May 1991

Cats (and Their Dykes) Review

by Miki Thomas

I once had a cat named Sinbad. He was
a white, macho, sixteen pound angora cat,
who, for the seven years of his life, kept
both my grandfather’s and mother’s gar-
dens bird and rodent free. Indeed, he was at
his happiest prowling around for small
game to torture and decapitate. Because of
his wild nature, he did not associate with
humans too much, except me.

    

Dykes to Watch Out For

At 5:30 every morning, he would sere-
nade me at my bedroom window with his
favorite song, “Feed me.” After a day of
hunting in the gardens across the street, he
would meow to me to cross the street, pick
him up, and carry him back to the house.
For some reason, he trusted me as if I was
the only one in my family worthy of his
attentions. It is this bond between cats and
women, specifically lesbian women, that is

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the premise behind the new book, Cats (and
Their Dykes), an anthology of stories,
poems, essays and photographs. edited by
Irene Reti and Shoney Sien.

The book is a mixed bag. The non-
fiction pieces are the most effective. They
offer the reader a true sense of the dynam-
ics of a cat-and-dyke relationship and how
a cat or cats have affected those lesbians
who cross their paths.

Mab Maher, in “Obedience to Being,”
writes of how her cats became her thera-
pists in dealing with the issue of obedience
in society (she found her cats to be cheer-
fully disobedient). Palouse the cat taught
Betsy Brown a couple of lessons on clear
communication in her story “Catechesis.”
M.B. Doane found her cat, Sunday, a
“mirror of my inner/spiritual self, and of
my relationship with myself,” in “The Prin-
cess of 18th Street.”

The most moving story is Pamela
Gray's “Paw Prints.” In it, Gray writes of a
cat’s death as similar to losing a child or a
member of the family and wonders if there
is a “Lesbian Cat Heaven” where “all the
kitties that lesbians lost live, collectively, in
a giant old mn—down Victorian with politi-
cal posters on the walls.”

The essays, however, tend to be a bit
preachy, although two do give some inter-
esting information. In Irene Reti’s essay,
“Towards a Feminist History of the Cat,” a
comparison is drawn between the histories
of both women and cats and how the op-
pression of oneoften leads to the oppres-
sion of the other.

Another essay by Kat Brown called
“Sometimes IWonder if You Want to Hear
This: Life at an Animal Shelter” gives a
picture of what happens to homeless cats
and kittens who get sent to a shelter, and
how a shelter worker deals with the de-
mands of her work. However, some of the
other essays interject politics into the issue
of pet ownership in tenns of humans having
power over the animals. Apparently these
women have gotten their impressions of cat
behavior from a Sylvester and Tweety car-
toon, for the real issue is that of their having
power over us.

Cats (and Their Dykes) is an enjoyable
and quick read for those who have ever
been cat-owned. For those who have never
had that privilege, it is a chance to explore
how cats interact with their surroundings
and their pet lesbians.

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