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?

@Chocolatechocolatechoate This is quite long, so apologies in advance. I am old enough to remember the (long overdue) Stephen Lawrence murder. I think that, eventually, there was a lot of very widespread public outrage at his murder as well as at the failures of the police to do anything about it for so long and the subsequent aquital of the (alleged but c'mon really) killers. The outrage wasnt coincidental - his family and other campaigners fought for a long time to bring it to peoples attention and to make people care but I think actually eventually there were. Any normal thinking person would be. I think awareness of his murder and other acts of violence DID result in an awareness of racism through the 90s and early 2000s. Certain jokes/stereotypes that would have been acceptable stopped being. The problem was the "face" of that racism was a certain type if uneducated, white working class thuggish man. Of course those people were despicable, and dangerous. They deserved to be shamed (they deserved prison). But because that became the ONLY face of racism it was easy for everyone else to convince themselves all was well. The police's utter incompetance was brushed of (by many in the wider public) as a one off, and lots of people who had been horrified by the murder were then convinced, when the report was published years later, that the institutional racism was exagerated and unfair. Of course many anti-racism activists,were talking about this, and about other systemic problems of racism, but it was easier and more comfortable for everyone else to imagine that the racism was someone else, it was the illiterate working class man in the burberry cap who was the problem. Not them. Plus they had a valid excuse for making fun of working class people. Because they all deserve it. And so less was achieved than could have been achieved. The sad thing is, a similar pattern is happening now and it is a shame and a waste. The only people who will ultimately benefit are those who like the status quo.

@Millenialcunt

Can I just ask? For all the people who know they are not Karens but are offended by the term or when people call them that, why do you take notice? Genuinely like if you know you’re not entitled, racist or unfairly demanding why not just understand you’re clearly not & the person is using it in the wrong context

I'm not called Karen nor personally offended by it.

I just get pissed off with lazy arseholes who take to SM to label a whole demographic and sit back waiting for the likes. It's bullying and not on.

The use of Karen irritates me particularly as it's one of a number of ways popular to put old ladies like me back in a box. The feminist in me gets a tad irritated at anything like this.

Personally, whenever my children use the word "Karen", rather than patting them on the back for being right on, I educate them in how misogyny shows itself in many forms, why we need to fight against it, what internalised misogyny is, and how to recognise it, and why being angry is sometimes as important as being kind.

But what does an old fogey like me know about anything, being over 40 and all?

I don't like Karen as a dismissive term as it gets used towards a huge swathe of women as casual sexism and ageism. It doesn't have to be directed at me personally for that to annoy me.
I don't like all young people being dismissed as snowflakes, even though I'm not young.
I don't even like the dismissive tone of Gammon as I think it's stopping genuine concerns from being raised, and I'm not conservative.
You don't have to feel the personal affront to know that name calling is a way to deflect attention and stereotype people or behaviours.

Saying that complaining about the term Karen means you are a Karen reminds me a little too much of witch dunking, you're screwed either way

The misogyny in society shines through with the stupid Karen insult.

As a teen I was disrespected, wolf whistled, sexually assaulted, told I was too young to know what I was talking about. I hoped when I was older/married/a mum I would get some respect. Did I?
No
I then apparently had "baby brain" and not listened to, was patronised, and had to work around children and childcare to try and be an actual PERSON with a brain. not just a mother.

As an older middle aged woman - would I FINALLY get respect due for my years of work/child rearing/ qualifications hard earned?
No
Now I am called a Karen if I DARE to have an opinion.

@Chocolatechocolatechoate Sorry, the reason I tagged you was because I meant to reply that of course bad behaviour should be called out. But by attaching it so strongly to a particular demographic it actually makes it harder to change the behaviour overall. It just mutates

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow
When did young people start behaving like this?

At least as far back as the Sixties. Not sure how old you are, but Roger Daltrey famously sang, "Hope I die before I get old". Sure, he's trying to retcon it now he actually is old. But there's no question the then-young boomers were just as aggressive to their elders as the younger generation are to them. Just look at Monty Python's "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch for one - perhaps if Mumsnet existed back then we'd be upset about it mocking the poor? But on the other hand, it did mock older, white men.

A similar example for men?
It's old-fashioned now, but there's "Colonel Blimp" - meaning "a silly old man with old-fashioned ideas". There's also "Chad" which is used by younger men in particular in a derogatory fashio, to address the age-old "jock"/sporty, rich and good-looking but thick and a bully stereotype.

