To think the name 'Karen' is only considered misogynistic because it refers to white women?

[FloofyCushion]

I saw a tweet that said something along the lines of black women were referred to as Shaniqua for years, Hispanics as Maria or Guadalupe, and Asian women as Ling Ling. The only reason the name Karen is considered so offensive is because it refers to white women.

Whenever the term Karen is mentioned on here, posters will fall over themselves to say how misogynistic it is and that it silences women. But it doesn't refer to ALL women, only white women. A certain type of very entitled white woman that derives pleasure from getting people she believes to be beneath her into trouble with authority. Its also used for racist women that attempt to get black people arrested for simply existing in close proximity to them.

All of the stereotypical names for ethnic minorities were never considered misogynistic, although they were racist. Obviously calling someone a Karen for simply speaking up for herself is horrible, but isn't it more prejudice than misogyny? It seems like stereotyping women's names according to their race was never a problem until it happened to white women. Interested to hear what other people think.

I haven't denied the history. I'm very aware of history, to a certain extent, as a Brit I know more about Britain's role in racism than America's.
I honestly don't know what you want me to say? That calling people names is ok, as long as it's the right sort of people? Calling people names doesn't really solve problems. I'm interested in solving problems and to solve England's problems we need to look mainly, but yes, not exclusively at our own problems.
I am sorry you feel I'm not listening to you, but I really am not a horrible person: I just want a more long-term solution than punching up.
Any sort of punching (metaphorical) is discouraged in my profession.

@HTH1

All of the above are equally bad. How about we find a name for random opinionated men who give their unsolicited opinions to strangers?

I think that’s just called men 🤷🏻‍♀️

Completely separately to use of the word Karen the level of violence in some communities does play a role in the fear experienced I suspect and impacts race relations.

It is black communities themselves that experience the vast majority of this violence but it known of in white communities and occasionally takes place there often in the form of car jackings.

Last weekend my city had one hundred shootings, 12 dead and six were children.
There is no reason to think next weekend will be that different. These shootings were all in BAME areas and the victims were people of color.

My dc living in a different part of city have little idea of the violence that is a normal experience for the children I work with as a volunteer court advocate.
It is a result of endemic and structural racism that these dc are all black and all live in a different side of the city to my dc.

However it is very easy to look only at the end product of decades of racism, the significant violence and have that impact the way black men in particular are viewed in the city.

I don't think that racist views are ever acceptable however looking at some of the issues that help create them makes unpicking them more possible.

Cheap name calling on SM isn't going to change anything.

Yes Paddington, when I hear about shootings in the US I am very glad we have strict gun laws and such crimes are very rare. Obviously we have other crimes of violence in the UK.

And yes, that was sort of what I was trying to say. I think the history of the word, whilst interesting, is largely irrelevant because neither racism or sexism will be solved by name calling.

[quote Wroxie]**@UsedUpUsername* it's one thing to disagree with me, lots of people have, they have managed to do it without accusing me of not actually being a woman. I have been a Black woman for over 40 years, the first half of those years in Southern Mississippi, I can assure you that white women can be horrifically racist without any guidance or assistance from men. They don't get cleared of racism because they're women. I'll hold my tongue now because what I really want to say to you would have me banned, and in fact if your comment is allowed to stand by @mumsnetHQ* I'll be banning myself.[/quote]
@Wroxie

I don’t know why you are smearing an entire class of women. Nothing what I said was untrue.

Women have much more to fear from men, any man, all men. Crime stats overwhelmingly bear that out.

@igelkott2021

But it IS a thing in the US and pretending that it's not doesn't make it not so

We're not pretending it doesn't happen in the US, but as I pointed out further up the thread, this is a UK website for UK residents (and mainly female ones of child-bearing age) and we discuss things in that context and it isn't helpful when people from overseas tell us we are wrong about the cultural context of the UK when we live here.

No, what you don’t like is a black woman telling you what the reality is for black women.

Don’t dress it up. This ‘oh the UK isn’t as bad as the US’ is peddled by white people and THAT is what’s not helpful.

@paddlingon your job sounds really interesting. You should do an AMA because it sounds like you’d have a lot of insights into the issues we are all discussing.

you discount the experiences of Black women

I’m not talking about the experiences of black women. I know nothing about them.

What I do know is the Karen meme is primarily used by young men to belittle women of a certain age.

They truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal

I agree with you here. But you also have to recognise that there is no universal ‘white experience’ and you just can’t go on smearing an entire group of people by talking about ‘slave owning white women’ and ‘white women who scapegoat black men’ (I suppose you mean cry rape here) when these were not universal ‘white woman experiences’ by any means. Nor is it okay when you try to connect these to the modern ‘Karen’ meme who is just a middle-aged woman with a bad haircut who is assertive. I reject this.

