By Anna Levy, Hilary Harper and Amber Tripp for ABC
Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance. Photo: AFP / Alex Wong
"Childless cat ladies unite!"
It's a catch-cry appearing on social media, emblazoned across T-shirts and headlining think pieces from commentators across the political spectrum. It's even galvanising Taylor Swift fans.
This full-throated retaliation is a response to 2021 comments by the Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance.
Donald Trump has chosen Vance - a senator from Ohio - to be his running mate for November's US election.
During a recently resurfaced interview on Fox News, Vance described high-profile Democrats as "childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too".
Targeting Vice-President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, he lamented how "the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children".
It's not the first time Vance has targeted those who are childfree.
In 2020, he told a conservative podcast that Americans without children were "more sociopathic" and made the country "less stable". And in 2021, Vance's fundraising emails referred to "the serious issue of radical childless leaders in this country".
His comments have prompted an outcry from women around the world, including celebrities like actors Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler and Jennifer Aniston, comedian Chelsea Handler and musician Kesha.
Aniston, who has been open about her struggles with fertility, was particularly vocal, writing on her Instagram: "Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too."
A screenshot of an Instagram story sharing a post about JD Vance calling child-free women "childless cat ladies".
Pet lovers have also joined the fight, with slogans like "Kittens for Kamala" appearing at an annual gathering of cat enthusiasts, CatCon, over the weekend.
And last week, an online meeting of self-described "cat ladies" in support of Harris' presidential campaign featured a guest appearance by former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced that when Vance "couched his opinion on our freedom" he didn't realise "what he would unleash".
Vance has since said his comments weren't about "criticising people who, for various reasons, didn't have kids", but instead they were levelled at the Democratic Party for "becoming anti-family and anti-child".
But while his comments have caused a political headache for Trump's campaign, they're the latest in a long history of politicians urging women to bear children - and berating them if they don't.
'Why does birthing a child give you a sense of leadership?'
Attacking women for not bearing children is a tried-and-tested political strategy, certainly not unique to the US.
Similar commentary has been leveraged against former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, as well as Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon and former British prime minister Theresa May.
Examples in Australia include former prime minister Julia Gillard, who was called "deliberately barren" and therefore unfit for leadership by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, and NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, who was asked at a press conference if her lack of children was a "disadvantage politically".
Prudence Flowers, senior lecturer in US history at Flinders University, says this preoccupation with female politicians having biological children is well established.
"There's a real pattern of women without children, particularly if they are powerful, being attacked for their lack of children as some kind of sign that they are selfish, that they are unwomanly, that they are unnatural," she tells ABC RN's Life Matters.
Flowers says it's interesting that Vance took aim at Harris, who is a stepmother to two children from her husband's first marriage.
"[He's] emphasising that she hasn't given birth to biological children … that she's a feminist, that she is career-oriented, that she's been selfish in prioritising her professional life over giving birth."
But Flowers makes the point that women in politics can be villainised regardless of their parenting status.
She argues that had Harris "lived the life that Donald Trump had lived - three husbands, five children to three different men", she likely would have faced different but equally negative comments.
After all, this happened to former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, whose choice to have a child while in office was called "a betrayal of New Zealand voters" by a political commentator.
In the current political climate, however, Flowers says Vance's pro-natalist views have "gone down very poorly".
"There's been quite a lot of pushback from people, essentially arguing, 'Why is Kamala Harris in particular being held to this standard around needing to birth children when no other president has birthed children?'
"Vance has not birthed children. Why does birthing a child give you a sense of leadership?"
Having kids 'for the country'
Experts say this kind of political rhetoric can be traced to long-established ideas about a woman's purpose and civic duty.
"What we're looking at is a socially reinforced social stigma," explains Imogene Smith, a clinical psychology registrar at the Cairnmillar Institute and former Deakin University researcher.
Your comments, as told to ABC RN's Life Matters:
"I'm a teacher … and I get judgement because I haven't had kids. They think I don't know how to teach [students] properly because I'm not a parent." - Samantha
"[My daughters] said, 'Sorry, Mum, you're never going to be a grandmother'. They had decided that this was a world that they couldn't bring a child into … and I totally understand that. They are women who think, they're women who plan, they're women who look around, they're observant, and I'm very proud of them." - Fiona
"Any choice that we make that threatens a socially reinforced norm will often have blowback or a judgement associated with it, in this particular case, choosing not to have children.
"It's reinforced by film, television, advertising … When we see a message repeatedly like that, it's hard not to internalise it."
Fran Baum, professor of health equity at The Stretton Institute, agrees.
"There's all this social pressure to have children: that's what you're expected to do, that's part of becoming an adult," she says.
Those who opt out voluntarily can be viewed as "a bit of a draft dodger".
"It's very often seen as, if you're a good citizen, you have a baby … so while it's an intensely personal decision, it does become very political too," she says.
Australians are used to hearing this from their politicians.
Many will recall Liberal treasurer Peter Costello's famous encouragement in 2004: "Have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country".
And more recently, Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers encouraged Australians to procreate amid fears of declining fertility rates in Australia.
Changing the language around reproduction
Smith says that while birth rates are important for the wellbeing and prosperity of a society, politicians need to be careful about how they frame these conversations.
"Let's not beat around the bush, we do need to have children, but not everyone needs to have children," she says.
"It's these ideas of selfishness and coldness, 'cat lady', whatever you want to throw out there, being perpetuated by high-profile figures that are really not allowing this conversation to change.
"We're looking at decades of this same moral outrage being perpetuated."
- This story was first published by ABC
