谁说养猫无好女?

Stand Up for Your Cats

谁说养猫无好女?

TAYLOR SWIFT, I salute you.

泰勒·斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)，我要向你致敬。

Not for your snappy songs and sartorial flair, although these are all fine things. I applaud you for the fact that you have almost single-handedly skewered the myth of the owner of the feline as a tragic, rejected “crazy cat lady.”

原因不是你的轻快歌声和衣着品位，这些都很好，但不是。我赞赏你，是因为你几乎凭一己之力破除了一个谬说——养猫的都是些可悲、没人要的“疯猫婆子”。

Ms. Swift regularly poses with, and posts about, her two Scottish fold cats — Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson — with unabashed pride. She posts their pictures on Instagram and has been featured in commercials where she is swarmed by fluffy cats, all the while still managing to somehow remain desirable.

斯威夫特有两只苏格兰折耳猫——梅瑞迪斯·格雷(Meredith Grey)和奥莉薇亚·本森(Olivia Benson)，她经常和她们合影，发与她们有关的文字，丝毫不去遮掩自己对她们的骄傲之情。她在Instagram上发她们的照片，还让她们参演广告，在广告里，她被毛茸茸的猫簇拥着，却依旧能显得性感妖娆。

“It is a daily struggle,” she tweeted, “to not buy more cats.”

“每天都在纠结，”她发推文说，“不能再买猫了。”

The longstanding, irrational bias against cats stems from archaic views about women.

对猫的荒谬偏见由来已久，它的根源是一种对女性的陈旧认知。

Their owners are more likely to be single women than single men — according to the American Pet Products Association, 11 percent of cats live with single women but only 2 percent live with single men — and so they have become addendums to the spinster stereotype.

养猫的人里，单身女性要比单身男性多得多——据美国宠物产品协会(American Pet Products Association)的数据，11%的猫和单身女性生活在一起，只有2%是跟单身男性在一起——所以猫就成了“老处女”刻板印象的一个注脚。

We seem unable to contemplate the thought of a woman enjoying the sweet company of a cat, without assuming it is a hallmark of a sad single existence. The words woman and cat don’t conjure up thoughts of a glamorous fast life, but pajamas, Chinese takeout, bowls of Ben & Jerry’s, couches and DVDs.

一想到一个女人和一只猫亲昵相处的样子，我们总免不了要去假定，这是一种悲惨的单身生活的表征。把女人和猫放在一起，你不会想到容光焕发的快节奏生活，只有睡衣、中餐外卖、一盒盒Ben & Jerry冰激凌、沙发和DVD。

The words associated with cat lady on Urban Dictionary, for example, include: “lame,” “forever alone,” “spinster,” “ice cream” and “smelly.” Nice.

例如在Urban Dictionary上，与cat lady(猫婆子)相关的词包括：“lame”(无聊)、“forever alone”(孤独终老)、“spinster”(老处女)、“ice cream”(冰激凌)和“smelly”(有味儿)。啧啧。

A man and his dog, on the other hand, are icons of independence, freedom and adventure. Granted, this is partly because dogs tend to be happier accompanying you to places outside your own house. But Ms. Swift takes Meredith out in Manhattan and the singer Kesha takes her cat on airplane flights. Must female cat owners constantly have their sanity questioned simply because they like to coexist with purring fur balls?

而男人和狗在一起，就是独立、自由和冒险的象征了。得承认，这在一定程度上是因为，狗在户外的确是一个更开心的伙伴。但是斯威夫特会带着梅瑞迪斯去逛曼哈顿，歌手Kesha带着猫坐飞机。难道就因为喜欢跟咕噜噜响的毛球在一起，女性养猫者就活该不断被人怀疑精神不正常?

This is not a tired cat-versus-dog debate. Everyone loves dogs. Even if they do, say, eat the feces of other animals, howl at ambulances, delight in bottom-sniffing and even — like my old Labrador — eat jellyfish until their faces are numb. (Is there anything a Labrador won’t eat?)

这和已经吵腻了的“要猫还是要狗”是两码事。人都喜欢狗。就算它们吃其他动物的粪便，冲着救护车狂吠，热衷于闻屁股，或者——跟我那只老拉布拉多一样——吃水母吃到整个脸失去知觉。(世上还有拉布拉多不吃的东西吗?)

