“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?

This is it 👆

I've never had an underpaid black woman looking after my children. Or any other underpaid person.

But I suppose I will be accused of taking things personally while other posters are talking "globally", water that means.

It's because if you posted on here that assertive white women are cunts or whatever trauma diminishing slur it is, you'd be rightly deleted.

Not misrepresenting anything here are you? Point to where Lndnmummy or I said or implied that's what we would have written? I'll wait...

Like I said I know what she means. I respect what she has to say.

I’m just reading one of Jenny Eclair’s books. She makes a good point about middle aged women reaching a stage in life where they are just not not prepared to tolerate people’s shitty behaviour anymore. They start telling it how it is, calling it out, and that’s a positive thing. Now that clearly upsets some people, these pesky women daring to challenge the litter dropper, the cyclist on the pavement, the poor service in the restaurant etc.. But luckily we are also beyond caring about being judged! We are comfortable and confident in our decision making. The interesting thing is, I think that not only pisses off some men but also some (perhaps younger?) women…..

YY.

https://www.asmodee.co.uk/products/fmgka0322karen

This is a game based entirely on the premise that a person who complains and gives a one star review is a 'Karen'. It was created by current Radio 1 DJ, Matt Edmonson (white, male). There is also a Christmas Karen game. You can buy it on Amazon.

This.

Assertiveness (not rudeness) is a skill anyone can learn . It's not anything to do with privilege or race. Comparing racist Karens to reddit ones is like comparing apples to oranges.

Well no neither did I, but surely you can see that white women have benefitted from subjugation of black people, and obviously more so black women.

I mean, I’m infuriated by the misogynist use of Karen (maybe more so because a real woman called Karen is one of my dearest friends), but I get that women of colour are at the bottom of the pile, and that’s very wrong.

This is incredibly offensive to women. All women. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that the “Karens” in the minds of the creators and purchasers include women of colour.

I hadn't heard of Kevins or Johns. It seems as though it's almost unnoticed when a middle aged man demonstrates "uppity" behaviour but when a woman does it someone is there with a camera ready to put it on TikTok.

Heaven forfend that a 50+ woman ever behaves like anything other than an invisible shrinking violet. 🙄

John Lewis had this shitty game in their shops last year.

What I see is dragging down, not levelling up.

sorry to use new speak, it seems to describe this best.

I agree 100%. This kind of labelling, (which basically amounts to reducing people to crude stereotypes) is othering and patronising. No, it's not as damaging as racism can be, but I still don't like it , any more than I like Gammon or Becky.

and let's face it, someone being a bit uppity to a service worker although very very wrong is a far cry from a bullied, traumatised and harassed black student at a recently desegregated school ending up suffering PTS D and killing herself as an adult . It's almost insulting to compare the two. The service worker can leave their job, can get a better one, you can't opt out of your skin colour or age.

How else would you explain Londonmummys insistence that no white woman can be assertive in her childrens’ presence, even if what she does has nothing to do with them?

Personally I would like to get on with all races and I live in a very diverse city so that my kids’ friends are white and non-white and I have white and non-white friends myself. Race relations in the US seem appalling, I don’t think importing their approach here is going to be in any way positive to anyone.

Why do you assume that I'm not?

Not that I need to defend myself but this is a pretty woke household, we regularly talk about prejudice and inequality be it racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, anti semitism...we aren't ones to shy away from topics around the dinner table! DD knows that her dad reported racism in his workplace. She witnessed microaggressions against her best friend at primary and we talked about those.

Just because I believe Karen to be first and foremost a misogynist slur now and I'm raising my DD to be assertive, doesn't mean that I/she are ignorant.

I've no idea what you're doing/ not doing on your household, I was merely responding to what you posted. If you're having those conversations then that's great you're doing the work and your dd will grow up able to be strong and assertive in a non harmful way. That's great! Not every household is having those conversations though is my point.

@maltravers I agree, we can't compare US cultural trends to our own, race relations are very different here. Britain is racist in many ways but I don't see the cultural and societal norms as like America's . In Britain middle aged women are rarely taken seriously and don't have much societal power or privilege.

