Karen and the Generational Divide

[LucilleBluth]

My very good friend kept sending me TikTok videos via whatsapp and told me to get on it. I resisted but last week I decided to have a look what it was all about.

Now I’m 40, friend is 42, both white and degree educated with teenagers and primary aged DCs. It would seem that according to this app that middle aged white women are the actual devil. I’m from a working class background and friend is MC.

I’ve never seen younger people be so vitriolic against people they don’t know. It’s definitely misogyny and ageism but dressed up as being woke???

I can’t quite figure out why or where it’s coming from. Any sociological explanation for this?

www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21079162/karen-name-insult-meme-manager
Reddit, misogyny confirmation.

Dick in that context means penis. They are not calling him Richard.

Karen is being used as bitch or cunt I suppose.

But still the dick thing is a pretty weak argument.

The Wiki analogies with Becky in the 90s are interesting because that had strong anti-Semitic undertones and links to the whole JAP ('Jewish American Princess') trope, which was fine when it was used ironically by Jewish teens about themselves, but was quickly picked up and amplified by anti-Semites.

The bottom line is that using negative stereotypes about an entire group of people and trying to justify them on the basis of the behaviour of a tiny minority is a harmful and shitty thing to do.

Dick fancyman bighouse on the telly doesn't get this shit I'm sure!

@VladmirsPoutine

I really admire how the debate around the name/term Karen is so centred on whether or not it is offensive rather than the behaviour/connotations. Probably one of the best insults going - imagine your only 'fight' being that Karen is an offensive/ misogynistic term to be called.

I'm not quite sure it's fair to say the Karen stereotype is women's only fight.

1 in 10 women sexually assaulted
1 in 4 are victims of domestic violence
1 in 5 are raped
Rape convictions are at leas than 1%

All the above are suffered by women at the hands of men. These are the problems that are exasperated by the Karen bullshit because it only serves to imply women are the worse of the sexes when it blatantly isn't true. It's gaslighting nonsense and it's shameful that women aren't on their own side.

Using the term "dick" is surely a lot more about the penis than the man's nickname.

the sentiment shouldn't be lost because ONE country has had a few instances of women possibly being a bit racist.

This is a remarkable statement. ONE country? And at that 'a few' who've only been 'a bit' racist. Truly magnificent statement.

Some people are actually called Dick, not just short for Richard.

Same way you're excusing and defending the use of it (because no one has been outraged by it) is the same way some excuse and defend the use of the word Karen. People defend what they benefit from.

Same way some people repeat the mantra 'Offence is always taken, not given' as if they're saying something profound, in a way to justify saying whatever they want. Some of these same people are taking offence here.

I think (though I refuse to Google 'origins of dick' ) that Dick for penis and Fanny for vagina/vulva (don't @ me, MN vulva police..) are because those were such common names, to the point of being synonymous with 'boy' or 'girl'. It's not based on a stereotype about, or negative association with people called Richard/Dick. It's more like using "John Smith' or 'John Doe" as shorthand generic for man.

Yes you've got to assume the person saying it is misogynistic to a degree, and also a little bit stupid because of that, and the fact that they bother to insult you is pathetic but this is social media inspired.

Insults should be, in order to avoid discrimination or allegations of possible hate crime, highly personal; otherwise, just winding up strangers reflects on you alone.

And I wish people would stop gaslighting us into thinking there's a male equivalent. There isn't, and you know it.

Once again, Wikipedia covers the dick subject
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_(slang)

@BobbinThreadbare123

It's just another way to 'burn the witch'. A woke, modern way, apparently.

This, 100%

And loads and loads of women join in. Always amazes me.

@VladmirsPoutine

the sentiment shouldn't be lost because ONE country has had a few instances of women possibly being a bit racist.

This is a remarkable statement. ONE country? And at that 'a few' who've only been 'a bit' racist. Truly magnificent statement.

Why does the existence of racism justify misogyny?

The resonances of words change. The N word was originally neutral (derives from the colour, same origin as the two countries whose names are similar). So was cunt (derives from the Latin for burrow). We rightly no longer treat those words as neutral, because their meaning has changed. So has the meaning of Karen. It is now used in a misogynistic, ageist and, in the UK, classist way. We should stop using it.

The point of Karen is to disrupt the line of learning from one generation of women to another and to destroy potential lines of solidarity.
This x100

I truly cannot believe that the U.S has been described as having a 'few' people who've only been a 'bit' racist. My god!!

I hate call out culture.

I can understand calling out incidents of actual racism and I can also see the value of recording them on phone in case they fall into the category of hate crime.

But a woman having a meltdown over being given the wrong latte or being forced to wear a mask? No. Yes, such behaviour is wrong but why film it for TikTok? Why not confront the lady behaving this way or call security? Or let the service person being yelled at challenge it? What do people get out of filming it for TikTok? Lols? It seems another form of bullying to me. It is possible to bully bullies and it makes you as bad as them, if you do so.

