Karen advert

[IncognitoMam]

This shouldn't be allowed surely? Who comes up with this shit?
I'm not called Karen but I know Karen's that hate their name now because of the way it's used.

Fighting the good fight = Addressing racism or attempts to dismiss/ diminish the unique issues that Black and Brown women/people face. But you knew that.

In what is a common pattern on MN, this thread is full of women intentionally and/or intentionally centering their sex and whiteness to frame men as the only problem. Its is ironic that women who are rallying against men trying to silence them are in turn trying to silence Black and Brown women. There are many male bad actors who have misappropriated the original use of 'Karen' but that does not cancel out or excuse the indefensible behaviour perpetuated by a certain group women for which 'Karen' is just one of the most recent pejoratives.

As for Wonderland, it would be interesting to see on which side of the #Me Too movement Alice and her sisters would be standing...

Y’all? None of the women posting here have changed its meaning as none of us would use it. It’s crass! We are merely observing that the meaning has changed.

And it’s intended use, approved by you, must have lasted, what, all of 5 years! Language evolves and that is a mighty fast evolution. None of us can put the genie back in the bottle.

Y'all??

Where, exactly, are you?

😂😂😂

Tedious as much of this thread has been due to spamming it has been quite an education.

Coincidentally, I'm reading "Hags - The demonisation of middle-aged women" by Victoria Smith at the moment.

I'm on page 137 and it describes exactly what we've seen on this thread :

The space in which to call out ageism and misogyny has narrowed because the binding together of privileged and marginilsed status makes the identification of one look like the denial of the other. It becomes incumbent on the viewer not to see misogyny or ageism in order to demonstrate his or her antiracist credentials"

.... in using antiracism as a cover for revisiting age old stereotypes about the shrill whiny voices of women, you do nothing to counter racism...

Middle-aged white women become both a projection for everyone else's bigotry and an excuse to do nothing about it. As such, they are necessary props for people whose unwavering belief in the march of progress and their own innate compatability with it transcend the need for any serious self-analysis.

<strokes chin thoughtfully>

Nobody's "furious" we're just bored with all the irrelevant ranting.

What really bothers me about the Karen meme is that it really is unfair on women who actually have that name; it is also a common name among women of the age group that are usually the target of the ridicule.

I also don’t really see how it successfully calls out racist white women. Amy Cooper and her ilk should be named and shamed, under their own names IMO.

Agreed.

Yeah, but Amy is currently a young persons name so that wouldn’t do at all!

I also don’t really see how it successfully calls out racist white women. Amy Cooper and her ilk should be named and shamed, under their own names IMO.

Agree with this entirely.

Are you sure me using the word hysteria is really the issue here? The response to Black Mumsnetters bringing up racism is almost always met with a vigorous discussion leading to hysteria, a pile on and a drowning out of Black voices with much wailing about the men, as if they are the only problem we face.

Agreed. Use their real names, let's not let them hide behind a pseudonym.

I've got "Hags" on my bedside table to read, so will move that up, I think. I got so tired of the sexism from men in my youth that I naively thought by the time I was in my 50s, I'd be left alone. Silly me. Now I'm designated the punchbag for younger women as well as men.

How nauseating.

Y'all can take a hike.

Don’t think anyone is defending racism or objects to it being called out in whatever guise it takes. Quite right. But blanket criticism of all middle aged women for daring to object to being called names for something we can’t help (our age and sex) when we haven’t actually done anything racist or wrong bar not being simpering man pleasers is abit much.

True.

Though Karen has also been consistently used for babies since its peak. Probably why it's not the the best idea to use these names, and as other pps have said.

So you speak for all of Australia do you? Bullshit. The Australian definition in my experience as a middle aged white woman in Australia is that it’s used to silence any woman about anything, and occasionally men. Racism doesn’t come into it. Woman makes a complaint or objects to something? Karen. Woman tries to get people to be less selfish in their behaviour and follow rules? Karen. Woman asks who owns the constantly barking dog in the neighbourhood? Karen. Skin colour and race aren’t a factor.