It should be pointed out that many men also love cats. Ernest Hemingway was mad about polydactyl, or six-toed cats, and kittens played with Winston Churchill’s newspaper as he read, and sat alongside him during meals.

应该指出的是，很多男人也爱猫。海明威酷爱六趾猫，邱吉尔的小猫会玩他正在读的报纸，坐在身旁陪他吃饭。

Ricky Gervais frequently tweets about his cat, Ollie; he even aspires to the cat-lady life, telling HBO: “My evening usually consists of sitting on the couch in my pajamas from 6 p.m. with the cat on my lap watching trash TV.”

里奇·贾维斯(Ricky Gervais)经常在Twitter上讲他的猫奥利(Ollie);甚至渴望过上猫婆子的生活，他对HBO说：“晚上我通常是从6点开始穿着睡衣坐在沙发上看垃圾电视节目，腿上趴着猫。”

Ricky, you may join the sisterhood.

里奇，姐妹们欢迎你。

Cat men and women, we have the numbers. There are now roughly 95.6 million cats in America, compared to 83.3 million dogs.

各位养猫男女，我们的数量是占优势的。全美有大约9560万只猫，8330万只狗。

We also have science on our side. Studies have shown that cat owners are less likely than those who have never owned a cat to die of cardiovascular disease, and pet owners have a decreased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

科学也站在我们这边。研究表明猫主人死于心血管疾病的几率低于那些从未养猫的人，养宠物还能降低罹患非霍奇金氏淋巴瘤的几率。

Researchers from Miami University and Saint Louis University found “pet owners had greater self-esteem, were more physically fit, tended to be less lonely, were more conscientious, were more extroverted, tended to be less fearful and tended to be less preoccupied than non-owners.” Less lonely, happier, fitter. Pets don’t indicate mental illness; they seem to aid in recovery from it.

迈阿密大学(Miami University)和圣路易斯大学(Saint Louis University)的研究人员发现，“与不养宠物的人相比，养宠物的人更自重，身体更好，相对而言不那么孤独，更有良知，性格偏外向，不那么容易担忧和执着于某事。”少一些孤独，多一些快乐和健康。宠物不是心理疾病的标志;倒是对心理疾病患者的康复有帮助。

Ms. Swift, who faces a constant barrage of questions about boyfriends and being single, mocked the cat lady stereotype to a reporter, joking that if she does not find a man by 30, she will naturally be scared, housebound and “surrounded by cats. So many cats, they’ve divided themselves up into armies and she wanders around lint-rolling the couch that no one’s going to sit on because she’s afraid to have people over...” Yeah, right.

斯威夫特每天要应付一连串关于男友和单身生活的问题，她曾在接受记者采访时嘲弄了猫婆子刻板印象，开玩笑说要是不能在30岁前找到男人，她自然就得整天宅在家里惶惶不可终日，“周身都是猫。猫多到要分成几支队伍，她得拿着粘滚刷沙发，但沙发永远不会有人坐，因为她很怕请人到家里来……”好吧。

This generation of young female celebrities is refusing to be portrayed as on a perpetual, sad manhunt. Asked at an event what she looked for in a man, Rihanna tartly and perfectly responded: “I’m not looking for a man. Let’s start there.” Katy Perry told Rolling Stone that she would happily have a child on her own: “I don’t need a dude.” Ms. Swift has become defined by her posse of female friends — as well as her feline companions.

这一代年轻女性名人拒绝被人当成一群不断在找男人的可怜虫。一次有人问蕾哈娜(Rihanna)想找什么样的男人，她做出了一个尖刻而完美的回答： “我没在找男人。这一点得先明确。”凯蒂·佩里(Katy Perry)对《滚石》杂志(Rolling Stone)说，她完全可以自己养一个孩子：“我不需要男的。”身边女性朋友如云，又有猫相伴，这已经是斯威夫特的形象标志。

Part of the appeal of cats is that they are independent and discerning. They have few needs. They come to you when they want; you can’t force them, or cajole them. They can be fiercely affectionate. They are gloriously indifferent. Cats don’t pretend to like you, and don’t care if you like them.

猫的魅力之一是它们的独立和敏锐。它们少有需求。它们会主动来找你;你不能强迫或哄骗它们。它们可以浓情蜜意。也可以冷若冰霜。猫不会假装喜欢你，也不在乎你喜不喜欢它们。

Let’s start there.

这些得先明确。