Deceptive or trustworthy?

As far back as time allows us to recall, women and cats have been connected, from historical beliefs about witches to contemporary pronatalists' taunts about childless cat ladies.

Cats and women have historically occupied uncertain status: are they feral or domestic? Malevolent or harmless? Deceptive or trustworthy?

As far back as time allows us to recall, women and cats have been connected, from historical beliefs about witches to contemporary pronatalists' taunts about childless cat ladies. With a claw-like swipe of the pen, Reiches toys with the various facts and fictions that lie behind the Cat Lady myth, unpacking the woman that lingers in our cultural imagination and haunts single English teachers and Vice Presidents alike. Harmful archetypes dig their claws in deep, and with this book, Reiches articulates, analyses and challenges negative beliefs around the Cat Lady and re-tells this story of this much-mocked figure as we need to hear it today.