The “Crazy Cat Lady”: Gender, Animals, and Madness

Full text

Chapter
1 1
THE
“CRAZY
CAT
LADY”
Fiona
Probyn-Rapsey
ou
ever
work
on
a
project
about
“crazy
cat
ladies,”
you
can
expect
some
slmfllles
of
the
wry,
knowing
kind,
followed
up
by
a
flurry
of
“crazy
cat
lady”
(CCL)
memes,
mugs,
socks,
and
links
to
various
CCL
products.
Many
of
them
are
pretty
funny,
especially
the
picture
of
the
box
of
kittens
labeled
“Crazy
cat
lady
start
up
kit”
and
the
socks
emblazoned
with
“you
say
‘crazy
cat
lady’
like
if,
a
bad
thing.”
These
jokes
attest
to
a
level
of
sympathy
for
and
fascination
m'th
crazy
cat
ladies
within
popular
culture.
I’ve
long
been
fascinated
by
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
as
a
cultural
trope,
a
sort
of
“folk
devil”
whose
appearance
plays
on
broader
anxieties
attached
to
femininity
and
animality.
Putting
the
memes,
socks,
mugs,
pyjamas,
fridge
magnets
aside
for
a
moment,
this
chapter
takes
a
more
critical
look
at
the
CCL.
I
explore
the
current
popularity
of
the
CCL
1n'
three
connected
ways.
Firstly,
as
a
gendered
cultural
trope
that
is
mobilized
in
both
negative
and
positive
ways
to
exemplify
the
feminization
of
concern
for
human-animal
relations.
Secondly,
I
examine
how
the
CCL
gets
tangled
up
with
the
animal
hoarder:
someone
who
“hoards”
or
collects
animals
and
keeps
them
as
their
self-declared
“rescuer,”
often
to
protect
them
from
some
other
terrible
fate
(neglect
and
cruelty)
that
then
becomes
realized
in
her
own
hands.
The
research
on
animal
hoarding
is
fascinating
in
this
regard,
because
it
essentially
plays
chicken
and
egg
with
the
“crazy
cat
lady,”
replicating
gender
stereotypes
in'
its
discussion
of
the
disorder
it
attempts
to
outline.
Whil'e
animal
hoarding
literature
situates
the
CCL
as
a
dangerous
obstacle
to
proper
diagnosis
and
understanding
of
animal
hoarding
cases,
I
then
take
this
idea
one
step
further
and
discuss
whether
or
not
the
CCL
might
be
not
just
a
“cute
face”
of
the
animal
hoarder
but
also
the
“folk
devil”
for
the
industrial
scale
hoarding
of
animals
that
persists
in
factory
farming
situations.
The
three
elements—“crazy
cat
lady,”
animal
hoarder,
and
factory
farmer—are
connected,
I
suggest,
by
a
broader
phenomenon
of
the
intensification
of
animal
keeping
in
Western
modernity,
a
period
in
which
animals
are
simultaneously
more
numerous,
less
visible
but
more
intensively
“kept”
(Harrison
1964;
Vialles
1994;
O’Sullivan
2015;
Pachirat
2015).
In
this
chapter,
I’ll
pull
on
the
thread
of
the
crazy
cat
lady
trope
and
see
how
she
leads
us
to
industrialized
hoarding
in
the
form
of
factory
farming.

A
popular
history
of
the
CCL
When
Eleanor
Abernathy
arrived
on
the
scenes
of
The
Sz’mpsons
in
1993,
the
madness
of
her
rants
and
raves,
accompanied
by
cats,
made
her
perhaps
the
most
recognizable
and
transportable
first
“crazy
cat
lady”
of
popular
culture
She
pops
up
from
time
to
time
throughout
the
show
and
reveals
in
one
episodc'
that
she
has
a
law
degree
from
Yale
and
a
medical
degree
from
Harvard,
a
highly
accomplished
“mad”
woman.
As
a
figure
of
derision,
and
of
dysfunctional
and
misdirected
talent,
she
exemplifies
the
fine
line
between
the
CCL
and
the
amm'al
hoarder,
the
latter
being
the
former’s
much
less
“funny”
companion
Also
walking
a
fine
line
between
humor
and
loathing
is
I.
K.
Rowling’s
Character
Dolores
Jane
Umbridge,
whose
m1h"tancy,
empathy
failures,
and
dictatomj'
style
while
headmistress
of
Hogwarts
goes
hand
in
hand
with
her
pink
outfiu,
gir'lish
giggle,
and
her
vast
collection
of
kittens
framed
on
her
office
wall;
(2003).
