“Karen” is a misogynist term.

[Bleuuuughhh]

i just would like to get an idea of how other women feel about this term.

It seems deeply unfair there is no equivalent term for badly behaved men. In my eyes, the phase appears to be a new insult to add the huge list women have had add to put up with through the ages.

Women being sexually active is now more acceptable so the terms “Jezebel”, “slag” are not used as widely. Similarly there is an aging population “crone” and “witch” aren’t acceptable . Now a woman who complains, or doesn’t tow the party time is called a “Karen”.

Has anything really actually changed at all?

@IrresponsiblyCertainAboutSexualDimorphism

ask kids to put rubbish in bins, or complain that their food order is wrong. You can’t really be saying that this is underhand racist shit?

That’s not as simple a question to answer as you think it is. “This order is wrong; I asked for fries. Please can the mashed potatoes be replaced. Thank you” is one thing. A white woman snapping her fingers at a black waiter with a “This is wrong. Take it back”? I’m sure you can see the racial undertones there. Whether or not you claim you would do the same thing if the waiter were white is irrelevant; the optics of that scenario show a clear power imbalance reminiscent of black people obeying white orders.

Please accept my sincerest apologies. It's a poor excuse, but In my haste completely misread your message. I will read more carefully going forward.

I don't understand the relevance of the sex of the finger clicking possibly racist restaurant twat.

Can you elaborate please?

I thought I would test bringing the conversation down to your level. Lazy, and generalising - I did think about throwing the cunt word in that you like so much. You misrepresented what Lndnmummy meant then had the gall to present it as an interpretation of what I said. In spite of explicitly being told otherwise by me, you keep stating 'all' women / assertive women. It is crystal clear that is not what is meant. We can agree to disagree on the use, but you don't get a free pass to make shit up, deliberately misrepresent or lie.

As far as I am aware, the term has nothing to do with racism.

100% agree in the context of a White customer and a Black server.

And anyone clicking their fingers at any server (or anyone really, unless they’re joking) is an utter twat.

Although what I’d understood from some of the previous posts and conversations is that a (white) woman just being straightforwardly assertive and asking politely to have her order corrected a) makes her a Karen and b) this includes when she and the server are both white and c) in this type of scenario her assertiveness is harmful to black people (and this applies if the scenario is witnessed by a black person or if it is not).

Have I understood that correctly? Apologies if I have misunderstood earlier posts in this thread (not necessarily posted by you but during the preceding conversation), that was what I got from posts by Ldnmummy etc.

It's origin and mainstream meaning was always intended as a misogynist term. It was created and popularised by (mostly) white men on Reddit. It was co-opted later for alternative purposes/definitions but that was taken from its original and still widely used purpose, which was misogynistic. So of course it is.

This. Good to see this thread has gone exactly the same way as every other one of the many threads on this topic on MN

Well anyone snapping their fingers at anyone is unacceptable, and of course a white person snapping their fingers at a black person is obviously additionally loaded with racial undertones and is doubly unacceptable.

But
a) your first polite scenario
b) the fictional example involving MorrisZap, the chippy and the white young people

are the ones in which women are called “Karens” to shut them up, and about which we (i.e. those who agreed with the OP) are objecting.

We’re objecting to this on two grounds: one, that shutting them up up is ageist and misogynistic; two, that using a woman’s name to do this is ageist and misogynistic. I still do not see how that objection makes me racist.

Can you not understand that 'strong white women' can be harmful and damaging to black people, especially black women? The entire structure of feminism is built through white women climbing on the backs of black women to get ahead. If it's not intersectional then it's not feminism. And tone policing black women and telling them who they should or shouldn't view as a threat is not it.

Men are famously rude to waiting staff, to the extent that it's a well worn 'red flag' in the dating scene.

Clicking fingers at anyone is vile, and I can totally understand the coded racism too.

But I don't get the women part. Why are women given a name for this typically male behaviour?

And yes, I do think that people objecting to the term Karen being used are enabling racism.

And I think people using Karen are misogynistic and people who enable them are enabling misogyny. So that's an impasse.

Double post. Sorry

So what do you want me to do? What do you want white women to do? Stay at home and bake cakes?

I am not afraid to be assertive when I need to, nor should I be expected not to be.

Deal with it.

I have not misrepresented what London said. She has said herself several times yes that's exactly what she meant. I haven't made anything up and I genuinely don't know what you're talking about now.

No woman should ever be made to feel ashamed for merely asserting herself. All women have the right to be heard if they feel there is something they need to say. It's something men never question, whether anyone wants to hear what they have to say.

I don't understand this, no.

I am hopefully raising my daughter to become a strong (white) woman. Teaching her to value herself for things other than her appearance...teaching her that she has boundaries and agency and a voice...teaching her that she is equal to any male.

How is any of that damaging to black women?

If “strong black women” is good (and it is!) why is “strong white women” bad? Do middle aged white women alone have to atone for the racist crimes of men/boys/girls/other races by being docile, submissive and staying at home? Not reasonable, sorry.

My mother was part of a grassroots group of women who used their own sofas to provide refuge to abused women in a Scottish town in the 1960s. They placed postcards in doctors waiting rooms, in supermarkets etc and organised via phone trees. These groups became Womens Aid.

My mother did not step over any black women, as her town was entirely white. Scotland is much more diverse now but even our cities are still 90% white.

Where does intersectionality fit in here? That word didn't exist (to my knowledge) when women like my mother found like minded friendship at the school gates or on their streets and set up consciousness raising groups in their living rooms.

Because of privilege.

However, I would also argue that the “strong black woman” trope is incredibly damaging to black women. But that’s another issue for another thread.

As pp said, it isn't reasonable to expect white women to be silent about their own oppression and anyone who does is going to be disappointed. "Privileged" or not. At the individual level, privilege theory falls down.

The more I think about this the angrier I get. And I'm not an angry person.

You don't get stronger by diminishing someone else. You get stronger by building yourself up.

And I didn't get where I am by stepping over anyone, quite the opposite. I was helped by other strong women and I helped others myself. This is what I'm proud of, not that someone had to be weaker in order for me to be stronger.

Fucking hell.

Crikey, what wrong with being strong, whether black or white? We should all aspire to that. Aspire rather than tread other people down (and yes, white women are people too).

@IrresponsiblyCertainAboutSexualDimorphism

We’re objecting to this on two grounds: one, that shutting them up up is ageist and misogynistic; two, that using a woman’s name to do this is ageist and misogynistic. I still do not see how that objection makes me racist.

I don’t think objecting to that does make you racist or enable racism. What I do think is that there needs to be more of an understanding of why someone might be calling you a “Karen”. I’m asking you not to just immediately write it off as “some misogynistic crap”. It may well be some misogynistic crap, and I don’t doubt that that has been the experience of white women on this thread. But there is also a high possibility that, when being called a Karen by someone who’s not white, you did something wrong.

We have already established that there are two meanings here. I am just asking you to understand the original meaning and be mindful of your own behaviours and attitudes towards black people if you have been called a Karen (I would say “BAME” or “Asian”, but I don’t wish to speak for a community that I’m not a part of. I don’t know what their relationship with the word “Karen” is).

I can also say that I have never been called a Karen, and I consider myself to be very assertive. So it seems the racial element is still at play.

@maltravers as I said, another conversation for another thread. I found out through this thread that you can PM people though, so if you’d like me to explain why “strong black woman” is a dangerous trope for black women please feel free to PM me.

When it's misogyny from a "non white person" that doesn't magic the misogyny away, just like a woman being a racist isn't mitigated by her being a woman as I'm sure you agree. I'm sure pp know what they think about misogynistic comments from randoms.