male vs female cats: is there a personality difference?

People choosing a cat often want to know whether to get a boy or a girl, in the belief that one is more affectionate and the other more aloof. I will give you the honest answer, which is duller and more useful than the folklore: the individual cat matters far more than its sex, and the single biggest driver of behaviour is not male or female at all. It is whether the cat is neutered.

the stereotypes, and why they are weak

The popular wisdom says male cats are the friendlier, goofier lap-lovers and females are the cooler, more independent, one-person cats. There is a thread of truth to it in some lines and some studies suggest mild tendencies, but it is a weak generalisation that any cat can and will contradict. I have known soppy, devoted females and stand-offish, dignified males, and so has every honest cat person. Breed, upbringing, early socialisation and the individual animal's temperament shape personality far more reliably than sex does. If you meet a specific cat and it is warm and bold, that tells you more than its plumbing ever will.

the real variable: neutered or not

Here is what actually changes behaviour, and it dwarfs the sex question. An unneutered male, an intact tom, is driven by hormones to spray strong-smelling urine, to roam, to fight, and to yowl for mates, and he is a great deal of trouble to live with. An unspayed female comes into heat repeatedly, yowling, restless and desperate to get outside, which I describe in cat in heat. Those are enormous, disruptive differences, and they are the source of most of the reputation each sex carries. Neuter or spay the cat, though, and nearly all of it falls away. A neutered male and a spayed female behave far more like each other than either resembles its intact self, and both settle into calmer, more affectionate, more homebound companions. Which is exactly why every vet recommends it, and why I speak, as a fixed male, from a place of great serenity.

the verdict: pick the cat, not the sex

So do not choose a cat by its sex expecting a personality to come bundled with it. Choose the individual cat whose temperament suits you, the one that is curious, or calm, or bold, or gentle in the way you want, and make sure it is neutered. Do that and the male-versus-female question turns out to be one of the least important decisions you will make. The cat's character is the thing. It always was.

Related reading from my desk: cat in heat, on why an intact female is the noisier proposition, and signs your cat loves you, which no cat reads from a rulebook of its sex.

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