I can see a racist white woman using her privilege and power to be assertive in a harmful way, but not white women generally. White women aren't the problem, racist white women are.

We have recently had a policeman charged with murdering a black man this took over a year to get to that him being charged

a recent case of two athletes being pulled over and the police accuse them of smoking cannabis case cleared, police rightly lost their jobs and a fundraiser is successful for the policeman

we have institutional racism in the police, courts and health care system

a young black or asian man will be far more likely to be searched by the police than a young white man

we have areas in the UK where black and Asian people will not feel welcomed

we have openly racist politicians that are given plenty of air time on the main channels as he is a character 🙄

my family are often congratulated for not being like you know those troublesome brown people who speak always in their own language and don’t take on western ways

a women who is mixed race dared to marry into the royal family the tabloids racism was utterly disgraceful

its more passive aggressive here because culturally we do not tend to be so up front

I’m not sure we as as far removed from the US as many like to believe our society is less violent on the whole and so what if things are not quite as bad here it’s still a huge problem in our society and shouldn’t be constantly played down or people don’t well it’s not quite like the states what does that message even mean

🙏❤️

I don’t disagree with you at all. Racism shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone and should absolutely called out.

But I do think that the term has evolved and has been appropriated by anyone (my perception is that it’s often white men) who wants to shout down/silence a woman for having an opinion.

Ironically if it were solely used by black women to (rightly) highlight racism by white women, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.

Unfortunately, it's is clear from what you have written and your use of the word woke, that you don't have all the tools to dispense wisdom about racism. Racism, it's reach and effect is so much wider than the narrow examples you have given. It never ceases to amaze me how people set the bar so low and give themselves a pat on back.

As for the people congratulating themselves that this country is not as bad as the US.

This country is steeped in racism! It's in structures and people and is a constant drag. Racism allows Black and Brown people to be the most invisible yet put upon group.
It punishes more, expects less,denies opportunities and provides lower outcomes to our children in school.
It criminalises our children from younger age.
It allows for harsher penalties than our white counter parts in the legal system
It puts mothers at risk during pregnancy and labour, whilst denying them pain relief
It often denies us appropriate treatment in general healthcare, from diagnosis and treatment to the capability of equipment.
It causes middle aged black women to be followed around stores as suspected shop lifters.
We have to work harder and overcome more obstacles for fewer opportunites.
Black women can enter the work place on parity with white women but 10 years later that is not the case.
As for the media, the list is endless and the contradictions staggering.... We are invisible, over sexualised, yet unsexual, angry, aggressive, manly, druggy looking, drug taking, murders, gang members, rapists, ape bearing... The list goes on.
As for beauty standards, lip fillers, Brazilian butt's, fake tan, fix eye... All wonderful as long as they are not natural ethnic woman.

This is a flavour of life in rhe UK, not an exhaustive list, nor have I explored the differences for men v women or people from other ethnic groups. It may surprise people, but we are not one homogenous mass.

God forbid we should raise an objection, have a different view. We are told the be thankful that this is not the US and to know our place because white is right in all conversations. Our experiences don't count. You know who behaves like that? Men... and quite a few (Not all) white women.

Soooo glad this is not the US...

But if you're white and unaware of your position of privilege then you can still carry out micro aggressions and work off ingrained stereotypes without even realising it. You don't need to be an outright racist to cause harm, you just need to be white and not have unpicked all the unhealthy and harmful messages that we learn from childhood through adulthood. There's plenty of people who wouldn't call themselves racist while still doing things that are harmful to black people and other people of colour. It goes so much deeper than I as a white woman ever really realised until I started actively educating myself which is a privilege in itself that that education was "optional". I think part of the problem in the UK is that there's an attitude that if its not open and explicit racism, then it's not racism and not part of the problem. Evidenced by all the posters on here saying well at least we're not in the US, or assuming that my earlier points around women in the workplace aren't historically accurate because they pay a black babysitter the same as a white babysitter or who works in the nursery they use.

That’s quite an exhaustive list. Just taking one thing, what evidence is there that black women are denied pain relief in childbirth?