[quote apalledandshocked]@Chocolatechocolatechoate This is quite long, so apologies in advance. I am old enough to remember the (long overdue) Stephen Lawrence murder. I think that, eventually, there was a lot of very widespread public outrage at his murder as well as at the failures of the police to do anything about it for so long and the subsequent aquital of the (alleged but c'mon really) killers. The outrage wasnt coincidental - his family and other campaigners fought for a long time to bring it to peoples attention and to make people care but I think actually eventually there were. Any normal thinking person would be. I think awareness of his murder and other acts of violence DID result in an awareness of racism through the 90s and early 2000s. Certain jokes/stereotypes that would have been acceptable stopped being. The problem was the "face" of that racism was a certain type if uneducated, white working class thuggish man. Of course those people were despicable, and dangerous. They deserved to be shamed (they deserved prison). But because that became the ONLY face of racism it was easy for everyone else to convince themselves all was well. The police's utter incompetance was brushed of (by many in the wider public) as a one off, and lots of people who had been horrified by the murder were then convinced, when the report was published years later, that the institutional racism was exagerated and unfair. Of course many anti-racism activists,were talking about this, and about other systemic problems of racism, but it was easier and more comfortable for everyone else to imagine that the racism was someone else, it was the illiterate working class man in the burberry cap who was the problem. Not them. Plus they had a valid excuse for making fun of working class people. Because they all deserve it. And so less was achieved than could have been achieved. The sad thing is, a similar pattern is happening now and it is a shame and a waste. The only people who will ultimately benefit are those who like the status quo.[/quote]
appalled this is a great post

My TikTok isn't like that, its full of dance videos and dating stories gone wrong. Its actually quite inspirational as the algorithm clearly leads me to women who stand up for themselves.

There is however a vast under-culture of negging women, particularly any woman over about 35/40. The internet is full of men being abusive to, and about, women. Men angry at clever women getting well paid jobs and turning them down for casual sex, to be specific. The world no longer owes them an easy living and a lot of men are very angry about it.

I personally think its time to treat sexual remarks and comments as an aggravated offence, like all the other categories of discrimination. I often wonder if the angry people pile into women because its the one category you can get away with verbally abusing as they aren't covered by the aggravated offence legislation.

This is a good article

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/13/the-karen-meme-is-everywhere-and-it-has-become-mired-in-sexism

@teachermummy1

Realistically I don't think at 40 you will understand. It is terminology that comes from young people, and is used by females and males. A Karen is (usually) a middle class white women who acts entitled and specifically 'asks to see the manager', shouts at service people, complains for no actual reason e.g. screaming. Unfortunately it is centered around the middle class white woman because they are the main perpetrators. My daughter uses the word. It is not misogynistic, and realistically if you begin to call it ageist and misogynistic you're acting slightly like a Karen. As a poster stated it's no different to boomers calling millennials 'snowflakes'.

So despite the fact that people can give you copious examples of Karen NOT being used in the way you describe you insist that that is its only usage. Despite the fact that people give plenty of examples of white women not being the main perpetrators of aggressive behaviour (and seriously, how could you possibly think this is the case) you insist that they are (well you have too - otherwise Karen is a sexist term, right?).

And anyone who disagrees with you is too thick to understand what you can, and must be a Karen.

I really hope your post was irony rather than an attempt to mount a credible case.

People asking about the equivalent make name, it gammon.tgats referring to any one like borris, peirce Morgan, trump etc. Meanning entitled white men.

@apalledandshocked excellent post

I'm a millennial but I'm not quite sure what comes under entitled or unfairly demanding behaviour. I want to get paid the same as my male counterparts & I would like more women on the board. I think I'm just as good as my male counterparts & have asked for pay rises in the past. Does that mean Im demanding & entitled? Some would say yes.

No the entitlement it includes would be things like shouting/screaming at people doing a job or aggressively demanding a manager because you haven’t got your own way, after being told politely something’s not possible. A woman rang emergency services because a drive-thru wouldn’t make her a burger she asked for, stating her rights were being threatened. This is privilege on another level & the problem with most Karens is their behaviour always comes from a position of privilege

So, I realised today that I have spent the last year dealing with older, white men who insist on their opinions on various progressive issues being listened to.

