To not have complained due to worry about being perceived as a "Karen" ?

[ILoveHuskies]

Firstly, I bloody hate this term, it is only ever used for women, it is mysogynistic and ageist.

However - I don't ever want to be seen as one. I had a day out yesterday with my teen dd and we had really awful service in Pizza express, a 45 min wait for food and then they forgot part of the order and the waitress was not rude exactly, but sort of snippy. despite me being friendly and smiley as possible as I know its a hard job.

But the worry I would be seen as a karen was what stopped me complaining. I already feel like younger people see me in a negative way now I am past 40 and this karen shit makes it worse.

@Isaisa

The Karen thing isn’t about all women daring to complain. As a PP said, it’s just a bit of a joke aimed at over-complaining entitled ones who are rude to staff when they complain

That just happen to be women.

No funny little word for men who complain. Or men who do things that are actually horrible - like murdered, rape and abuse. Where’s their word? Why haven’t they got one? Ask yourself that.

Stop using it !
As a middle aged woman, the continual use of this makes me sad, when will it ever end.

Stop feeding the term OP. Up until you just mentioned it, I hadn’t heard or seen it in weeks.

You’re part of the problem. You don’t like the term but don’t want to be seen as one and adjusting your behaviour so you’re are basically sayings it’s a valid term and those that complain are “Karen’s”

I have no qualms about making a valid complaint. It’s perfectly possible to do so without raising your voice, being rude or huffy. If you’re going to allow yourself to be shut down and silenced then you’ve given the whole keen movement legs

I have a restaurant and if done in a non dickish way would totally take on board any feedback and not see you in a negative way for doing so. What gets me is when they go straight to social media or reviews to say what they could have said to me, anyone who does that is a total
prick (not using the k word) but there's nothing wrong with complaining in the right way

Unfortunately it keeps popping up on TikTok, Americans seem to use it more from what I’ve seen.

The OP quite obviously isn’t using the term, or perpetuating it, she just said it as an illustration of what other People perceive her to be.

I love being a Karen!

It’s a racist sexist and ageist term.
By using it and buying into the concept you become part of the problem

It wasn’t “designed” to keep women over 40 in their place, it’s a funny-to-them way of describing a certain type of person.

I’ve been teased by my kids being called a Karen or a boomer, I didn’t feel like clutching my pearls, I found it funny that they found themselves so funny.

Did none of you call interfering men “old codgers” or “fogeys” or anything like that as youngens?

It's an idiotic term and wouldn't stop me complaining about bad service or goods. I feel really sorry for the women named Karen, I think it's a lovely name.

I think it's shifting away from just being used against women though, I told off DS last week for jokingly calling DH a Karen.

You say you hate the term, then you've perpetuated it in the title of your post and within your post. You are part of the problem.

I’ve tried to explain to my teenage daughter that is sexist and misogyny, and that she’ll be a middle aged woman one day, but she just laughs at me.

@FabriqueBelgique

It wasn’t “designed” to keep women over 40 in their place, it’s a funny-to-them way of describing a certain type of person.

I’ve been teased by my kids being called a Karen or a boomer, I didn’t feel like clutching my pearls, I found it funny that they found themselves so funny.

Did none of you call interfering men “old codgers” or “fogeys” or anything like that as youngens?

Can we stop pretending it isn’t steeped in sexism and ageism.

Old fogeys were pervy old men - not women who are refusing to STFU when they’re paying for a piss poor service.

It has been hijacked to silence women.

@AsYouWishButtercup

The OP quite obviously isn’t using the term, or perpetuating it, she just said it as an illustration of what other People perceive her to be.

She is perpetuating it though because she is modifying her behaviour to not look a certain way.

Unless there is a sign at the door of Pizza Hut saying no “Karen’s” allowed there was no reason at all for the OP to assume her valid complaint would be perceived as anything other than a customer unhappy with poor service

Fuck that. I went full 'Karen' at a young customer services assistant in Sainsburys a few months ago. I don't care. As I walked out I actually thought to myself, 'I bet he'll moan to his mates about the stupid old Karen he had to deal with today.'

I'd waited almost 20 minutes for a member of staff at the Customer Service desk. I showed him the two packs of cherries I'd bought the day before were going rotten. His response? He told me that I should have a) looked at them more carefully (I had, they looked ok through the plastic) b) put them in the fridge (I had), c) That I couldn't return fresh produce outside of 20 minutes since I purchased it, and d) when I showed him what the fruit looked like (white bloom on it and falling apart), I said 'would you eat that' and he said 'yeah, actually I would'.

I am 47 and I would guess he was early twenties, and his whole attitude was combative and condescending. His manager let me exchange them in the end. Granted the very long wait for a member of staff to even appear (despite asking the guy on the adjacent cigarette/lottery ticket bit to call someone) hadn't put me in a good mood to start with, but ARGH. I was fuming and I told him that his attitude was out of order.

I realise that working in retail is hard work, I did it for years whilst at school and college, but I don't think supermarkets have done so badly during the pandemic that they need to give customers returning a couple of punnets of poor quality produce the 3rd degree and make them feel like they're lying.

So yeah, TL:DR, YABU if you don't go full 'Karen' when you need to.

And I also think the term 'K' is really misogynistic and offensive, but used it for want of a shorter expression.

I phoned a company to ask several questions about an online order (goods missing, invoice amount different to charged amount, etc.)

Every time I said something I was interrupted and talked over. I asked him if he was aware he was doing it and to stop. He became really short with me, and the final straw was when I asked him a question about receiving a refund and he said "it'll be in your account within 2 working days, like I've already told you" in a really condescending way.

That was the final straw, so I asked to speak to his manager, who listened to what I had to say, apologised and said he'd be speaking to the person involved. Whether that happened, who knows.

There is a strong possibility they were both sitting there afterwards, calling me a 'Karen', but honestly I couldn't give a toss.

There isn’t a name for easily triggered special snowflakes or for knee jerk overly woke people that screech “offence”” all the time.
.

Don’t be such a Dylan! You are sounding like such a Chloe right now…..

YABU to use that name when you say you dislike it used in that way. Probably best to not give it anymore airtime, surely?
I tend to have a high threshold for complaining but if pushed and really feel I have grounds for it then I would say something regardless of what anyone thought of me, including my DC’s.

I probably wouldn't complain if it wasn't something they could resolve there and then, but I'd leave a review saying what happened.

@IncompleteSenten

It has been hijacked to silence women.

Well, only if we let it.

I’m not particularly bothered by the whole ‘Karen’ meme. I’m pretty sure it predated BLM and was part of a whole slew of memes including ‘scumbag Steve’ ‘good guy Greg’ ‘confession beat’ etc. The Karen one has persisted because it’s caused such loud objections, the culture it rose from gives much less of a shit about it than the one that really hates it from what I see/read. If the name calling wasn’t Karen it’d be something else.

@Taoneusa I think what you’ve described is covered just by ‘snowflake’ from my understanding.

@FabriqueBelgique

It wasn’t “designed” to keep women over 40 in their place, it’s a funny-to-them way of describing a certain type of person.

I’ve been teased by my kids being called a Karen or a boomer, I didn’t feel like clutching my pearls, I found it funny that they found themselves so funny.

Did none of you call interfering men “old codgers” or “fogeys” or anything like that as youngens?

Yeah, it's bloody hilarious when it's your actual name

YABU. One of the benefits of being over 40 is entering the battleaxe years where you don't take any shit and no longer worry about what people think. The world would be in an even worse state than it already is if it weren't for middle-aged women with high standards. Send in that complaint!