I can see that, and also women may be considered to have feline qualities/personalities (more reserved, more "hard to get", more critical, loyalty/trust dependent of how they are treated, hard to control, etc.). There may be something psychological going on. Cats are also more likely to be abused than dogs by bad actors.
Wondering if this reaches back to ancient Egypt? I don't recall the gods name now, and I even have a 7 or 8 inch replica, of the cat they worshipped. Bastet maybe? The replica I have is exactly nice-looking cat. Unlike some other gods they had with mixes of human and animal. Maybe something special about it being a 'cat'.
I can see the graceful moves of cats and women being adored. And if the movie portrayals of belly dancers is accurate that may be mimicking the graceful ways cats move about. There are restaurants I've been to with belly dancers in California. No cats. So, is there any evidence about ancient Egyptians abusing women? But now are the abusers of animals more likely to abuse cats? Something to think about.
One of my mother's sisters told me when they were kids that my mother threw the pet cat against a wall in a fit of anger, but I don't know if that was 'abuse' or just a manifestation of a psychological problem she was subject to. It could have been a dog if they had a dog. I am reminiscing. And this could be a bit unusual to see the woman as the abuser. But it happens.
Often, I think back to all the kids I grew up with and how their families were when some topics come up here. Almost all the kids I hung with came from dysfunctional families, so they probably are representative of a big part of the US.
Jump ahead 10 years. My lady, and in my best recollection. she was really a nice woman, was attacking and screaming at me till the police were called. That time I don't recall being terribly drunk but could well have been and the cause of the ruckus. Incidentally she and I both liked cats and always had a pet cat. This is crazy. My still sick sense of humor has me LOLing as I reminisce. I still don't know if I was ever abusive to her. I think I was neglectful.
The next time this happened the police got a bit of a kick out of that particular domestic disturbance call. Probably a relief for police and us since no arrests were necessary. Then the next incident our downstairs neighbor tried helping out. He and I had a talk but in one ear and out the other. By the way, no cats were abused. Our relationship finally ended with us talking to our cat about each other. And she accused me of being the nutcase?
Sorry for getting some things out of my head here if you bothered reading this. But we both were cat people and the abuse seemed minimal. At least in a 'worldly' way. Biblically referenced maybe over the top. Had that relationship continued what would have happened is unknowable it seems. I am really grateful that she got me started in AA. And one of the first people that I met in AA told me he was trying to work things out with his wife and so he admitted to her that he shot her cat dead. He said that didn't help in any reconciliation. Sounds like he wasn't a cat person, but she was. He never said that he abused her. Just didn't like cats.
My sense is that all the animals that God brought to Adam to name were perfectly delightful and created to live harmoniously with mankind. Unfortunately, things went awry. Maybe Jesus took the blame for all of it since He was the one that created all. And that is why He made the covenant with His Father to sacrifice Himself for us since He knows that any and all of us would have gone awry and go awry.
Does any of this help in figuring out something about people relating to one another by the way they relate to animals and possibly cats in particular? I read somewhere that Hitler considered people who were 'overly' fond of animals to be classified as 'degenerate'. Probably only fit for the gas chambers. Don't know that this is true. And how would he have considered the people in the Mid-East countries that now like to keep big cats as pets. If you are aware of Seigfried and Roy, the Vegas act, that didn't work out too well in the end. Big cat mauled one of them.
I think there is something about animals and peoples' relationships that signifies something. Bible tells us not to muzzle our ox. Don't recall right now the last pet ox that I had.