Owen Jones on Twitter today

I can’t stand Jeremy or Owen. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.

Owen Jones is on The Jeremy Vine show (channel 5 ) tomorrow discussing whether people should pay cleaners during the lockdown. Might be interesting.

Of course white privilege exists.

However, in the context of feminism, any kind of privilege is used as an excuse to justify sexism. Equality can only be tolerated up to the point where women are a threat, and then they must know their place.

Heaven forbid that a 'middle class white professional' woman should speak up about inequality - where would that leave middle class white professional men?

From something I remember reading, a Karen was originally used to describe a certain type of white women who talks down to people of colour? To be honest, all those misogynist Karen memes for me carry an intrinsic assumption that the Karen who is the ridiculous obnoxious soccer mom is probably ALSO racist. But maybe that's just my take?

I find it leaves me pretty much exhausted because invariably the discussion will lead to white women being the victim or something about white privilege not existing because someone will pop up to say they grew up in a sink estate with a tin of beans between all 10 members of their family therefore white privilege isn't a thing... This isn't my first time at the rodeo.

I completely agree with this. And it drives me mad. There's a real lack of understanding of what white privilege is. In our extended family there's a white man who had a very tough start in life. It has impacted everything about who he is. At some point, while homeless, he got a hand extended to him but he never went beyond that. I struggle to believe that a black teenager in the same situation would have received the same hand. Or that 20 years later that black teenager, having achieved nothing, would be viewed with the same sympathy he is.

I'd be interested in vlad's point of view.

Vlad
Ok. If you do decide you want to discuss it I would be interested.

“that there is a certain type of entitled white woman who really goes out of her way sometimes intentionally sometimes accidentally to make life absolutely unnecessarily difficult for black and WOC.“

That’s not how I’ve seen it used. So If that behaviour gets a whole name, meme etc - what is the name given to men who harass, intimidate, threaten, beat, rape and kill women - black, white or whatever?

Prostitution and baby farming are go go go in his nasty little misogynistic book.

He’s all up for women ‘sucking dick for socialism’ too.

Vlad you said it is great to finally have a catch-all term to describe a particular type of person. It’s not that surprising that people might be interested to know more about what type of person you’re using the term to describe. Right now I don’t know what you’re referring to so if you don’t want to explain then I assume you’re not interested in communicating anything to me or other women who don’t know what you mean by using the term. Do you intend to use it as in-group language that I’m not supposed to understand?

Pretty sure OJ pays poor women - badly - to make his clothes for him. In fact almost every aspect of his life will be dependent on the labour of others. That's what modern economies look like.

Why does monetizing this aspect of women's traditional work upset him so much? He's really keen on commodifying and monetizing women providing sexual and reproductive services. Prostitution and baby farming are go go go in his nasty little misogynistic book.

So why not cleaning? Is it perhaps not so much that some women are getting paid for providing cleaning services, as that others are managing not to provide them for free?

And of course in the UK a lot of cleaners work for themselves, so there aren't the layers of men creaming off profit as in the prostitution and surrogacy businesses leftist men so admire.

I think the links I posted explain who was originally referenced by 'Karen'. Is it sexist? Maybe, but I am grateful that if my 16 year old son goes for a run, nobody will assume that he is running away from something.

However, in internet land the original meaning has been lost.

Seems odd that you don’t want to take this opportunity. I’m keen to learn what a Karen is.

I mean just look at the recent posts demanding that I explain what a Karen is and must be able to describe their characteristics. I could write chapter and verse about it but the information is out there - indeed it has been covered on this very thread. Ya see! :)

Flo In all honesty I made a mistake venturing on this topic because I really don't speak about race anymore or do the intellectual gymnastics to explain / justify myself and the particular struggles I face as a WOC to white women. I find it leaves me pretty much exhausted because invariably the discussion will lead to white women being the victim or something about white privilege not existing because someone will pop up to say they grew up in a sink estate with a tin of beans between all 10 members of their family therefore white privilege isn't a thing... This isn't my first time at the rodeo.

Looking at the urban dictionary definition again (I realise urban dictionary is not a definitive reference, but it is apparently good enough to get a Guardian link), about half of the references to 'Karen' seem to be complaints about women getting parental custody. Its very clear who has taken control of the term.

I understand that 'Karen' and 'Becky' once referred to women similar to those described in this article.

www.vox.com/first-person/2018/5/30/17406092/racial-profiling-911-bbq-becky-living-while-black-babysitting-while-black

Perhaps the men making complaints were also heavily memed, but it seems that the internet only took notice of the terms that could be used to silence women.

What are the characteristics of a Karen? You must be able to describe it.

Flo The two are not mutually exclusive. The thread evolved somewhat to discussing Karens - I don't for one second believe that there aren't men out there using Karen as a means to silence women but they are misappropriating the term. I as a mixed race woman recognise that there is a certain type of white woman that makes my existence a lot more harder than it really has to be and behaves in micro/macro-aggressive ways which is distinctly different from misogynistic men. Therefore call that type of behaviour pattern whatever you like - even before I'd ever heard of the Karen-meme the pattern of behaviour to describe a particular woman existed.

Vlad are you unable to describe the characteristics of a Karen?

That is a pretty good description of the way non-black left wing British people are using it, though. They've appropriated it so it now means something other than the privilege connotations the original term referenced.

Of course this isn't yours or any other black person's problem or fault: that is a separate issue from the criticisms being true. The fact that black women are even being dragged into this is a direct consequence of the poor behaviour and stupidity of white British people. Black people have ended up with more intellectual labour due to white fuckery, all because the identitarian British left seems to have given up on class analysis and doesn't care about misogyny.

And fwiw I have a pretty substantial problem with the way in which criticism of the ageism and sexism in the British context from British feminists hasn't made nearly clear enough the way in which the original term described racism, too.

But to your point - that white men have hijacked the term isn't really my problem or my fault to fix.
That wasn't quite my point though. My point was that you seem far more annoyed (and forgive me but some of your posts do sound annoyed) at women here than you are at misogynistic men. And so what I'm curious about is why they seem to get an easier ride?

Women know your place.

As I said I didn't expect MN esp this board to consider Karen (or even the persona it describes) to be anything other than the most abhorrent reprehensible term to silence, mock and ridicule women. I already thought as much hence why I stay away from these types of discussions on here. Only occasionally browse but rarely jump in as much as I used to.

Yep! Just telling women to shut up wasn't working so some have moved on to trying to shame us into silence.

This isn't a problem without consequences because its really important that girls are taught that they can complain, that they can stick up for their rights.

This. That's why this meme is used so much by men against women who do stand up for themselves, because men find it threatening to their interests.

Misogyny and ageism are never "appropriate".