1. Chickenization Essay
2. Kittenization Essay
Chickenization
Chickenization, originally written in 1979 by Anne Hart,
writing under maiden name, Anne D'Arcy, appeared in the Mensa Bulletin, 1979, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, June
17, 1985, and also appeared in Dear Abby in 1984. (copyright by Anne Hart)
Copyright 1979 by Anne Jeanne D'Arcy Hart
Have you ever noticed how often women are referred to as poultry? Young
women are brow-plucking chicks. Married women ruffle feathers. They egg men on at work and cluck kids off to school. Mothers
watch their broods.
Child-rearing ends with the empty-nest syndrome. Husbands at home are henpecked by their
wives. Runaway wives have flown the coop, while stay-at-home husbands feel 'fowl' cooped up.
The object of W.C. Fields' affection was "My little Chickadee." Married women feather
their nests. She squawks her alimony is birdseed, but her ex calls her a vulture. "Wait 'till that pullet digs her talons
in your wallet," grooms are warned. "She'll watch you like a hawk."
She scratches for a raise like a hen dancing on a turntable, going in circles to get visibility
and recognition. Long experience makes her the sharp-beaked mother hen who trains younger males for her dream job.
In Arabic, a beautiful woman is a 'fistoo,' a piece of chicken thigh. Women are elder
biddies, old crows, or Ladybirds. "She's no spring chicken," say men about mature women.
A sorority is called the "hen house." A woman alone is a sitting duck. Either her goose
is cooked, or she gets goosed in a crowded elevator. An Amazon parrots the old toy's network.
When her husband uses anger to get power, she walks on egg shells. To be feminine is to
be chicken. Is it any coincidence that so many women's wages are chickenfeed?
Kittenization
pussycat
One entry found for pussycat.
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
at: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pussycat
Main Entry: pussy·cat
Pronunciation: 'pu-sE-"kat'
Function: noun
1 : Cat
2
: one that is weak, compliant, or amiable: Softy
Kittenization
Copyright 1979 by Anne Jeanne D'Arcy Hart
James Bond's sidekick was Pussy Galore. To be a pussy is to be in the feminine gender,
linguistically. We all know what pussy is, but why does the connotation refer back to women or women's parts and link cats
to women--as in the feline word, pussycat ?
Have you ever noticed how often women are referred to as cats? A workplace flirt is a
lynx. Technically-educated dates are expected to arch their wallets. Working women purr for power or claw their way to the
top by their high hopes. Mentoring women are called catty only when the person being mentored is passed over for a promotion.
Kittens have cute faces that make us want to take care of them. Ironically, cats are said to be more independent than
dogs when seeking connection.
Cats have long nails, and men are intrigued at the clean sight of long, manicured nails
on women. To a man long nails in the past signaled servants, wealth and no need for heavy manual labor such as wringing out
laundry, kneading dough, or chiseling stone. Today long, cat-like claws signals attention to appearance and money spent on
manicures. At least she cleans the dirt under her nails when she shapes and glosses them, men emote.
Cats are fortune hunters. Dogs run with sled teams and packs to seek rewards. A cat's
goal is to be the only or favorite pampered pet on the pillow. Dogs want to please their masters by more useful work such
as chasing away intruders, herding the sheep, or retrieving the paper.
Cats can be trained to jump through hoops when they hear clicks in order to get
morsels of food, but not to stop a blind human from walking into an obstacle or answering doorbells for the deaf. After many
years indoors, cats may lose the desire to wander outside or fear the open door. Dogs bolt out the door if not taken for a
daily walk.
A cat house is slang for a bordello. Cat scratch fever not only is a disease carried by
cats, but the slang term for sexually transmitted diseases from female to male humans. A female cat is called a queen. A female
dog is a bitch.
When women are called cats it's usually when they are passed over in a career. In reaction,
they may run to the momma cat track so they can say publicly that their family is more important than work. To themselves,
they really wish they could have a business card with something to say on it that could make them cat-like self-sufficient
financially from being dependent on their spouse, relatives, and children who use anger to get power. On their death beds,
cats don't say, I wish I spent more time with family. Women sometimes use as their first name Kitty, Kitten, Catt, and
Katte. The name gets attention from men. The face of a kitten is used frequently in advertising to show beauty, youth, and
agility.
When women are called catty by men, it really means the women are being competitive.
Catty women are described as saying, "I wish I could have had a different and better career that would have given me enough
money to live without having to take abuse from those who pay my bills, control and patrol me, or leave in the end."
Kittens grow up and spit in your face," catty women are said to say of their progeny. "But success in a career follows you
at ninety-nine if you own your own company that fills a deep need in society," the cat women may conclude.
Perfume companies used to create oily rubbing scents from whale sperm (ambergris) to mark
clothing. The number of cat boutiques women open is successfully on the rise with plenty of customers who love cats for their
independence and uniqueness. A contest between two women is called a cat-fight.
How many men open cat boutiques compared to woman who care for a cat or run cat rescue
houses? Men who love cats may collect them, but it is more often women who take feral cats to vets to be neutered and spayed,
with the men driving the trucks and lifting the crates of cats. Compulsive cat collectors mostly are older women who are lonely
and have more of a need to give affection than to receive nourishment. Otherwise they might be compulsive dog collectors.