As a
“crazy
cat
lady”
(without
any
actual
cats),
Umbridge
is
also
a
figure
of
gendered
dysfunction
whose
“love”
for
cats
is
indicative
of
her
contempt
for
the
“real”
lives
of
others
(see
also
McKeithen
2017).
Going
back
to
1975,
the
documentary
film
Grey
Gardens
follows
the
decline
of
an
American
aristocratic
mother
and
daughter
and
shows
the
Beales’
living
conditions
shiftm’g
from
ancestral
privflege
(they
are
related
to
Iaquehn'e
Bouvier
Onassis)
to
one
of
squalor,
where
the
mother
and
daughter
share
their
once grand
house
with
raccoons
and
many
cats
whom
they
claim
to
breed.
Their
exposure
within“
the
film
parallels
that
of
other
animal
hoarding
documentaries,
where
the
hoarder’s
Me
is
exposed
by
camera
and
crew,
and
we,
the
audience,
asked
implicitly
to
recorl'
and
then
rem'scribe
a
“fine”
between
animal
and
human,
cleanliness
and
squalor,
civflity
and
barbarism,
domestic
and
feral
(Krasner
2017
).
While
we
might
situate
these
popular
culture
CCLs
as
a
modern
and
also
Western
phenomenon,
the
association
between
single
(often
older)
women
living
in
the
company
of
cats
goes
much
further
back
into
the
archives:
women
as
witches
with
their
“familiars,”
unhinged
from
human
society,
livm'g
at
odds
with
the
rest
of
the
community
and
seeking
instead
the
company
of
animal
Others.
The
CCL
gains
mob111"ty
and
meaning
because
it
is
a
reminder
of
the
historical,
cultural
association
between
mature
women,
animals,
and
the
irrational;
that
not
only
are
our
relations
with
animals
sentimental
(read
“trivial”)
but
they
are
also
made
possible
by
having
a
shared
status
of
mindless
irrationality
and
animality.
As
Adams
and
Donovan
show
111'
their
introduction
to
Animals
and
Women
(1995),
women
and
particularly
feminists
have
historically
put
a
great
deal
of
effort
into
attempting
to
show
that
women
are
not
animals.
“Crazy
cat
ladies”
illustrate
just
why
that
might
be
the
case,
as
well
as
the
importance
of
reclaiming
the
association
in
different,
more
positive
terms.
In
a
recent
positive
review
of
the
mainstreaming
of
the
CCL,
Linda
Rodriguez
McRobbie
suggests
that
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
is
actually
losing
its
potency
as
a
stigma
and
she
puts
this
down
to
three
things.
One
is
that
women
no
longer

177
The
“Crazy
Cat
Lady”
feel
threatened
by
the
spinster
image
that
women
with
cats
seems
to
conjure
up
(marriage
is
on
the
decline).
Secondly,
she
suggests
that
pet
culture
and
capitalism
encourages
grand
displays
of
affection
for
animals,
and
that,
thir'dly,
love
for
cats
is
made
visible
and
therefore
more
“normal”
by
social
media.
The
article
also
highlights
how
celebrities
(lik'e
Taylor
Swift)
are
taking
up
the
moniker
of
CCL,
changing
the
image
of
the
CCL
from
Eleanor
Abernathy,
who
throws
cats
at
people,
to
someone
who
seeks
out
photo-opportunities
with
them.
N
0
longer,
“crazy,”
McRobbie’s
story
concludes
that
the
“cat
lady”
1's
now
“chic,
she’s
young,
she’s
got
a
good
job,
she’s
not
always
a
lady,
and
it
doesn’t
matter
if
she’s
not
married
being
a
cat
lady
is
no
longer
so
taboo”
(2017).
This
shift
away
from
the
“taboo”
is
also
seen
most
readily
in
feminist
animal
studies.
For
example,
in
her
prescient
and
insightful
essay
“Bitch,
Bitch,
Bitch:
Personal
Criticism,
Feminist
Theory,
and
Dog
Writing,”
Susan
McHugh
suggests
that
women
who
elect
to
“share
their
lives
with
female
canines
become
targets
of
criticism
as
‘indulgent’
for
focusing
on
their
dogs”
(2012,
616).
But
she
goes
on
to
say
that
women
who
take
the
risk
are
rewarded
by
the
fact
that
becoming
“down
with
the
bitches
offers
a
way
of
recalibrating
centers
beyond
the
abstract
model
of
the
lone
‘authoritative’
human
individual,
and
thereby
of
rethinking
feminist
politics
as
intra-active,
even
trans-species,
from
the
ground
up”
(632).
This may
well
be
what
is
at
the
heart
of
the
embrace
of
the
CCL
image
too:
a
desire
to
rethink
feminist
poh‘tics
in
the
company
of
dogs/cats/other
animals.
