aged woman.” 

In a world that wanted women to be meek, submissive and uncomplicated, there she was being openly “anxious, earnest, importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional.” And she didn’t do so in the the “cute” way of a “belle” but in the “unforgivable” way of a middle-aged woman who is, presumably, out of fucks and not trying to please a man. I think this makes her sounds like someone I’d like to hang out with. 

While the Anti’s tried to suggest she was some how less because she was unwed, Susan wasn’t bothered. She was unapologetically unwed by choice. True story from her biography: 

One minister, in Rochester, after looking her over carefully, said: "Miss Anthony, you are too fine a physical specimen of woman to be doing such work as this. You ought to marry and have children." Ignoring the insult, she replied in a dignified manner: "I think it a much wiser thing to secure for the thousands of mothers in this State the legal control of the children they now have, than to bring others into the world who would not belong to me after they were born.”

Susan had more important things to do than get married. And she suspected that she couldn’t do those important things if she got married, set up house and had a family. She saw, time after time, how women got married and devoted themselves to pleasing their husbands and children had “little time or energy left to spend in any other direction.” She saw it happen with her beloved sisters, her bestie Elizabeth, her frenemy Lucy Stone, and countless others. 

Again, from her biography: 

…when she attempted to arrange for the annual convention, she found to her dismay that every one of the speakers whom she always depended upon was unable to be present because of maternal duties. Some were anticipating an event, others had very young infants, and the older women were kept at home by expected or recently arrived grandchildren. She was used to overcoming obstacles, but the conditions on this occasion were too much for her and, with feelings which can not well be put into language, she was obliged to give up the national convention, the only one omitted from 1850 to 1861.

Another time, I will compile a list of all Susan’s irate letters replying to news of a fellow Suff’s new baby. Not because she hated children—she loved children—but because she knew it left her alone in the work. Sometimes, the work was a visit to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s house, and “Aunt Susan” who would take over in the kitchen and with the children so Elizabeth could write. But often, it was up to Single Susan to travel all over the country, sleeping on the train, going straight to the hall to give the speech and so on and so forth. 

She was the one who kept the ball rolling. 

And it’s no small thing that, as a single woman, she could sign contracts to, say, rent a hall for a convention. In those days, married women were legally dead and so could not enter into contracts themselves. She was also the one liable for the debts of the organization (a story for another time). Her status as a single woman was vital to the cause.

I grew up with the idea of notion of sad spinsters and tragic old maids and the fear of dying alone and being found, in the words of Bridget Jones, “ three weeks later half-eaten by Alsatians.” Not from my own single mother who married when I was ten, but from the rest of the world. It’s just out there.

I can see now why young girls are made to fear being alone and why we put such emphasis on finding the one! And the wedding! And getting married! And the babies! Because then they have less time and energy to revolt. (But not less motivation). Later in her life, Susan gave an interview to Nellie Bly and said this: 

When I was young, if a girl married poverty, she became a drudge; if she married wealth, she became a doll. Had I married at twenty-one, I would have been either a drudge or a doll for fifty-five years. Think of it! 

Look at what she did instead: she spent nearly sixty years actively campaigning to abolish slavery, to get working women equal wages, and to get women the vote. She spent her life empowering women to demand more and do more. Because of her work and the women she inspired, she changed the world. Cheers to Susan and all the childless cat ladies.