Why is sexually-transmitted disease called cat-scratch-fever? Why are houses where women
sell their bodies for cash called cat houses? Cats frequently groom themselves and are fussy where they go to litter. Why
are cats so often referred to in language as if they were human women? Why is stillness cat-a-tonic, and movement upward labeled
dogged determination? The silence of a cat is noted, and women are told to be silent in public by some churches.
Why would dogged determination kill the cat in you? Do men like dogs because dogs can
be dominated? Do women like cats because cats are free spirits? Dogs give loyalty to the leader of the wolf-pack, but a cat's
eagerness to roam and play can't easily be broken without driving the cat sick? We train dogs and nurture cats. Kittens are
cherished. Tiger portraits sell cereals to kids.
Cats are masters--captains of their own ship. Dogs are loyal to masters and servants of
those in need of help with moving. Cats are cute, evoking feelings of tenderness. Dogs are the eyes of their masters or the
hands. Cats are an extension of their mistresses' accessories and affection. Love is given to a cat without expecting it back.
Love is given to a dog in expectation that the dog must work and pull its own weight.
An executive woman is either a mouser or a tiger. A single woman is an alley cat in slang.
If she doesn't belong to one man, she belongs to all, it has been said in the media and at social gatherings. A married woman
who gossips is a calico. Calicos are said to be slinky. To slink is to move forward by twisting shape or sound. Slinky calicos
let the cat out of the bag.
To let the cat out of the bag is to tell secrets and betray confidence. Why are cats linked
to betrayal, deceit, and gossip, whereas the dog is man's best friend? What does gossip do for the personality other than
make one feel important for a minute and obtain the center stage?
Cats seek attention, yet are more social than previously thought. Cats are not loners.
They are independent and strong-willed. Young girls often are stereotyped as kittens in search of powerful, congeries of cougars,
who later may become curmudgeons.
Lionesses decorate their dens with expensive gadgets or art when they no longer consider
themselves attractive enough to want to groom as much as an art form by itself. If you're free-spirited in a career that requires
more logic than nurturance, you're a wildcat.
An ambitious woman grows into a bobcat, but a tricky woman becomes a jaguar. Child-rearing
ends with the empty litter box syndrome. Wives outlive their husbands by nine lives. Divorced women are expected to land on
their paws after a leap of faith onto the ledge of leadership where they must have the balance of a cat on a fence. They can
straddle a thin gate in the dark to make ends meet. Husbands at home are hissed more than they're purred.
Women are named Cheetah (Chita), Kitten, Kitty, and Tabby, Manx, or Puma. Runaway wives
have flown the den of unequal pay for equal work, while tomcats always are on the prowl to mark their territory. Cats on Wall
Street want time off to raise a basket of stocks to their highest dividends--or litter of kittens to their lowest prices.
Cats buy the Dogs of the Dow and reap close to twenty percent profit in good years.
Cats of the Dow are the belle-weather, but volatile tech stocks traded quickly to make
a thousand in two days, like when Microsoft went from 118 to more than 130 the last five days of the year 1997. A Cat could
have taken twelve thou--from a Retirement Money Market fund and ran up 100 shares in that week to a thousand dollar profit
for seasonal presents, then put the money back right after New Years' Day--without even having a paid job outside the home.
The objects of affection are kittenish. One woman's catnip is another's creativity. In
Egypt, one cat-headed goddess ruled pestilence and war, while Bes, a lion-headed god, ruled the toilet. In Switzerland, a
beautiful woman is a 'chat'--a cat. To chat is to talk small. Independent women choose between being stray cats or kittens
on satin pillows. "She's catty," say some men about competing women.
Who is more independent than a cat? Yet, cats in groups socialize. If you whistle, a dog
runs to you, but you build your scene around a cat's cravings. An ugly woman may be called a 'dog', but to be called a 'cat'
means she manipulates to gain power. Dogs use anger to get power. Cats manipulate. Therefore, anything feminine is dubbed
cat-like. Vanity is a quality pinned on cats because they groom a lot.
Cats maneuver to get power, and then mark their scent on the object of familiarity. Dogs
are loyal as a wolf to the leader of the pack. Cats are loyal to the source of serenity.
Dogs use noise and agitation to mark territory. Cats slow down and use their musk and
wit. Curiosity didn't kill the cat; it skilled the cat and made each feline aware and conditioned.
A woman walks on cat's paws in high heels. Cats walk on eggshells to avoid stress. The
workplace is a carpeted cat's playpen, and cats have playpen eyes. To be feminine is to be coy as the play title says-- "a
cat on a hot tin roof." There's no where else to leap to except the invisible glass ceiling, from which the cat bounces.
The stock market's big blue chips behave like cats. They bounce back when bitten by a
bear. So do working women, in the bear market of single parenting without relatives to pitch-in. It's not so much the nine
lives that cats have, but the nine directions a woman's life takes, like a cat's. The nine stages are carriage, cuteness,
curiosity, capriciousness, caution, curtailment, coincidence, competition, and confidence.
Women, like cats, must also see in the dark to see through a glass darkly. Is it any coincidence
that so many women's wages litter the economy rather than line it?