But
not
too
far
from
this
desire
is
also
the
backlash
that
McHugh
signals,
or
an
undercurrent
of
sexism
and
animalization
that
situates
women
and
animals
as
forming
a
dangerous
alliance:
dangerous
to
her
precarious
grip
on
humanness
and
its
psychic
corollaries
(reason,
rationality,
transcendence).
At
the
heart
of
the
“joke”
about
the
CCL
is
that
she
has
gone
too
far,
“gone
to
the
dogs”/cats,
that
her
love
of
cats
is
fundamentally
misanthropic.
It’s
important
to
bear
in
mind
that
when
it
comes
to
the
animals
that
she
might
be
“keeping,”
none
of
this
is
particularly
funny
either
for
her
or
for
the
animals
who
might
have
to
be
rescued
from
their
“rescuers.”
CCL
as
a
cultural
archetype
is
implicated
in
animal
hoarding—where
the
“cat
lady”
becomes
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
and
her
care
becomes
toxic
for
the
animals
she
“rescues.”
Just
what
that
toxic
care
looks
like
for
the
animals
is
frequently
overlooked,
to
the
detriment
of
the
animals
who
suffer
profoundly,
and
are
often
euthanized
as
a
result
(see
Pollak
et
a1.
2014;
Morrow
et
a1.
2016;
and
Ioffe
et
al.
2014).
According
to
the
literature
on
animal
hoarding,
it
is
predominantly
women
who
are
responsible
for
these
cruelty
cases,
leadin'g
more
than
one
expert
to
comment
that
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
is
indeed
a
stereotype
and
yet
“there
is
some
truth
to
it”
(Arluke
and
Killeen
2009,
167).
However,
this
is
where
we
need
a
more
complex
picture
of
how
gender
plays
its
part
in
the
discussion
of
animal
hoarding.
Given
her
apparent
ubiquity
in
popular
culture,
it
is
something
of
a
surprise
to
find
that
the
evidence
for
the
crazy
cat
lady
(as
animal
hoarder)
is
still
rather
patchy,

178
Am‘maladies
Animal
hoarding
studies
American
sociologists
have
been
studying
animal
hoarding
since
the
late
19903,
A
leading
expert
on
animal
hoarding
is
US
sociologist
Gary
Patronek,
who
m'
1999
published
a
study
that
concluded
that
most
hoarders
were
women
(76
percent),
aged
srxty'
or
over
(46
percent),
single,
and
living
alone.
This
early
study
is
at
the
center
of
multiple
studies
that
follow,
and
its
statistics
are
cited
repeatedly,
but
often
without
Patronek’s
own
original
equivocations
or
caveats
about
the
reh'abrl1"ty
and
accuracy
of
the
data.
Patronek’s
study
was
based
on
fifty-four
case
reports
sent
to
him
from
ten
animal
control
agencies
and
humane
societies
across
the
United
States.
Three
problems
with
the
original
mapping
of
amm'al
hoarders
emerge.
The
data
set
is
very
small,
and
yet
the
reporting
in
terms
of
percentages
gets
repeated
in
a
way
that
provides
an
illusion
of
bulk
The
source
for
the
data
(animal
control
agencies)
is
also
not
without
problems.
It
is
difficult
for
Patronek’s
study
to
account
for
the
possibility
of
interpretive
bias—an
expectation
from
agents,
neighbors,
or
councilors—that
women
with
multiple
pets
are
deranged
and
deviant
and
more
likely
to
be
suspected
of,
and
ultimately
reported
for,
hoardm‘g-related
offenses.
It
seems
that
men
do
not
carry
the
same
cultural
baggage
when
it
comes
to
“keeping”
animals.
We
get
a
hm't
of
this
gender
bias
m'
favor
of
reporting
women
for
hoarding
when
Patronek
notes
that
agencies
found
it
difficult
to
prosecute
men
for
animal
hoarding
offenses
because
the
men
did
not
fit
the
image
of
the
hoarder,
an
image
that
precedes
the
ascendancy
of
the
condition
or
crime.
If
a
judge
can’t
see
a
man
as
an
animal
hoarder,
then
it’s
likely
that
neighbors
w111'
also
overlook
them;
they
are,
after
all,
sharing
the
same
cultural
landscape
that
depicts
women
and
men
as
havrn'g
specifically
gendered
relations
to
animals
and
animality.
Although
studies
sm‘ce
then
stress
that
animal
hoarding
stretches
across
multiple
demographics,
they
keep
returmn'g
to
this
idea
that
most
animal
hoarders
are
female,
without
all
the
caveats
m’
place.
