A Letter to J.D. Vance: Why childless Democratic ladies are the cat’s meow
Dear Senator Vance,
I’m a childless cat lady and I’m actually happy! And, oh yes, I’m also a Democratic voter in the battleground state of North Carolina.
Nothing galls me more than Republican men judging my choices in life or worse, thinking that unmarried women do not have value and are miserable.
I’m an Emmy-winning television producer whose lifelong work has been to educate, inspire and advocate important issues. I’ve done that without a married partner. I had a lot of interesting and well-educated boyfriends along the way but none were marriage material for me or me for them.
Polls show I’m not alone. In an article from the New York Post in 2023, the number of never-married women has grown from about 20 percent in 1950 to over 30 percent in 2022. While the percentage of married women has declined from almost 70 percent in 1950 to 50 percent today.
In the 2020 Census data, single adult women now total some 42 million.
A Pew Research Center survey published that year found that “men are far more likely than women to be on the dating market: 61 percent of single men say they are currently looking for a relationship or dates, compared with 38 percent of single women.”
That said, as Vice President Kamala Harris knows, a woman doesn’t need to give birth to be a mother. After all, another popular Democratic female presidential candidate reminded us, it takes a village to raise one!
I’m an aunt to my almost two dozen nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews. I have been there for them through tragedies and shared joys in their lives. Sure, I’m not with them around the clock, but I still love them as my own and would do and have done anything for them.
JD, if you think Democratic single women are worthless because we only attend to our cats, here’s a news flash: we actually do other things that aren’t feline-related, like serve our communities.
I feed the homeless at my local outreach center weekly. When Habitat for Humanity needs volunteers, I suit up and paint walls or nail down roof shingles at its housing projects. When refugee families settle in my town, I help furnish their new homes and provide meals through my church.
When I see a homeless person on a street corner, I hand him or her a care package I’ve put together containing water, apples, toiletries and granola bars. I financially donate to countless causes. And, dare I mention this? I volunteer at a local cat shelter!
I also give my time at the polls during elections which includes more than two weeks of early voting and Election Day in my state. It’s thankless but rewarding work to assure our voting system is honest and fair.sen
Your attitude, Senator Vance, was recently summed up by Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, as: “Unless women are fulfilling their duties as breeders and helpmates, they’re not fully Americans?”
In the words of our current president, that’s a bunch of malarkey!
Sincerely,
Silvia Gambardella, Cat Lady
Silvia Gambardella is an award-winning independent news and documentary producer living in North Carolina with her two cats, Beau and Molly.