The old cat-woman dog-man cliché

The world has changed a lot, but one old cliché still lingers: women like cats, men like dogs. We all know exceptions to these stereotypes, but we all also know there is a bit of truth to them. The cliché goes back centuries, even to the very starting place of domestic cats: ancient Egypt.

Tomb paintings of wealthy Egyptians have often shown the happy family at home, with a cat sitting under the wife’s chair, a dog under her husband’s chair. We can safely assume that husband and wife played with each other’s pets, of course, but the stereotype is still there: cats for the women, dogs for the men.