They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white

Yeah, you’ve got a point here, in that white people
generally do not think about what it means to be ‘white’. It’s a Western concept to think about the individual over a group-based identity, which is not the norm in much of the world. Personally I think that a positive development but you may disagree.

[quote Wroxie]**@UsedUpUsername* it's one thing to disagree with me, lots of people have, they have managed to do it without accusing me of not actually being a woman. I have been a Black woman for over 40 years, the first half of those years in Southern Mississippi, I can assure you that white women can be horrifically racist without any guidance or assistance from men. They don't get cleared of racism because they're women. I'll hold my tongue now because what I really want to say to you would have me banned, and in fact if your comment is allowed to stand by @mumsnetHQ* I'll be banning myself.[/quote]
Agreed 💯

The covert and overt racism I’ve experienced in the workplace has mostly been from white women. And those same women often have trendy hashtags about BLM and what not in their email signatures. It’s all lip service.

And yet once again the onus is on BAME women to show solidarity with white women.

I’m fed up and tired, I don’t have capacity to protect myself AND fight a white woman’s fight against misogyny.

@SheABitSpicyToday

I agree with you op. I made this point on mumsnet before but got shouted down because my non white opinion doesn’t matter as much as the white peoples feelings. It’s almost like mumsnet is full of….

How on earth do you know what ethnicity all the users on MN are? Talk about making generic assumptions!

It’s all lip service.

It's quite upsetting being accused of being racist when I just don't think misogyny should be used against women.

Especially as I have done a lot to combat racism where I can. I've made significant changes to numerous curriculums.

No I wasn't paid for it either.

I made sure 120+ children had exposure to black and Asian British and global figures. That required hours and hours of work for free on my part. Plus weathering the resistance against changing it. I'm not senior so someone like me having the gall to take out modules is not taken lightly. And they had to be good quality or they'd have been pushed out again. Hours and hours of work. Researching because the stories aren't necessarily there in the mainstream. Making it age appropriate. Making resources. Fine tuning.

And I absolutely stood by a friend when the school told her she hadn't suffered a racist incident chain when she absolutely had.

To do that and then get told you're essentially racist because you don't like casual misogyny is rather unfair and shortsighted.

I don't think name calling is appropriate. This is something I grew into. I used to use gammon before I realised throwing cheap names and not tackling the argument made me a twat. I don't use names like that. It doesn't solve anything.

I don't see why name calling helps racism better than other ways, of which a few I've discussed on this thread, do.

How does me, accepting the mantle of Karen, for non racist remarks, help racism?

@TheSlayer I’m referring to my own experience. I can’t just pretend everything is ok in my world. I applaud your efforts but that doesn’t mean I’m still not ground down every day. I hope it will be different for the kids you teach.

And in my own experience, I can only fight racism by positive actions: I don't have the power to do otherwise.

For example, with my colleague, I stood by her and confirmed what I'd seen. I told senior leaders. So did white children who were shocked at the behaviour of one of their peers. It wasn't just racist. It was abusive in general so our testimony should have led to real consequences.

What happened was zero. The (male) person in power dismissed our evidence. Deemed it 'a non issue'. His position, gained no doubt with a leg up from the patriarchy (senior leaders are often male: despite the profession being overwhelmingly female-go.figure).

My white privilege on this instance gave me zero power. Because my professional status was less. And possibly a dose of misogyny.

And I happily admit in other instances I have white privilege. But it was useless in this situation.
Which os why I don't think we should be undermining non racist women by calling them Karen for bringing up safety issues etc.

And if I wasn't clear I meant racism looks different not better in the UK. That doesn't imply it doesn't need tackling: how it's tackled will look very different though.

For example, just from a education point of view alone the difference in education between the us and the UK mean racism looks very different.

Does it feel different though ?

That’s not for me to decide regardless of stats

As a culture we tend to be less forthright in the way we express ourselves. It’s more underhand which in some ways is more difficult to challenge and can so easily be brushed off as being over sensitive, thinking everything is racist etc

The thing to remember about the uks subtle / underhand racism is that theres not much subtle about being more likely to die in childbirth, more likely to be stopped and searched, more llkely to be found guilty, more likely to have a custodial sentence, less likely to get a job ( twice the unemployment rate,) more likely to not be paid fairly if you do get a job, more likely to be in inadequete housing, in school more likely to be disciplined, excluded or sent to a pru but less likely to get a diagnosis of SEN and recieve support.
I am fairly sure none of that feels subtle.

*The covert and overt racism I’ve experienced in the workplace has mostly been from white women. And those same women often have trendy hashtags about BLM and what not in their email signatures. It’s all lip service.

And yet once again the onus is on BAME women to show solidarity with white women.