Consequently,
the
prevalence
of
women
as
animal
hoarders
gets
repeated
uncritically
throughout
the
literature.
Most
research
on
the
prevalence
and
demographics
of
animal
hoarders
assert
an
awareness
of
the
stereotype
of
the
cat
lady
and
admit
that
it
may
skew
reportm'g,
while
also
suggesting,
rather
unconvincingly,
that
the
facts
remam'
somehow
untouched
by
the
influence
of
that
very
stereotype.
In
other
words,
the
literature
on
animal
hoarding
seems
to
want
to
have
it
both
ways,
which
is
precisely
how
stereotypes
operate.
As
literary
theorist
Homi
Bhabha
writes,
a
stereotype
“is
a
form
of
knowledge
and
identification
that
vacillates
between
what
is
always
‘r'n
place,’
already
known,
and
something
that
must
be
anxiously
repeated”
(1994,
66).
It
is
this
“anxious
repeating”
that
signals
its
precarious
relationship
to
reality:
Animal
hoarders
come
from
varied
backgrounds,
despite
the
stereotype
of
the
neighbourhood
“cat
lady”
who
is
an
older,
single
female,
living
alone.
As
with
many
stereotypes,
there
is
an
element
of
truth
to
this
image.
In
one
study

The
“Crazy
Cat
Lady”
179
(Worth
and
Beck
1991)
just
70%
of
the
sample
were
unmarried
women
who
had
cats,
While
in
another
study
(Patronek
1999),
76%
of
the
sample
were
women,
46%
were
over
Sixty'
years
of
age,
most
were
single,
divorced,
widowed
and
cats
were
most
commonly
in‘volved.
(Arluke
and
Kill'een
2009,
167)
Urban
legends
tend
to
be
fair'ly
resistant
to
“objective”
fact-finding.
That
is,
they
can
work
to
structure
reality
whil'e
also
being
self-reflexively
repudiated.
In
the
case
of
women
who
are
amm'al
hoarders,
this
ambivalence
about
how
to
“read”
her
activities
persists.
One
example
of
this
can
be
seen
1n'
Svanberg
and
Arluke’s
reading
of
the
“Swan
Lady,”
which
recounts
the
case
of
a
Swedish
woman,
convicted
for
anim'al
cruelty,
who
rescued
and
kept
a
large
number
of
swans
in
her
apartment.
The
authors
argue
that
there
was
confusion
in
the
media
about
whether
to
classrfy'
the
offender
as
an
animal
lover
or
a
criminal.
Svanberg
and
Arluke
suggest
that
instead
“the
Swan
Lady
became
a
kind
of
heroine,
or
rather
anti-heroine,
at
least
according
to
some—not
because
she
had
rescued
swans
per
se
but
because
she
took
these
birds
into
her
apartment
the
epithet
‘Swan
Lady’
added
to
the
media’s
spin
on
this
case
as
a
charming,
albeit
il'l-informed,
behaviour”
(2016,
65).
They
point
out
that
while
there
was
no
fitting
term
for
animal
hoardm'g
in
Sweden,
the
community
would
have
been
familiar
with
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
through
American
television,
especially
Eleanor
Abernathy
from
The
Simpsons.
This
encouraged
a
view
of
the
woman’s
activities
as
more
akin
to
an
“absurd
anti-heroine”
than
a
case
of
animal
cruelty.
Their
reading
suggests
the
global
reach
of
such
a
stereotype
(via
The
Simpsons)
and
its
capacity
not
only
to
move
between
borders
and
languages
but
also
to
influence,
construct,
and
rem'force
the
social
norms
it
appeals
to.
For
the
authors,
the
emphasis
on
the
“Swan
Lady”
as
“absurd
anti-heroine”
served
to
“excuse”
the
cruelty
that
was
felt
by
the
animals
she
claimed
to
care
for
and
exemplified
how
the
reporting
of
such
cases
is
very
often
anthropocentric.
It
is
also
an
example
of
something
pointed
to
earlier,
which
is
that
the
“Swan
Lady,”
like
the
CCL
or
woman
who
is
an
animal
hoarder
is
likely
to
be
partly
“excused”
on
the
basis
of
gender
(it
is
merely
caring
gone
wrong).
But
she
is
also
likely
to
be
singled
out
because
of
her
gender.
This
ambiguity
is
perhaps
what
makes
the
CCL
and
woman
animal
hoarder
such
an
attractive
media
story.
The
framing
of
animal
hoarding
cases
is
often
not
just
anthropocentric
but
also
misogynistic.
