Is National Cat Lady Day a public holiday?

No. It is an unofficial cultural observance, not a public or government holiday, so it is a normal working day.

Who created National Cat Lady Day and why?

Writer and curator Susan Michals created it in 2017 to reclaim the "cat lady" label as a point of pride rather than an insult.

Is this the same as National Cat Day or International Cat Day?

No, they are three different days. National Cat Lady Day is April 19, National Cat Day is October 29, and International Cat Day is August 8, and the other two are about cats generally rather than cat-loving women.

Why is it on April 19?

April 19 is simply the date Susan Michals chose when she launched the day in 2017. No source documents a specific reason this exact date was selected.

Does owning cats actually affect mental health?

A 2017 University College London study tracked a UK birth cohort and found no link between childhood cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13 (6,705 respondents) or 18 (4,676 respondents). One review of 38 studies did tie schizophrenia to higher rates of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies, and the parasite is a real concern in pregnancy, but ordinary cat ownership has not been shown to cause psychosis.

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National Cat Lady Day

A cultural observance on April 19 celebrating cat-loving women and reclaiming the once-mocking "cat lady" label as a point of pride.

Monday

April 2027

Last updated February 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar Team

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YEARLY DATEApril 19

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFun

SUBCATEGORYSilly

ORIGIN

Individual Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Susan Michals

FIRST OBSERVED

2017

“Susan Michals created the day in 2017 to reclaim "cat lady" as a badge rather than a barb.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An insult turned into a badge of pride.

National Cat Lady Day was created in 2017 by writer and curator Susan Michals, who had already launched the cat-culture convention CatCon. She founded the day to flip the "cat lady" label from an insult into something women could wear with pride.

INTRO

How science quietly cleared a centuries-old stereotype

PHOTO

For generations, the phrase carried a quiet sting. A woman alone, a houseful of cats, the implication that something had gone wrong with her. National Cat Lady Day exists to retire that sneer and put a warm word in its place.

Then the science caught up. A 2017 University College London study tracked nearly 5,000 British children and found that growing up with a cat gave them no greater risk of psychotic symptoms in their teens. The idea that cats unravel the mind, the very engine of the stereotype, did not hold.

So April 19 turns an old slur on its head. It is a day for the women who keep cats and never apologized for it, and for a label that science has spent decades quietly clearing.

ORIGINS

Cat Lady Day history

INTRODUCTION

The figure of the lonely woman and her cats is far older than any modern joke. For centuries, a woman who lived independently, without a husband or male relatives to vouch for her, drew suspicion rather than respect.

Her cat made it worse. In an age that read animals as omens, a single woman with a feline companion could be cast as something sinister rather than simply content with her own company.

The caricature kept finding new homes over the centuries, in folklore, in cartoons, in the cultural shorthand for a woman who had supposedly given up on the world. What none of it ever rested on was evidence.

CHAPTER 01

A curator decides to reclaim it

The pushback came from inside cat culture. Writer and curator Susan Michals had spent years building a serious platform for cat lovers, curating Cat Art Show LA in 2014 and then launching the convention CatCon in 2015. Its first edition drew some 12,000 attendees.

From that vantage point, the "cat lady" insult looked both ancient and absurd. Michals had watched cat love grow into a thriving creative scene, the opposite of the lonely-and-failed image the phrase implied.

CHAPTER 02

A day to flip the label

So in 2017, Michals created National Cat Lady Day and fixed it to April 19. The point was not to defend cats. It was to reclaim a word, to take a term used to shrink women and hand it back to them as a compliment. The day asks people to say "cat lady" the way you would say any title worth keeping.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Cat Lady Day

RECLAMATION

A word built to shrink women, handed back as a compliment.

Susan Michals framed the day as a direct answer to a stereotype she saw as both centuries old and finally fading. National Cat Lady Day is a small, deliberate piece of that reclaiming, turning a word meant to diminish women into one they choose for themselves.

CULTURE

It meets the label where it still lives

The phrase has not stayed in the past. In 2024 "cat lady" surged back into US political discourse, and many women answered by publicly reclaiming it rather than recoiling, the exact reframe the day was built around.

LANGUAGE

It targets a word, not a hobby

Most cat days celebrate the animal, but this one is aimed at a phrase and the women it was used against. That makes it less about pets and more about who gets to define a label, which is what sets April 19 apart from the other cat observances.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A cat named at a witch trial

Agnes Waterhouse was hanged at Chelmsford after being accused of keeping a white cat, "Sathan," as a familiar.

"Spinster" becomes an insult

A word that once meant a woman who spun thread hardens into a label for the unmarried "old maid."

The Simpsons coins its caricature

Eleanor Abernathy, the show's Crazy Cat Lady, debuts and cements the modern pop-culture image.

Susan Michals launches CatCon

The curator opens her cat-culture convention, building the platform that would inspire the day two years later.

National Cat Lady Day is created

Michals founds the April 19 observance to reclaim the "cat lady" label as a point of pride.

The label resurfaces and is reclaimed

"Cat lady" returns to US political discourse, and many women answer by embracing it publicly.

GOOD TO KNOW

Famous faces of the cat lady

Florence Nightingale

The pioneer of modern nursing is said to have kept around 60 cats, named one "Bismarck," and let them eat from china. Some of her surviving letters still carry inky cat paw prints across the page.

Louisa May Alcott

The author of "Little Women" once jokingly listed an "inordinate love of cats" among her own vices, owning the identity with humor.

Edward Lear and Foss

The poet behind "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" was so attached to his cat Foss that he had a new villa built to match his old home's layout so Foss would not be disoriented.

Eleanor Abernathy

The Simpsons' Crazy Cat Lady, who debuted in 1998, was later given a Harvard MD and a Yale JD, a quiet rebuke written into the very caricature that mocks the rest of this list.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Cat Lady Day

Wear the label out loud

Say "cat lady" the way Susan Michals intended it, as a compliment rather than a confession. The whole point of April 19 is to take the term back.

CELEBRATE

Celebrate a cat lady in your life

Tell the cat-loving women you know that the title looks good on them. A small message turns a private affection into a shared point of pride.

READ

Read up on a famous cat lover

Spend an hour with the story of Florence Nightingale's cats or Edward Lear and Foss. The history is full of brilliant people who adored their cats without apology.

BUST

Bust the myth with a friend

Share the finding that growing up with a cat does not raise the risk of psychotic symptoms. It is the fastest way to dismantle the stereotype the day was built to answer.

SPOIL