Many domestic cats could survive in the "wild" (very relative term) in the UK quite fine. They may not be as "happy", and they'd almost certainly be a good deal leaner - though this would be to their benefit in a majority of cases - but they'd survive. As long as their natural instincts, abilities and physical characteristics have not been significantly impaired or mutated by humans - and that's sadly a big IF - most domesticated animals could get on just fine, and in some cases better, without us (thinking of all the overweight, underexercised, understimulated, bored, distressed dogs howling in their prisons homes across the UK).
A recent large study estimated that there are around 250,000 stray and feral cats in the UK. Many of these are former domesticated ones that were abandoned or chose to go their own way. Humans underestimate other animals and overestimate their own ecological importance.
I think it's morally repugnant to deliberately make another living being dependent on you, which is what humans have done, or tried to do, to many domesticated species: breeding them to have disabling mutations, not allowing cats to practise and hone their natural hunting abilities, etc. It's rather Kathy Bates in Misery, in my view.
One of the reasons I believe it's important to encourage independence in cats is that you never know what will happen to the humans of a house. When my former cat's human friend, an elderly woman, died, he was somehow overlooked by the woman's relatives, and he ended up living wild for a few months. When he turned up at our house, he was underweight and had a shaggy winter coat, but was otherwise in good health. He had many human friends in the neighbourhood during his life, but he chose me. We had met the summer before he was homeless, when he was on his travels, and when he was looking for a new home, he remembered me and and came back to me. Now that was special.
Human and non-human animals can share mutually beneficial friendships that both parties want and choose. Look at Diane Fossey and her gorillas, or Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees. Or you can lock up a weaker being in some form of cage and tell yourself you own it.
I also find the view that showing kindness to or spending money on other living beings means you own them disturbing. Charity = ownership...? Many homeless people would probably die if no one gave them food or money, so do the givers own the homeless people? People across the UK choose to put out food for wild birds, but I haven't seen many claim they own the birds. Ditto hedgehogs.
And that view has traditionally been how the relations between men and women has been seen. Women were "pets". Men paid for, housed, and "took care of" of them, so they felt entitled to claim "ownership rights".
And human children are not remotely comparable to cats. Unlike cats, most young children are truly dependent on the care of adult humans, but I hope that doesn't mean anyone believes they own their children! Though, sadly, some do seem have this attitude.
Anyway, that was a screed.