I’m fed up and tired, I don’t have capacity to protect myself AND fight a white woman’s fight against misogyny.*

You're POV seems to be largely centred around the idea that people are targeting BAME women as the main people offensively using this term. That's both incorrect and very ironic given the subject matter of the thread. People are not singling out BAME women on this issue.

But regardless, people are not asking you or anyone else to focus on white women. They are saying language like Karen is part of a wider culture of demonising women, driven by men (and some women who are so used to the culture of holding women to more scrutiny than men, that they contribute to it.) It has wide reaching consequences for all women and always has.

Perhaps you, being more focused on racism as you feel that has more of a day to day impact on your life (fair enough) have not noticed much of the above cultural phenomenon. Fair enough, but it might be helpful for your peace of mind to remember that nobody on the other side of the fence is asking you to prioritise white women above yourself. The people on the other side of the argument such as myself believe this affects BAME women as well, there is no us and them mentality.

@MildredPuppy

The thing to remember about the uks subtle / underhand racism is that theres not much subtle about being more likely to die in childbirth, more likely to be stopped and searched, more llkely to be found guilty, more likely to have a custodial sentence, less likely to get a job ( twice the unemployment rate,) more likely to not be paid fairly if you do get a job, more likely to be in inadequete housing, in school more likely to be disciplined, excluded or sent to a pru but less likely to get a diagnosis of SEN and recieve support. I am fairly sure none of that feels subtle.

But actually it is subtle. It doesn't make it less racist that it is subtle. Take the childbirth statistic. A number of factors are at play there. Firstly, there is not enough research or understanding into the complications that disproportionately effect black women. This will lead to poor outcomes for black women. That's a structural and economic problem. It's also made worse by the fact that not enough money is put into maternity in general. This leads to individuals self funding and yes, in some cases will lead to poorer outcomes (although not always, my son has a birth brain injury due to bad advice given to us by a private hypnobirth practitioner. If mental and pain relief management was given on the NHS we'd have got more sensible advice and a different outcome. This is why I don't like going on threads about black maternity rates. Anything maternity is too close to home) Secondly, black women are less likely to be listened to than white women. I believe this effects mortality outcomes. It's not a problem exclusive to black mum's though. It's a widespread problem that is worse for black women. Again, subtle because white women experience this too, at lower levels statistically but not individually. Thirdly where you live has an impact on your outcomes. This disproportionately effects black families but not exclusively. That means that the race factor an be brushed off as class, which we can't pretend it doesn't interact with. That doesn't mean black families are not more at risk, but it does mean statistics can be used to play it down.

All of this is more subtle than midwives being overtly racist. One of my black friends and her baby was saved by a fast acting midwife who listened to her. The problem is largely structure based, intertwined with class and opportunity. You need to unpick this to address it.

The point is, if you paint the UK as overtly racist as the US with people using awful names with regularity like the op, people who don't use them or see it being used don't notice the more hidden or structural racism. You need to address this, in addition to the more overt stuff, to ensure you're actually tackling the problem.

It's like sexism. Much of it is hidden or just accepted as the way things are.
There is a lot of sexism in schools. It's only rarely overt name-calling. That's easier to tackle.
It's the taking over the playground with one alpha group of football playing balls. It's the behaviour management strategies that favour boys. It's the unconscious bias of asking boys for answers more often. There are so many things. They need unpicking. All children think they're doing the right thing in terms of equality, because they aren't actively horrible to girls. It'd the structure and systems that need changing.

And you can't effect structural inequality by name calling.
You put in the right people.
You change how you use space and resources.
You challenge preconceptions and misconceptions.

It's slow work. And it's harder than name-calling on social media. But it's effective.

The point i was making is the outcome isnt subtle.

I agree. I didn't think I'd implied it wasn't.

There are lots of good points above. Some people will always just use nasty words against others. We had that in an almost 100% NE England when I was a child as much as in my minority white London borough today. They tend to be people who are at the end of their tether nor not very well educated and sometimes we just have to give them a bit of slack for using karen or fatso or chav or whatever. However the names rarely help solve the problem so I agree with the wise points above about trying to change things instead.

I don't even know why so many people use things like twitter and facebook (which I don't) as it just seems to get people in a state, upset or saying something that ruins their career even if they said it 10 years before when they were only 18. Just keep off it all and you tend to be safer and probably mentally happier because you went on a walk instead. I want to live in a UK with no sexism and no racism.

Also we tend to blame women for so many things in life right from poor old Eve in the garden of Eden. It never seems to be the men to blame in most contexts. Woman we whipping boy. A woman's place is in the wrong etc. Shutting women up even if they are just telling people off for dropping litter or parking in the wrong place is a male sport.

This came up on my Twitter feed yesterday and reminded me of this thread.

Here is a woman of color in the UK being called a Karen by a white man for having a view he disagrees with.

Just men hating women. Nothing new there.

Perhaps better not to bother with twitter