Racism is a separate issue to someone having a hissy fit. Entitled behaviour isn't linked to skin colour or age and it is actually quite offensive to consider the two things are related.

@TheBuffster

*The point of Karen is to disrupt the line of learning from one generation of women to another and to destroy potential lines of solidarity.* This x100

Boomer works in a similar way for economic/class solidarity across generations. Much safer for the Establishment if people at the bottom of the pile, economically, are at each others' throats, rather than uniting to demand better social conditions.

Ok. I've called people a dick before, fair play it's a twatty thing to do. I think it's a hangover from back at school, so you can use your imagination for its meaning. I get how is a bit dickish however the difference is it's not being used all over the Internet the way Karen is now. Plus its more "wow, that's a dick move" not "she's such a Karen " so for me it feels different.

I'll in future use knob when someone's behaviour is unacceptable. Or maybe twat. Mix things up a bit.

We can't consider these 'hissy fits' as organic because they often are goaded into it. There's a reason the filming starts when it does.

I can see this happening and I think maybe it's because, while i am 25, my mum is called Karen. So I've always hated the 'stereotype' and find it offensive.

As I'm ageing I'm discovering that more and more I'm fitting in with women older rather than younger than me.

I obviously don't agree with those women who calm the police on innocent black people or scream at serving staff but I do complain, I do ask for the correct service I've paid for etc and I think young people struggle to understand that this isn't being a demanding 'Karen'.

I think that they'll grow into recognising this as I have and seeing the value of women over 30. I personally imagine that all generations have had a certain distain for women who are older (sexism and ageism/ generational divide) but that social media gives us greater exposure to both the 'Karen's' and the aggressive youth.

@JaywickCaravanOfLust

Exactly what power dynamics are at play here?

Really, if I saw a person lose their shit and call the police about a burger I would assume that they were in such a state of mental unwellness that they were in imminent danger of being sectioned and that as such they had little power and were on the verge of having none. It's very, very far removed from being "stroppy" or to use contemporary speech "entitled".

I have to say I agree with this. Many of the Karen clips I have seen so seem to feature exhausted, neurotic women rather than entitled ones. Panic attacks can come out as aggression in some people.

This isn't saying those of us with serious mental health issues can behave exactly how we want, or that shifty behaviour is always related to mental illness, but as someone who has suffered, I know a breakdown when I see it.

ONE country has had a few instances of women possibly being a bit racist.

Wow

The N word was originally neutral (derives from the colour, same origin as the two countries whose names are similar). So was cunt (derives from the Latin for burrow). We rightly no longer treat those words as neutral, because their meaning has changed. So has the meaning of Karen

VladmirsPoutine you were right! Didn’t take long did it 🙄

Don’t conflate N*** with Karen it’s not even nearly the same thing.

I've also found that there is much much more sexism from young men on TikTok. They will rant and tail against women making a point about misogyny. It's terrifying.

I've seen a LOT of rape apologists too. A video about a woman who was explaining that you should ask each sexual partner their preferences rather than just doing what you see in porn every time was met with 'should I ask before every thrust then?'

What??

I've not been called a Karen (to my face) but I have had bitch, slag, whore etc yelled at me by men in cars and vans. When I was aged 14 to about 25.

So you know. Whatever.

It just means bitch doesn't it. So people can call women bitches and pretend that's not what they're doing.

What's the collective name for men who shout abuse at women on the street?

Or the ones who get really aggressive when you try to turn down their advances on a night out?

I'm not aware of it. Nathaniel? Ben?

???

What's the collective name for police who use excessive force on black people? Is there one in USA? That would be handy here.

It comes back to a common thing where men tend to be accepted as whole people with different personalities tastes views etc. While women are one of a range of 2D stereotypes.

Ah well.

On its thread no one can even agree on what Karen is supposed to mean.

A specific type of woman in the USA who leverages a long history of terrible racism when she tries to get a black man arrested/ jailed/ beaten/ killed by calling the police?

Or a woman who complains in a shop?

I mean these things are hardly equivalent.

Is she middle class? Working class? Any class?

Must she be white? Not according to the current usage.

And so on and so on.

The using of a name that is common in the UK for women who will likely be working class and middle aged now, to try and stop racism? Police racism in the USA specifically?

And these women are worse then neo Nazis????

Worse than the police officers who kill, worse than the men in general who commit most of the crime, and worse than people like Anders Behring Breivik? (The first neo Nazi who came to my mind).

For a reminder he did this:
'On 22 July 2011, he killed eight people by detonating a van bomb amid Regjeringskvartalet in Oslo, then killed 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp in a mass shooting on the island of Utøya'

That crime is very male. How often do women do shit like that? Not very bloody often.

And yet here we are told that 'Karens' are WORSE than men like him.

And that it's nothing to do with misogyny.

And when you remember that women like the council woman who went viral are being called Karen. She was trying to do her job and got a whole load of abuse from... Apopleptically furious men who could not deal with and were not used to a woman telling them what to do. Men who looked like given half a chance they would commit violence they were that enraged.

But yeah. Women eh? The root of all evil.