When
misogyny
combines
with
anthrOpocentrism
it
works
to
scapegoat
women
and
also
confine
the
issue
to
the
“madness”
of
women,
that
is,
to
a
symptom
of
gender
rather
than
abroader
issue
of
human
arrogance.
This
eifectively
brackets
a
broader
issue
0f
animal
cruelty
to
aberrant
individuals,
bad
“apples,”
and
their
specific
gender.
Indeed,
the
media
focus
on
the
“Swan
Lady,”
which
focused
largely
on
this
“quaint”
story
of
care
gone
wrong
(but
good
intentions
maintained),
1'8
consistent
with
the
ways
that
animal
cruelty
cases
involving
agriculture
alS0
get
picked
up,
as
individual
aberrations
within
an
otherwise
healthy
and
rational
system.

180
Animaladies
Peter
Chen
makes
the
point
that
media
coverage
of
animal
welfare
issues
tends
to
be
“episodic”
rather
than
“thematic.”
An
episodic
framm'g
would
treat
an
amm'al
hoarding
issue
as
an
individualized
event,
a
blemish
m'
an
otherwise
healthy
social
body,
a
bad
day
in
an
otherwise
healthy
calendar.
Such
a
framing
leaves
the
structural
and
broader
social
explanations
(gender
and
violence
against
animals)
and
context
largely
untouched:
“the
individualized
focus
can
be
engaging
but
not
necessarily
productive”
(95).
So
too
in'
the
case
of
the
CCL
and
the
“Swan
Lady”—these
are
media
events
that
do
not
help
to
either
draw
attention
to
the
plight
of
the
amm'als
prior
to
their'
“rescue”
by
the
hoarder,
nor
to
the
conditions
under
which
so
many
animals
live
and
die
as
part
of
a
larger
social
system
that
defines
itself
in
part
by
its
capacity
to
maintam'
m'stitutionalized
violence
“cleanly”
and
“rationally”
and
away
from
urban
spaces,
as
in
the
case
of
factory
farms
or
concentrated
anim'al
feeding”
organizations
(CAFOs).
CCLs
and
CAFOs:
The
z’ntensfiication
of
animal
keeping
In
this
final
section,
I
consider
the
“crazy
cat
ladies”
appearance
as
a
cultural
trope
alongside
the
intensification
of
farmm'g
practices,
specifically
m'
the
form
of
factory
farms
and
CAFOs.
Animal
hoardm'g,
“crazy
cat
ladies,”
and
CAFOs
are
connected
in
key
ways
but
principally
as
examples
of
the
m'tenSIfi'cation
of
animal
keeping
within
Western
modernity,
and
by
am'mal
keeping
I
mean
agriculture
as
well
as
the
breeding
of
animals
designated
“pets.”
Factory
farms
and
CAFOs
are
institutions
that
routinely
demonstrate
the
gulf
between
amm'al
welfare
standards,
good
intentions,
and
a
good
life
for
animals.
The
CCL
who
is
a
potential
amm'al
hoarder
exemphfi'es
the
gulf
between
declarations
of
anim'al
care
and
actual
outcomes
for
animals
at
an
1n'div1'dual
level,
and
the
factory
farm
or
CAFO
exemplifies
it
at
the
structural
or
institutional
level.
Thus
we
rarely
see
depictions
of
the
latter
as
media
stories,
but
a
great
deal
of
the
former
in
media
and
popular
culture.
‘A‘nimaladies”
of
the
hoarding
variety
are
therefore
not
all
equal,
with
some
more
clearly
marked
by
gender,
marking
some
bodies
and
behaviors
as
public
exemplars
of
wrongdoing,
while
others
are
made
m‘visible
through
normalization.
'Ihe
fascination
with
CCLs
and
animal
hoarding
cases
is
in
itself
rather
fascinating.
It
is
not
only
the
CCL
products
that
palliate
and
obscure
the
dark
side
of
the
CCL
(her
animal
hoarding
relations)
but
also
the
documentan'es
and
texts
that
want
to
take
us
“inside”
their
homes
and
minds
are
remarkable.
Animal
Planet
produced
three
seasons
(thirty
episodes)
of
Confessions:
Animal
Hoarders
(2010—2012),
which
exposed
the
lives
of
hoarders
and
the
animals.
They
maintained
a
fairly
consistent
narrative
framing,
starting
with
concern
about
animal
cruelty,
fascination
with
the
state
of
mind
of
the
hoarder,
attention
to
the
domestic
scene,
and
then
rescue
(including
euthanasia)
of
the
animals.
As
well
as
TV
shows
and
documentaries
like
Grey
Gardens,
there
are
also
texts

The
“Crazy
Cat
Lady”
181
such
as
Inside
Animal
Hoarding:
The
Case
of
Barbara
Erickson
and
Her
552
Dogs,
which
promises
to
take
us
“inside”
but
begins
by
showing
that
the
media
got
there
first.