When I say 'listened to', I mean actual listening, by a woman and also 'listening' as in being given a public platform. The sort of platform you'd usually give to an expert, someone with qualifications, experience and a reputation in the field.

Quite often these men have no idea such experts exist. Their thinking hasn't been informed by any expert thinking, in fact, their thinking is very often in a very nascent stage. The thoughts they have are often pretty 'new' to them.

They have some sort of guiding assumption that because these thoughts are new to them, they are, by definition, dazzlingly innovative thoughts. They clearly think that it is now their role to bring this thoughts down from the mountain of their own brilliance and spread them amongst the people.

They are very demanding. And often angry. They simply cannot hear it when told that they are not the only people who have thought on this issue.

They do not believe that other people have spent years working in these issues. They are absolutely unheeding of the fact that there may be a body of research that they are, by definition, refusing to engage with.

And, lastly, they do not understand that giving them a platform means taking that platform away from an expert.

I'll go further: quite often, these men are insisting on their opinions in fields where the experts are often women. And, frankly, where the experts are often women of colour.

I reckon this happens a hell of a lot of the time.

And yet bloody 'Karen' is the meme.

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.

It's aim is to create a constant razing of the lived libraries of experience and knowledge - so that politics becomes a perpetual Year Zero and progress is damn near impossible: foundations that are actually the blood, sweat and tears of one generation of women are destroyed, and the next generation is building out of rubble, all over again.

I'm sick of it.

@debbrianna - You've picked some powerful men there as examples of gammons. Are you sure that Karen has the same connotations?

I heard on a video a woman roaring

CRACKER at a man..
I had no idea what “
Cracker meant assuming cheese and biscuits.

After googling Urban Dictionary, it means
“ Whipcracker” which shows prejudice is alive and well for all nationalities.

Very depressing.

I think it was Aristotle that was worried about the youth of today. It’s always been there. However due to house prices, a huge change in employment rights, student debt and for the first time in the world the absolute scourge that is social media the chasm has widened more than ever.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

A quick internet search has found memes that make fun of men. Easy.

I agree there is no equivalent of Karen in that there is not a specific name given to men. You get gammon, you get 'nice guy' you get fedora wearing dude but no there isn't a specific name but I don't think that really matters? There are meme that make fun of men the same as makes fun of women.

No I wouldn't expect social shaming to focus on men however I don't think that all social shaming does focus on women. This particular meme does because it relates to a specific thing that occurs with women and therefore that's why only women are targeted with the Karen meme but that 1) doesn't mean that women shouldn't be called out when they act like that and 2) doesn't mean that men are never called out.

@teachermummy1
A Karen is (usually) a middle class white women who acts entitled and specifically 'asks to see the manager', shouts at service people, complains for no actual reason e.g. screaming
and realistically if you begin to call it ageist and misogynistic you're acting slightly like a Karen

And of course here you show the sexism in Karen. A women objecting to a term she finds sexist and abusive, is displaying her 'entitlement' by objecting, and by acting so entitled is a Karen.

You so perfectly illustrate that it is not a (frankly sexist stereotype) of screaming women, but ANY women who dares to try to stand up for herself against abuse.

Can you really not hear yourself ' teachermummy1';

And I say 'older white men' here not to re-embed a generational divide but to point out that these were the same men who resisted feminism all along.

They've learnt nothing. They never had to.

A generation of women had to take them in - and it was hard.

But the anti-Karen thing picks the wrong target: it takes aim at the women who fought a good battle for women, and are still fighting it.

And yet, strangely, they find they are fighting on alone.

CF is a much better term for such types doesn’t smear a whole age group / sex for the behaviour of a minority.

The use of Karen irritates me particularly as it's one of a number of ways popular to put old ladies like me back in a box. The feminist in me gets a tad irritated at anything like this

This. I am not called Karen but I am the age that could have been - there were two in my class at school. It feels very personal.

No the entitlement it includes would be things like shouting/screaming at people doing a job or aggressively demanding a manager because you haven’t got your own way, after being told politely something’s not possible.

So you're saying that people only use the word Karen in those situations.
Why was Jess Phillips called a Karen?

A woman rang emergency services because a drive-thru wouldn’t make her a burger she asked for, stating her rights were being threatened.

Stupid people will always exist.