Sad news, gentlemen: A new study from a team at Colorado State University claims men who love cats are perceived as “less masculine” and are less likely to score dates with single women.
The study surveyed 708 women between the ages of 18 and 24, showing them photos of men photographed alone and with cats. The women were asked whether they’d agree to a date with each man they viewed, and whether they’d consider a long-term relationship with each man.
When those same men were shown with cats, the number of women who said they’d date them dropped by five percent, while the number who said they’d consider a serious relationship dropped by four percent.
The women who took the survey also rated men “on masculinity and personality” according to their appearance in the photos. In addition, the participants answered questions like: “Is he reserved?”, “Is he generally trusting?” and “Is he lazy?”, and asked the women whether they believed the men were outgoing, sociable, kind and considerate.
“Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine; more neurotic, agreeable, and open; and less dateable,” wrote authors Lori Kogan and Shelly Vosche, who titled their paper “Not the Cat’s Meow? The Impact of Posing With Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability.”
The researchers also asked the women if they viewed the men as dominant, gentle, sympathetic, affectionate, warm, decisive and possessed of leadership abilities.
The presence of cats hurt men across the board with the female respondents, who found the cat men “ultimately less datable in the short or long term,” Vosche and Kogan concluded.
That begs the question: Why?
Women want manly men, Vosche and Kogan argue.
“Women prefer men with ‘good genes,’ often defined as more masculine traits,” they wrote. “Clearly, the presence of a cat diminishes that perception.”
The results, they said, indicate “women are more likely to seek masculinity first, then consider other components of the potential mate.”
The findings were “influenced by” whether the women self-identified “as a dog or a cat person,” although it wasn’t clear just how much that impacted their responses.
Vosche and Kogan speculate “that American culture has distinguished ‘cat men’ as less masculine, perhaps creating a cultural preference for ‘dog men’ among most heterosexual women in the studied age group.”
The authors didn’t say why they concentrated on the 18 to 24 range, nor did they speculate on how women in older age cohorts might respond.
Buddy responds
We would be remiss, of course, if we didn’t run this by Buddy the Cat. This is his blog, after all.
The outspoken tabby cat dismissed the study as “fake mews” and said it’s well-known that cats are “spectacular wing-men.”
In addition Buddy — who holds doctorates in being a cat and being handsome — argued that, while some cats may indeed make their human male servants seem less masculine, other cats — like Buddy — amplified masculine and desirable traits by several orders of magnitude.
“If a man is pictured with a scowling, flabby Persian, then sure, maybe women are less likely to view that man as masculine,” Buddy said. “But if a man is pictured with a ripped, dashingly handsome cat such as myself, women are 96 percent more likely to want to date him.”
Asked where he arrived at that figure, Buddy replied: “I made it up. But obviously it’s true.”
Pain In The Bud 
Obviously these women are uninformed and unimpurrtant. Who could go wrong with the likes of smart, talented, and ripped little Buddy at his side?
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That’s what Buddy says! The presence of Buddy makes everything at least 96 percent more awesome, according to Buddy.
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What I find interesting about the study is that women appear to want men who also are more disagreeable and more closed off. How odd. You’d think women would want men who are more easily manipulated.
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This sort of discussion is filled with potential landmines, so far be it from me to speculate on what women actually want, but it did occur to me while reading the study that it may perpetuate the idea that women prefer men who embody some of the worst masculine stereotypes. I think the authors make some unsupported leaps while trying to explain the results.
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Just goes to show that women between the ages of 18 – 24 are fluffhead idiots.
I’m not looking for “masculinity” if by that they mean “John Wayne” or “Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
I want a man who is a decent, good man, and a man who loves cats clearly has kind feelings. Besides, my house is always full of cats, so any man who doesn’t like them wouldn’t work out at all.
Also, I’d like to see how they wrote that study. There are ways to create a study that gets the answers that the researchers wanted to get. It’s very easy to write a flawed study.
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I tried to include the most interesting details, but if you click on the link in the post, it takes you directly to the study, which is published on an online open-access journal. In the study test you can read the specifics about the questions they asked and the way they weighted the responses.
Anyway, I agree with you: The results are definitely skewed because of the age cohort the study’s authors chose. I would like to see how other age groups respond to the same questions.
As a guy who didn’t adopt a cat until after 30, I can say that caring for a pet was something that was not on my radar in my early to mid 20s, and I would not have been a good caretaker because of the hours I worked, the amount of time I spent away from home, and the amount of time/disposable income I spent on partying.
So yeah, age is definitely a factor here.
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I can see one flaw in the study after following the link: the picture of the guys.
I hope I don’t insult you but I didn’t think that they ranked high in “dominance” looks in any case.
They might have chosen pictures of guys who looked like cowboys or someone else who was ripped. It might have changed the perception of the, ahem, “girls” who answered their ad for respondents.
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Not offended in the least. They look like regular guys to me, although I’m old by the standards of the age bracket they used for the study. I think masculinity is more about how you carry yourself, which is difficult to gauge in a single frame. Makes you wonder how different the responses might be if they used video.
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That’s a good idea!
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You’re over 30? Oh, then maybe that explains why you have an advanced sense of humor. I thought you were much younger, and I was surprised that you were so socially aware at that age.
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Oh yeah, all those fart jokes and litter box gags, real mature sense of humor I have. 🙂
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Do you watch Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight? He’s a stand-up comedian who specializes in fart and poop jokes.
BTW, he tells us all the news that is “redacted” from the mainstream media.
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Haven’t heard of him, but if he does fart jokes then he specializes in the kind of highbrow humor I enjoy. I’ll look for clips on YouTube
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BOLOGNA!!
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False, the whole thing, show them a pic of Kurt Cobain and they’ll come screaming.
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I didn’t know he was a cat guy, but after reading your comment I googled and found a nice photo of him holding a kitten and playing with his baby daughter.
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I am new here so never saw this post.BS!! I would date a man with cats!
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