As
Celeste
Killeen
explains:
I
first
met
Barbara
and
Bob
Erickson
from
a
distance,
watching
the
shocking
television
reports
that
describe
the
rescue
of
their
surviving
dogs.
For
several
days
after
the
dramatic
police
action,
the
evening
news
was
filled
with
images
of
Wild
eyed,
filthy
animals,
some
too
weak
and
sick
to
move,
others
seemingly
trapped
in
a
frenzy
of
barking
and
clawm‘g
Reporters
bit
into
the
story,
holding
on
like
a
dog
to
its
bone
They
ran
the
chaotic
video
clips
day
after
day,
changing
only
their
voiceovers.
In
time,
they
reported
the
decision
to
prosecute
the
dog
owners.
But
no
one
talked
to
Barbara
Erickson.
(2009,
6)
While
sympathetic
to
the
need
to
consider
the
perspective
of
Barbara
Erickson,
the
focus
on
her
also
reinforces
the
ways
that
interest
m'
these
cases
is
already
gendered.
Her
husband
Bob
was
also
charged
(and
pleaded
guilty
to
charges)
of
animal
neglect
and
abuse.
But
the
state
of
the
house,
the
h’vm’g
room,
the
domestic
squalor,
and
the1r'
claims
to
have
“loved”
the1r'
“babies”
(the
dogs),
situates
this
story
as
already
about
the
spec1fi‘cfa11'ures
of
femm‘im‘ty
and
feminized
domains:
the
domestic
sphere,
the
family,
and
care.
The
access
to
this
space
is
also
significant.
It
was
not
just
that
Kill'een
wanted
to
get
“inside”
the
mind
of
her
subject,
but
so
did
all
the
reporters
and,
they
presume,
the1r'
audiences,
looking
into
the
state
of
the
livm'g
room
with
a
morbid
and
horrible
fascm'ation
for
such
a
scene
of
chaos
and
suffering.
These
scenes
are
repeated
m'
a
number
of
“documentaries”
about
hoarders,
where
an
audience
get
to
see
“inside”
the
domestic
spaces,
implicitly
enjoying
the
opportunity
to
repudiate
the
“madness”
of
those
whose
domestic
spaces
have
become
unruly,
toxic,
and
pathological.
To
some
extent,
the
perverse
pleasure
associated
with
repudiatm'g
such
a
neighbor
helps
to
reinforce
correct
animal
care
practices
and
also
remf'orce
the
sense
that
such
things
should
never
be
seen
(but
we
must
look!)
In
the
first
place.
The
TV
footage
also
works
as
an
uncanny
reminder
of
animal
activist
footage
that
seeks
to
get
“inside”
the
factory
farms
to
expose
“hidden
truths”
about
what
animal
welfare
standards
actually
mean
for
amm'als
subjected
to
intensive
farmm'g
practices.
The
difference
between
what
we
see
in
the
animal
hoarder’s
home
and
what
we
see
in
the
factory
farm
is
one
of
degree
rather
than
kind:
the
animals
suffer
conditions
of
overcrowding,
confinement,
in
ammonia-filled
air,
surrounded
by
manure,
and
unable
to
escape
the
company
of
others
or
express
natural
behaviors.
But
these
videos
rarely
make
it
onto
mainstream
television.
Nor
are
the
corporate
owners
and
operators
of
factory
farms
subjected
to
the
speculation
of
writers
or
media
commentators
about
their
state
of
mind,
their
peculiar
biographies,
or
their
personal
traumas
that
may
have
led
them
to
bring
such
a
horrible
site
of
animal
suffering,
like
the
factory
farm
or
CAFO,
into
being.

182
Am‘maladz'es
Agribusinesses
that
rely
on
CAFOs
are
defined
partly
by
their
capacity
to
prevent
such
videos
or
biographies,
or
pathologizing
and
individualiz’m'g
language,
from
becoming
mainstream,
with
the
deliberate
obfuscation
of
public
awareness
about
factory
farming
a
central
marketing
feature.
Take,
for
example,
the
packaging
of
animal
products,
described
by
Peter
Chen
as
routinely
depicting
“pastoral
scenes,
with
farms
commonly
signifi'ed
by
barns
or
old
fashioned
windmil’ls
idealized
or
archaic
portrayals,
rather
than
the
realistic
representations
of
modern
production
fac1l'ities”
(2017,
115).
These
“realistic”
representations
would
not
be
unlike
some
of
the
videos
on
Amm'al
Planet
that
expose
animal
hoarders
in
domestic
urban
spaces.
