Please can we talk about using the name Karen as an insult?

I've only seen it on MN where the posters are presumably overwhelmingly female.

*Oddly enough, I've never heard a man refer to someone as a 'Karen'. It's always been women using the put down about another woman, in my experience.

I appreciate that others' experiences might be different, but it took this OP to make me realise the above. And now I'm quite depressed.*

I've seen it used by men loads of times.

So while we are in the swing...

Who is this Beryl that she deserves to be a ‘type’ of woman as well please?

JurgenKloppsCat

A Gammon is definitely a male stereotype - white, middle aged, outraged and brexity. It's an insult thrown at men. Mind you, they don't half gripe about it when you say it. It turns their ruddy little cheeks a couple of shades darker

It's a stupid, lazy insult - as you have just demonstrated by your post.

I can't remember if it was Karen which was used or a similar name that is apparently acceptable to laugh at but I've seen this used on FWR as an insult. Apart from a comment by me no one else picked up on it.

I know Karens and Susans ranging from teens to early 60s in age.

I don't know a single man actually called gammon though which is the point of this post. It's the names of (usually middle aged) women being used.

A Gammon is definitely a male stereotype - white, middle aged, outraged and brexity. It's an insult thrown at men. Mind you, they don't half gripe about it when you say it. It turns their ruddy little cheeks a couple of shades darker.

I think the female names that get a lot of this are - Sharon, Susan, Karen

I don’t think Keith/ Barry / Gary get off lightly either with the middle age man stereotype.

Wasn't it Keith Waterhouse in 1980s who had a tabloid column about 'Sharon & Tracy'?

This 'Karen' thing is completely new to me. The new 'gammon' or something different?

Not that it matters, but the Fat Slags in Viz are actually Tracy and Sandra, not Sharon. I have seen Sharon used as a slur on social media, definitely.

I hate it when young women join in and don't get any satisfaction from the fact that they'll realise some day.

Yup. Do you remember that Cambridge student journalist who dismissed Germaine Greer as an "old, white woman"? Obviously too stupid to realise that one day she would be old.

Wayne is a stereotypical working class slacker who first came to prominence in the 1990s. Remember Harry Enfield and Wayne Slob? Wayne Rooney obviously perpetuated the stereotype. It's a pisstake of blokes with a certain mindset, and it isn't complimentary. I think Wally and Herbert have also been mentioned. Adolf is also a put down. And a Bobby or Bobby Charlton was also a dig at balding blokes who had various degrees of combover, though that was in the 70s when he was still playing. I haven't seen the hairstyle for a while. It wasn't seen as a hatred of Mr Charlton, but it was most certainly a pisstake against vain, balding men.

I'm of the "Karen" demographic and yes, it is a hatred of middle aged women, plain and simple. Lots of men are behaving badly during this crisis and I don't see a male equivalent. I hate it when young women join in and don't get any satisfaction from the fact that they'll realise some day. Because by then they'll have a whole new generation of young women to shit on them in turn.

I agree. Lazy, sexist, definitely ageist and sneering at people who they perceive to be lower middle class (the worst!) - often by young people who like to claim they are working class but usually aren't.

I've only ever seen Karen on Mumsnet, used by women.
Isn't it one of those "age war" insults.

And yes, Sharon and Tracey, and Tarquin and Jocasta originate in Viz (the latter from The Modern Parents).

Late 60s and 70s was a reference to when people were born - so those people would be in their late 40s and early 50s

Ahhh got you! My mums age, she was born 1969.

Being in your late 60s and 70s isn't middle-aged?

Late 60s and 70s was a reference to when people were born - so those people would be in their late 40s and early 50s.

Yes it's horrible.

My peers and age group are often Wendies and Karens & it is unkind and cliched

And yes classism too

Similarly to how black people can't be racist towards white people, how sexism is a structure skewed against women, working-class people can't be classist against the middle-class. Although as mumsnet is predominately MC I'm sure there will be an excuse for how this isn't so.

Also, see "some white Becky" use by some POC people.

are late 60s early 70s, I have a cousin the same age called Susan. It's absolutely about mocking the middle aged woman.

Being in your late 60s and 70s isn't middle-aged?

This is in the same vein as the "OK boomer" thing. I've been called a boomer before and when I point out I was born in the mid 90s, they say "it'd about the boomer mindset, not your age"

Gary was the rough equivalent of Sharon and Tracy where I grew up in late 80s. Definitely used as a classist insult, although not a sexist one.

I agree it’s horrible seeing people’s names used disparagingly.

wanderings - I did think about it, actually. It's often used with "Jocasta" - "poor little Tarquin and Jocasta". I think that has its origin in Viz too. It's just a lazy way of attacking middle-class parents (esp. mothers) rather than the children themselves.

There are an awful lot of gendered-insults that are age-related in particular. It used to be quite common to refer to someone fussy and pernickety as an "old woman", even if they were a man. Also telling women they are "menopausal" or "dried up" if they are middle-aged. You can move seamlessly from being a floozy, airhead or slag to being a yummy mummy to being a dried up menopausal woman to being an old dear without any point at which you are considered an individual human being.

Has nobody mentioned how "Tarquin" is often used as an insult? As in "poor little Tarquin can't walk the last hundred yards to school, so I have to park on the yellow zig zags..."