BTW, what’s with the use of y’all? When did that become an Australian word? I thought it was something specific to some states of the USA.

How is telling women they are racist for pointing out that a term which has been used to describe a certain type of racist has also become a more generally used ageist and sexist term "adressing racism"?

And when exactly did women pointing out agesism and sexism morph into silencing black and brown women AKA racism? (Actually don't bother answering that, it's been happening since forever. "Karen" is just the most recent way of attacking antisexism by painting it as synonymous with racism.)

@LizzieW1969 · Today 23:18
What really bothers me about the Karen meme is that it really is unfair on women who actually have that name; it is also a common name among women of the age group that are usually the target of the ridicule.

Fuck yes. I don’t like giving my name now. I feel like I need to apologise for it or something, or not raise any objection to anything lest I “live up” to my name. Even my dickhead DH dared say that to me once. Called me a “Karen”. It didn’t go down well.

It's the usual MO, deny, obfuscate and drown out black voices with much wailing and knashing of teeth about men, misogyny and trans women. As we know Whiteness must be centred and recognised for it's all knowing supremacy.

The Australian definition in my experience as a middle aged white woman in Australia is that it’s used to silence any woman about anything, and occasionally men. Racism doesn’t come into it.

Absolutely.

That's also the context used in the advert, quite obviously. Billabong disappeared not long after that was pointed out. They didn't engage properly in any case...

It's like you're on a different thread. Have you actually read other people's posts?

Who knew that getting upset about being called a Karen was "centering Whiteness".

I know! I’ve never read such incoherent nonsense.

True. I hear you@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting . The usual responses just confirm what I already knew anyway.

More detail on the evolution of the name for a racist white american woman who weaponizes her white privilege (the name Karen is merely incidental, that's just the current name given to a dangerous entity that has terrorized non white people for centuries).

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/891177904/whats-in-a-karen

What's In A 'Karen'?

White womanhood — rich or poor — was firmly placed on a pedestal, the living icon of white supremacy. Because it was so verboten to speak about white women with anything but polite deference, Black folks developed "Miss Ann" as a signifying reference; it was a moniker that allowed us to talk in code if we needed to. "You know Miss Ann: has to be right about everything, all the time!"

Karen has inherited Miss Ann's entitlement; it has been handed down, like the family silver or an antique wedding veil. She and Becky may not wear Miss Ann's hoop skirts, but they move through the world in the same way: certain of their right to be there, certain they have more right to be there than you. And it is that certainty that's so dangerous. Karen knows she can call on her own community or the state to put Black bodies where she wants them. Call the police. Think they shouldn't as you? Call the police. Angry that a child is selling ice water on a hot day on a public sidewalk near you?

Karen is much more like Miss Ann than Becky in the sense that she's aware there will be consequences when she summons help — and that those consequences will fall most harshly on Black people, usually Black men. The lynchings of Emmett Till and Claude Neal, for example, occurred because people perceived that white women's virtue needed protecting. A century ago, the entire neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Okla., was burned to the ground and scores of its residents were slaughtered after a white woman claimed assault by a Black man in the elevator she operated. (Some stories say he tripped and stepped on her foot.)

There are enough histories of Black death following in the wake of white women's displeasure in this country to make the rise of The Karens a worrisome prospect. Even when Karen is not enacting violence upon Black and brown people herself, she knows she can enlist others — especially police — to do it for her, if she wants. Isn't that what the latest Karen, Amy Cooper, did when she called the police to (falsely) report that a Black man in Central Park was threatening her and her dog? It's incidences like these that have inspired a San Francisco supervisor to introduce the Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act. If passed, the CAREN Act would make it illegal to make false reports because of racial animus.

Given the current racial tensions in the country, I'm guessing Karen will be around for a while, and it will be more than a minute before we other Karens get our name back. But while we're waiting for that time, I'm thinking about who should be the next link in Miss Ann's evolutionary chain.

I'm voting for "Madison."

what you are sad and resigned that women speak up when unjustly blamed for things they a) haven’t actually done b) condemn themselves anyway and c) happened before they were even born?! Yes how terrible!