Neither
factory
farm
nor
animal
hoarder’s
house
is
structured
with
the
animal
in
mind,
though
both
may
well
make
that
claim.
Consumers
of
televisual
and
textual
material
on
animal
hoarders
are
given
enough
data
to
repudiate
the
hoarder
and
also
sympathize
with
the
anun'als.
Would
they
also
then
repudiate
the
CAFO
operator
if
they
could
also
see
inside?
Timothy
Pachirat’s
work
on
this
assumption
(that
visibil'ity
leads
to
political
transformation)
would
suggest
not,
especially
given
that
“seeing”
it
is'
not
the
same
as
caring
to
know
or
acknowledging
the
costs
for
animals
in'
the
long
term.
Chen
makes
the
porn’t
that
consumers
and
voters
are
not
presented
with
enough
data
and
accurate
m‘formation
to
make
informed
decisions
about
ethical
food
practices
or
animal
welfare.
He
goes
on
to
point
out
that
the
ignorance
that
is
perpetuated
by
sanitized
representations
of
1n'tensive
farming
(or
industrial
hoarding)
means
that
the
public
can
become
easfly
“shocked
and
angry”
when
confronted
with
such
images
but
these
come
m'
the
form
of
exceptional
events,
not
structures,
and
that
this
rarely
lasts
long
because
it
is
not
backed
up
by
either
a
strong
base
of
knowledge
or
consistent
policy
changes.
This
is
an
argument
made
in
detail
by
Siobhan
O’Sullivan
in
her
book
Animals,
Equality,
Democracy,
which
also
points
out
that
democratic
principles
of
informed
debate
and
discussion
are
thwarted
by
a
largely
secretive
and
invisible
process
of
food
production
in
Australia,
as
well
as
a
strong
marketm'g
emphasis
on
“happy”
animals
on
idyllic
pastoral
settings
(2015).
Carnists
are
not
told
what
they
are
buying
into
and
as
such
the
cultural
practices
or
beliefs
about
animal
welfare
suggest
not
an
expression
of
their
assent,
or
a
product
of
democratic
decision-making,
but
a
form
of
consumption
that
is
conducted
largely
through
concealment,
obfuscation,
and
propaganda.
What
is
significant
about
the
scale
of
this
silence
around
the
actual
conditions
under
which
livestock
in
Australia
live
and
die
is
that
it
stands
in'
contrast
to
the
exposure
of
the
animal
hoarder,
whose
mistreatment
of
anun'als
is
broadcast
across
borders
and
depicted
in
newspapers,
in
close
and
personal
detail
in
ways
that
are
so
intense
and
intrusive
that
they
might
be
described
as
verging
on
the
violation
of
individual
privacy
and
ethical
duties
toward
the
vulnerable
mentally
ill.
Given
the
contrast
between
these
two
kinds
of
seeing--
not
seeing
into
factory
farms
and
seeing
too
much
into
the
homes
of
the
anun'al
hoarder—it
is
likely
that
the
public
has
had
more
access
to
the
insides
of
an

183
The
“Crazy
Cat
Lady”
anun'al
hoarder’s
house
than
they
have
had
access
to
the
factory
farm
from
which
she
or
he
buys
her
eggs,
pigs,
chicken,
and
dairy
products.
And
from
this
exposure
to
the
animal
hoarder
rather
than
CAFO
operator,
consumers
may
well
be
more
inclined
to
worry
about
the
neighbor
who
has
too
many
amm'als
in
their
house
or
yard
than
those
high-rise
sheds
on
the
edge
of
town
where
thousands
of
animals
are
kept
1n'
windowless
sheds.
Given
the
media
scrutiny
of
one
form
of
intensive
animal
keeping
over
another,
it
is
not
too
far-fetched
to
speculate
that
this
might
also
skew
our
attention
(and
the
attention
of
animal
welfare
oflicers)
as
to
what
counts
as
events
to
be
alarmed
about
and
those
that
may
provoke
disgust
but
not
accusations
of
dysfunction.
The
difference
In
the
quality
of
interest
and
the
display
of
the
“madness”
of
the
animal
hoarder
(woman,
CCL),
but
not
factory
farmer
(faceless
CAFO),
attest
to
the
deeply
held
social
norms
around
animal
agriculture
that
determm'e
that
it
is
acceptable
to
confine,
restrict,
and
forcibly
breed
large
numbers
of
animals
that
are
designated
h'vestock,
but
not
acceptable
to
confine
or
restrict
large
numbers
of
animals
designated
“pets.”
