Because cats are pussy and dogs are not.
I’m not sure how cohesive this line is. But, anyway, cats were domesticated for work too—to kill vermin. But that job is obsolete and has even become counter-productive. They end up killing native wildlife. There are entire species of birds in places like New Zealand that have been wiped out by cats.
And of course, most of the work that dogs were domesticated for is also obsolete for urban and suburban life. But dogs still excel in their primary job—companionship. They are uniquely attuned to human expression.
Yep. I am a business executive and find myself in the presence of business bigwigs regularly enough. Acceptable topics for old-boy conversations include sports, your own golfing - and dogs. These guys gush about their dogs and even may have a photo of the dog, preferably with their kids, on their phone.
But mention a cat? They look at you sideways.
Because more people love dogs than love cats.
I think the OP is questioning the origin of the social acceptance of this image, and not the actuality, as it were. The dislike seems to be historical. Kipling even based his story “The cat that walked by himself” on this phenomenon. Essentially, Kipling’s caveman resents the fact that the cat is “neither his friend nor his servant”, and that he seeks to retain some independence even when he is offered a warn hearth and a bowl of milk. Of course, Kipling’s cave woman too accepts kitty as a friend only reluctantly.
Certainly, feline grace and beauty seems to have been historically associated with women rather then men (Bast is cat-headed goddess!), but the socially expected/encouraged male disdain for cats seems to be more recent. IMO, the medieval association of cats with witchcraft, as the familiars of (mainly) female witches, may have something to do with it. If we accept that most of these witch hunts, in which > 70% of those executed were women, were driven in some measure by misogyny – the strongly patriarchal church vs. the women who sought to subvert that dominance by “making a pact with the devil”-- then the propagation of the “real men hate cats” mind set in to modern times is not entirely unsurprising. I.e. cat => disobedient, subversive woman => something to fear => something to hate. That is not to say that modern men who buy in to the “hate cats” mind-set are being consciously misogynist, or even make that connection in their minds. Rather, in a bid to be seen as more manly, they are buying in to an image left over from less enlightened times.
Of course, this opinion does not apply to a man who have been chased by a feral cat (what a pussy! :D), or dislikes them because of allergies, a zoonosis, or because they been replaced in their S.O.'s affections by her cat. It only applies to the guy who mindlessly blurts out “I hate cats” before kicking the poor animal in the ribs.
Related conversation here.
Wow, the cat-persecution-complex posters are on a roll.
To explain why “hating cats” is more “socially acceptable” than hating dogs:
- In general, dogs are more affectionate and responsive to humans.
- Dogs play a useful role as service animals (i.e drug-sniffing, bomb-detecting, cadaver-finding) that cats don’t.
- Many people allow domesticated cats to run loose, defecating in people’s yards, killing wildlife and being a general nuisance. This is tolerated (legally) more than if you let dogs run loose, so it’s more of a problem with cats.
Note: I don’t hate cats. I’ve known some very nice ones. The nuisance variety are another story.
There is absolutely a historical, cultural, many-faceted bias against cats, and it’s stuck around in some people despite America being full of devoted cat-lovers. It’s certainly possible to not like them for entirely practical reasons, but it’s just as possible that some vocal cat-haters have more superstitious reasons.
I own and like both cats and dogs, and I’ve been observing it for a long time. It’s extremely common for men, especially, to dislike cats and consider them useless - and feminine, to the point of judging men who prefer or own cats as less masculine. My boyfriend, an otherwise extremely reasonable person, holds these views (I think he gets it from his family - they are mostly men, and proud ‘dog people’).
Many great comments. But here in Mexico, almost everyone hates cats. Why? Probably because we don’t eat cats. But a barbeque dog con tacos, delicious!
Just kidding we don’t eat dogs. But if we do, we say it is beef, or lamb. And everyone is happy.
I feel sorry for all you folks to have had such terrible experiences with cats. I have a cat named Rika who comes when I call her, is affectionate to the core, cuddles with me every night if I want her to, doesn’t do any of the annoying things dogs do including getting into things she shouldn’t like the trash, chewing up shoes, humping your leg, marking territory, etc. She greets me at the door when I come home quite frequently, and always seems genuinely happy to see me.
Not all cats are the stand-offish aloof jerks that you all are making them out to be.
But I like both dogs and cats a bunch, and I can’t wait till I am at a point in my life where I can have my own dog to love. I thought I had that recently, but had to give him up after a recent breakup 
You know how when people say that they hate the way some people talk, they mean they dislike those people? I think it’s something like that. My own mental stereotype is that dog people play frisbee in the park with their pet while cat people live in smelly rentals and don’t get out much.
If I’m going to feed something, take it to the vet, give it its own box to do its business AND clean out that box I don’t want “independence.” Dammit, I want *gratitude, *if not outright devotion!
Dogs have owners. Cats have servants. That’s pretty much it.
If you’re from a country where cats work and this job is actually very much appreciated, is it ok to like them?
Several posters have talked about “pest hunting” as if it was completely a thing of the past, but every factory I’ve ever worked in had a factory cat (or, in the Dunkirk factory, more - but any kittens found homes fast).
Yep - that’s what most of our cats have been like, to varying degrees…
There are four (inside only) cats in my house. Right now, all four are complaining bitterly because my husband is out of town, and they miss him dreadfully. At this moment, two of them are sitting at the side door, howling because it’s past time for him to be home. If I happen to go out of town, my husband says that all four cats miss ME dreadfully, and one of them will lose interest in eating.
Cats tend to be as friendly or as aloof to humans as they’ve been socialized to be. In my experience, most cats do want to be friendly with humans, unless they’ve had some pretty bad experiences with humans. And yes, when my husband or I come home after just being out for the day, all four cats will run to us and want to know where we’ve been. It’s true that if a stranger comes in the house, only one cat will greet him/her…but in a matter of five minutes or so, the other three will have to come out and examine the stranger.
But don’t all you cat-lovers understand? All those lovable sociable valuable attributes that some of you are saying about cats (aside from their value as mousers) simply indicates that they are actually dogs tragically trapped in a cat’s body.
The humane thing to do would be to send them to Stanford University to have The “Operation”, whereupon they will come home as the happy well-adjusted lovable sociable Golden Retrievers that they were meant to be!
My mother has had a series of rambunctious, fun-loving, affectionate cats.
She always describes them as “dog-like”.
How many more cats does she have to go through before she realizes that affection isn’t the exclusive domain of dogs?
I used to work for the government and my minion and I would go to the courthouse on a regular basis. We understood that everything we said was going to be overheard, so we would talk about innocuous stuff instead of bitching about our job.
One day, we were on the elevator and I started telling my minion something about one of my cats being annoying. Out of nowhere, a lawyer piped up to tell me that I’d be much better off without cats and that he’d be happy to take care of the problem for me.
How the heck is something like that acceptable?
Because cats are 0.5 steps above rodents on the scale of life?