First things first: if you haven’t read Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person,” you should. When it was published in The New Yorker in late 2017, “Cat Person” received an outpouring of response. People LOVED it and people HATED it. The story highlights the seemingly mundane interactions between Margot, a woman in college, and Robert, the man she begins dating. The details of their would-be relationship may ring true for many readers. As their communications blossom from text messages to real-life meetings, Margot’s inner monologue reveals her tumultuous feelings about the night, Robert, and even herself.
This story illuminates some of the sex roles and power dynamics at play between men and women. From the onset of their romance, Margot and Robert are on different levels; she’s twenty while he’s thirty-four. Margot’s age comes up in multiple places throughout the story, often under ridicule by Robert. Beyond the reality of her age, this issue becomes a point of power play itself; Robert argues with Margot about her own age as if somehow more of an expert than herself. Although Robert mocks Margot’s age, he noticeable calls her a “girl” in their sexual encounter instead of a woman; he literally states that he “wanted to fuck a girl.” Robert’s specification seems to make his interest in Margot intentional, as if he targeted someone so much younger than himself to fulfil his own desires.
Many younger women have been targeted by older men. Generally, the men aim to make the women and girls feel special. They describe them as “mature” and different from their peers. If the woman feels uncomfortable, that’s an example of them being “immature” and thus not good enough for the older man. A good general rule is that if an older man is interested in you, he’s likely targeting your vulnerability.
Beyond their age difference and his word choice, Robert infantilizes Margot through his behavior. Above, Margot mentions “[feeling] like a doll…as she had outside of 7-Eleven” when Robert had kissed her on the forehead instead of on the mouth. A forehead kiss is may less sexy than a mouth kiss and often connotes a platonic or familial relationship. By infantilizing Margot, Robert lulls her into a false sense of security; he preys upon her desires for safety and comfort. The combination of Robert’s older age, his larger size, and his treatment of Margot shifts her into a subordinate position.
Margot states that she no longer feels precious, as she did while Robert was infantilizing her. Now, she feels like “a doll made of rubber, flexible and resilient, a prop for the movie he was playing in his head.” In other words, she feels like a sex doll. RObert makes Margot feel like a literal sex object, using her for his own pleasure with little concern for hers. Although Margot mentions Robert’s “frantic rabbity burst,” there is no mention of her own orgasm, adding to the situation of the two as inequal participants. It is far too often that a man prioritizes his own pleasure over his partner’s.
During sex, Robert states he wanted to have sex with Margot because of her “nice tits,” not based on any other qualities she has; it seems like he was looking for any “girl with nice tits.” When forced to confront Margot as a person, face to face in missionary style sex, Robert cannot maintain his erection; Margot’s face and her body are two separate entities to him. This form of objectification, separating a woman’s body from her identity, matches that practiced by the media; think about movie posters of women’s legs or advertisements featuring simply women’s breasts. Margot too begins to separate from her body as she “[marvels] at herself…at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing.” Robert has so actively objectified Margot that even she dissociates from the event; even for Margot, her identity becomes separate from her body. Her description here parallels the experiences of women who have been sexually abused or assaulted and described the process as if they were outside of their own bodies.
The process of infantilizing and objectifying women has real life consequences. Within the story, Margot has a difficulty discerning if she is at fault in these interactions. At multiple moments, she considered the possibility of Robert murdering her before brushing the ideas off as her own overthinking and dramatization. However, by the conclusion of the story, Robert sends Margot multiple rude text messages and calls her a “whore.” His heated reaction to a complete lack of action on Margot’s end is demonstrative of the experiences women face while dating men and simultaneously validates all of Margot’s previous concerns. By framing the narrative so heavily in Margot’s perspective, Roupenian encourages readers to feel as if they know this girl that went home with the wrong man. She shapes Margot into a person that they could see themselves or a friend in—a projection that may not be difficult at all.