When
the
hn'es
between
domestic
pets
and
agricultural
livestock
become
blurred,
as
in
the
case
of
puppy
farming,
the
norms
by
which
we
measure
what
counts
as
acceptable
are
exposed
as
largely
arbitrary
cultural
formations.
Pubh'c
outrage
that
comes
with
puppy
farmln'g
scandals
attests
to
the
idea
that
it
is
sun'ply
not
acceptable
to
treat
dogs
m'
a
way
that
pigs
routin'ely
are.
Along
with
the
pigs,
we
may
well
object
to
this
arbitrary
structural
dist1n'ction.
The
arbitrann‘ess
does
not
translate
m'to
“easy
to
change,”
rather
it
means
that
they
are
prone
to
the
sort
of
constant
“reiteration,”
reinforcement,
and
mob111"ty
that
stereotypes
require.
The
depiction
of
animal
hoardin'g
cases
and
puppy
farm
scandals
as
scandals
assists
in
putting
the
arbitrarm'ess
to
one
side
momentanl'y,
because
they
draw
attention
back
to
the
cultural
h'ne
drawn
between
domestic
and
livestock
amm'als.
Putting
it
another
way,
it’s
as
if
outrage
on
behalf
of
the
puppies
comes
at
the
expense
of
the
pigs.
The
CCL
might
be
said
to
work
in
a
srmrl"ar
way:
m'terest
m'
her
might
come
at
the
expense
of
our
m'terest
1n'
factory
farmers.
Distracted
by
her
behaviors,
we
may
fail'
to
notice
how
she
has
come
to
stand
m'
for,
stand
m'
front
of
the
normah'zation
of
m‘tensive
anlm'al
keeping—which
(whether
it
be
described
as
hoardm'g
or
not)
is
rarely
predicated
on
what
is
the
best
for
amm'als.
It
is
also
possible
that
we
are
seeing
more
mam’stream
depictions
of
the
CCL,
this
“absurd
anti-heroine,”
at
the
same
time
that
factory
farming,
though
still
largely
1n'visible,
is
responding
to
an
“increased
concern
for
the
welfare
of
animals”
(Chen
2017,
84).
This
is
partly
the
result
of
amm'al
protection
organizations
such
as
Animals
Australia,
an
organization
whose
support
base
is
overwhelmingly
made
up
of
mature
women,l
much
like
the
demographic
described
for
animal
hoarders.
The
dominance
of
women
in
animal
protection
organizations
(something
observed
also
by
Munro
2001)
alerts
us
also
to
the
ways
in
which
the
“crazy
cat
lady”
may
well
serve
to
trivialize
and
dismiss
the
work
and
political
commitments
of
animal
advocates
m'
advance,
by
stigmatizing
their
interests
in
animals
as
potentially
pathological.

Am’maladies
a1
turn
for
feminist
politics,
and
the
a
anim
Despite
the
benefits
'Ofdetheendence
as
signaled
by
cat-love
rather
thanhppmuarent
S
In
P
e
as
a
SthCOtype
to
d
an
..
er'
ec1a11y
those
who
are
ammal
advoCaltede
S
litical
d
institutionalized
forms
through
intensive
factOW
man
of
many
talents:
she
declares
her
allegiance
to
farming,
The
C
.oke
of
and
also
pom‘ts
to
both
animal
hoarding
and
womem
s
a)
.
.
She
Provides
an
opportunity
for
good
intentions
and
she
operates
as
a
scapegoat
who
can
be
repudiated
'
h
as
what
we
see
(or
don’t
see)
m,
CAFOs
or
factory
farms
gets
0
“
.
.
”
as
a
cultural
trope
for
a
variety
of
ammaladies.
Acknowledgments
I
would
like
to
acknowledge
Anne
Fawcett’s
expertise
and
help,
poinun’g
me
toward
the
literature
on
animal
suffering
caused
by
animal
hoarding
cases,
The
chapter
benefited
greatly
from
her
1n'sights
into
veterinary
scholarship
on
hoarding.
I
thank
the
audience
and
organizers
(Melissa
Boyde
and
Alison
Moore)
of
the
“Beyond
the
Human”
Symposium
held
at
the
University
of
Wollongong
in
2015,
where
I
presented
an
earlier
draft.
I
would
also
hk'e
to
thank
Annie
Potts
for
the
socks,
she
knows
why.
Note
1
fPoeutedr7C4hen
notes
that
a
survey
of
individual
Animals
Australia
members
in
2000
n
percent
women
with
a
mean
age
of
51
(Chen
2017,
179).
H
.
.
arrison,
R.
(1964),
Animal
Mel‘s,
.Anzmal
Planet
(USA
TV)
2010—2012.
achmes’
London,
Vincent
Stuart
Publishers.

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Animal
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