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?

Yes, appalledandshocked, Karen is everything everyone ever hated about any woman, anywhere. She is so much more powerful a meme, because she absorbs all the lesser memes in her orbit.

Is there a male equivalent of a Karen?

@Proudboomer I realized I was officially old when dying my hair trendy silver would age me rather than look funky.
I have the chunky highlights and ombre roots of a Karen, just waiting to get the choppy Bob and my transformation will be complete.

@Nellodee Did anyone else read, 'lots of people have provided factual evidence of its misogynistic roots, but I am just going to ignore them, that's why I ignored your post.'

Epic research skills. As a Karen in training I have limited internet skills so applaud your efforts. (Although I do know a minimised window isn't gone forever!)

Yep, I read that too. Ah, to be so well informed and woke! How I envy those young 'uns.

@Nellodee

Yes, appalledandshocked, Karen is everything everyone ever hated about any woman, anywhere. She is so much more powerful a meme, because she absorbs all the lesser memes in her orbit.

Yes, an angry man* cant call his bitch of a manager a "barbecue becky" when she asks him why he was late again because the people around him will want to know what the relevance of that is. He CAN call her a "Karen" to his mates and they will know what he means instantly.

the angry man in this very specific example being a male relative of mine*
He is also white and, ironically, kind of racist in a would-be-violent if he could be bothered to get of his arse sort of way but instead gets his rage out playing COD.*
*I dont like him

'Did you not read where I quoted the Wikipedia page, about how having a term for white people (often women) exercising their privilege/looking to get black people in trouble as harking all the way back to the Jim Crow era and being called Miss Ann? It’s not a new concept however you want to dress it up. It may well have first been used on a Reddit but obviously it was quickly taken to replace Miss Ann/BBQ Becky/Permit Patty etc'

We are British though! In the main.

Karen here is NOT middle class.

We do not have the same history as you. We have social issues and racism but they are not the same as the USA.

Calling a woman in the UK Karen because she's middle aged and well maybe she's being an aresehole and maybe she isn't because women are people too not 2D cutouts ... Is going to do ZERO to help with police brutality against black men in the USA.

And again I ask, what about the black women in the USA and their treatment by the police and in general?

Where is that in all this?

Stay offended at the term Karen I really couldn’t care less 😄 I was just making the point that popular culture has taken the term Karen & used it to replace something a lot of people already knew about & resonated with & which has existed for long ass time. Peaaace out ✌🏽 dueces! ☺️✨

@Igletpiglet No. Men are allowed to complain, expect good service, be treated ok and not treated as a pointless joke over a certain age. The roots of this was about women using white privilege but it has spread to any women a teenager does not like.

Don't you just love open-minded people?

On page 24 and I still haven’t read a convincing argument as to why objecting to a term being used in a sexist and ageist manner (and posters have provided many examples where there is neither a racial angle nor any actual wrongdoing from the ‘Karen’ in question) illustrates white privilege.

I could see it if someone were to say being called a Karen was as bad as or worse than racist abuse. But I haven’t seen anyone say this.

There are posters who keep repeating how black and other women face discrimination that whites women don’t as though anyone were arguing that their problem with Karen is because they don’t believe in that discrimination. Again, I can’t see this anywhere.

What I find seriously depressing here is the yawning gap between different groups of women. Can we overcome this?

ItsIgginningtolooklikelockdown

Is it always misogyny or is it sometimes calling out a particular type of behaviour I think at times it is used to call out behaviour

Yep, this is definitely a story that resonates over time and space.

@Nellodee I think you scared them with logic and facts.
Posts that Karen is not misogynistic for pages and pages.
Says couldn't care less.

Rightttt...

@JammyDozen they'll grow up and experience sexism.
But then the youngsters won't listen to them.
That's the rub.

Yep, the cognitive dissonance got too painful, I think.

Okay, bedtime. Goodnight all the wonderful, indomitable women of Mumsnet. Vipers, yes. Karens, no.

Omg Karen,

@Nellodee

Yep, the cognitive dissonance got too painful, I think.

Highly enjoyable to watch. Thank you @Nellodee 😀

Night, All. Off to get my beauty sleep, in readiness for another day of visiting violence and trauma on the world through my middle-agedness. Quite exciting to discover that I'm a menopausal Genghis Khan 🤺

If we MUST talk about the USA as if we are supposed to understand their culture and history and whatnot inside and out... (Cultural imperialism? What's the name for that? Oh probably Susan)...

Remember Daniel Ken Holtzclaw?

Are men/ white men/ male police officers who target black women and girls who they think will be too scared to report/ dismissed if they do, called DANIELS?

In the UK there are a lot of Daniels and their focus can be broad. Our society is different. But they are still Daniels. They target women and girls who they reckon will not report or will be turned away if they do.

Let's remember what Daniel did.

'Holtzclaw was convicted of eighteen counts involving eight different women. According to the police investigators, Holtzclaw abused his position as an officer by running background checks to find information that could be used to coerce victims into sex.[1] During the trial, the defense questioned the victims' credibility during cross-examination, bringing up their criminal records.[5] Of the thirteen women who accused Holtzclaw, several had criminal histories such as drug arrests, and all of them were African American.[6] The prosecution argued that victims were deliberately chosen by Holtzclaw for these reasons.[7]'

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows

You have got to wonder about the intelligence of people who can look around them at a world where:

men own 70% of the wealth,
men commit 90% of violent crime, and 98% of sexual crime,
every country on Earth has a pay gap between the sexes,
many countries do not give women equal legal or political life,
almost the entire UK government is men,
most countries have never had a woman leader

and think, "Yeah, the problem here is middle aged women" .

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I want this on a t-shirt!

Do you not think you're kind of proving their point here?

With all those very real majr problems the thing that has got womens groups angry is the use of the word Karen...

Kind of picking the petty problem to worry about

Do you not think you're kind of proving their point here?

With all those very real majr problems the thing that has got womens groups angry is the use of the word Karen...

Kind of picking the petty problem to worry about

The whole point about the Karen thing is that is designed to stop women, particularly those of a certain age, articulating their structural disadvantages. If society is telling you to shut up and check your privilege, you don’t get to talk about any of those major problems, do you?

@Nellodee

It IS meant to describe us though. It's meant to describe ALL women who ever stood up to white males. THAT's it's origin.

But the people they are reporting are typically female, young and from a minority background.

Mostly because that's who makes up the service industry in most western societies i suppose

'womens groups angry'

Which women's groups are you talking about?

Anything to say about 'Daniels'?

Or whether calling working class middle aged women in the UK karens is going to help much with police brutality against black men in the USA?

'But the people they are reporting are typically female, young and from a minority background.

Mostly because that's who makes up the service industry in most western societies i suppose'

Reporting who for what?

@GCAcademic

Do you not think you're kind of proving their point here?

With all those very real majr problems the thing that has got womens groups angry is the use of the word Karen...

Kind of picking the petty problem to worry about

The whole point about the Karen thing is that is designed to stop women, particularly those of a certain age, articulating their structural disadvantages. If society is telling you to shut up and check your privilege, you don’t get to talk about any of those major problems, do you?

But its a meme on reddit, its not being shouted across the despatch boxes is it?

Claiming "oh no we can't do anything now as since 2017 men have silenced us by saying Karen on the Internet!" Just makes it seem so pathetic.