"Stop being a Karen"

[ValsCupcakes]

I heard this on Tuesday from a young, no more than 20, guy saying it to his girlfriend in the street in town.

Is this still going on? I'm out this afternoon at my friend's house. She is called Karen and is sick of it. I heard a woman phone into the radio too the other week saying her husband's satnav was an annoying female voice so he called it Karen.

Who cares though? Like genuinely if that makes you so upset then you’ve got bigger issues at play
I wouldn’t give a feck if it was my name, I’m not so easily offended. There are bigger problems in the world. People have and always will find something to cry about

Any name that demeans women as a class is mysoginist. Karen is used to refer to predominantly middle aged assertive women in order to humiliate them and shut them down.

First world problems?

Agreed. I find myself moving differently around white women vs BAME women, because they feel they have more of a right to claim spaces. I know it’s not all white women and it’s not every day, but it’s mostly women who do this, not BAME women.

And yes, men are much worse in this capacity. But they seem to target all women for their space claiming.

The term gammon tends to be directed mainly at men.

Who cares? Always the response of those unaffected. It's not the biggest irritant in life by far but it's unnecessary.

Because you are setting up typical negative behaviour to be seen as particularly unsavoury if it comes from a woman. Being rude/negative/complaining is not just the behaviour of women yet using Karen (a female name and imagery) instantly makes it seem as particularly awful for women to behave in this way. There is no male equivalent, if your insult is based wholly on the other person being a woman then you are using misogynistic language. What do you think misogyny actually is?

Personally I think 'Karen' is too close to 'bitch' connotations.

It's a word especially designed to put down and close down women, not men.

If a fellow woman pissed me off, I'd be more inclined to call her a 'dick' or a 'knob'. It's your more inclusive kind of insult!

I don't know, just instinctively Karen feels off to me, maybe because I've seen some of the people who use it as an insult.

Words like mansplaining, manspreading and manterrupting are commonplace derogatory terms aimed at men (and shutting men down). I'm not aware of female equivalent?

I don't like the use of Karen, but can't see any real difference between using that word compared with being called a bitch or a man being called an arsehole etc. It's a word to incite a reaction the same as any inflammatory and derogative language.

I was born in 1958 and there were a lot of my age group and the years following called Karen. It must be awful.
It's like Boomer which is used in the same way by young people.

@armadillio

Absolutely. Of course it's not all white women but this conversation does need to be had as it's certainly enough white women that it's a regular occurrence. And I know it's racist because I have never once experienced this as a white woman. So much feminism is exclusionary. This isn't okay.

If that's his name then go for it

But these refer to behaviours which are pretty much only demonstrated by men. Or 90% by men.

I have never, ever, had a woman spread her legs in the train seat next to me so that she was taking up half of my leg space. And I've been going to school / work by public transport for over 3 decades.

I have also never had a woman confidently explain something at length to me when she knows bugger all about the topic, while I know a lot. (In my experience, women understate and undersell their expertise in those sorts of conversations.)

Whereas "being a wanker" is gender-neutral.

Well if she is called Karen then of course her behaviour is Karen. It's not going to be Laura or Mary

Personally I hate the term mansplaining and I never use it. Men have as much right to explain stuff as women do. It isn't on a par with tart, bitch etc though.

Words like mansplaining, manspreading and manterrupting are commonplace derogatory terms aimed at men (and shutting men down). I'm not aware of female equivalent?

You're right, there aren't female equivalents. When was the last time a woman explained your area of expertise? When was the last time a woman spread her legs wide and took up most of the available space around you?

I don't like the use of Karen, but can't see any real difference between using that word compared with being called a bitch or a man being called an arsehole etc. It's a word to incite a reaction the same as any inflammatory and derogative language.

Women are often shut down with dehumanising words, they're used in order for women to know their place which is less than.

Yes, I understand to be , specifically, a white middle-class (American) woman asserting her privilege. I think in the UK it’s come to mean any middle-aged woman expressing an opinion (but the inference is usually that her opinion or manner of expression is objectionable) so it’s racially coded in the US but I think it’s more class/sex coded here.

I get where you're coming from, but "mansplaining" isn't meant to mean a man simply explaining something to a woman.

It's the phenomenon where a man assumes that he has superior knowledge, often in a work or study context, despite having no evidence to base this assumption on (other than that he is talking to a female), and therefore being totally wrong about his level of expertise relative to hers.

I do appreciate that it gets used in other scenarios too though. In that sense, maybe it's evolved from it's original meaning like "karen" has evolved from its US origins?

Why? I’m very high up in my field and often get men trying to explain my job to me - I’ve never, ever, had a woman do that to me?

I’ve seen women being rude to all sorts of staff (eg waiters or till staff) for seemingly minor things, which is the epitome of a Karen though.
Saying 90% of men mansplain is laughable too but that’s just my experience vs yours, neither of are right or wrong.

But men are rude to waiters and waitresses to?

This reminds me of when Dd was a baby and sometimes wore a blue swimming nappy (the reusable kind). Lifeguards and the like were so much more understanding than when she wore the pink pair.

She used to like to toddle along the side a few steps and then jump in to me (so she’d be about 18 months at the time). She was basically allowed tondi this in the blue pair but got whistled at in the pink pair.

I've seen men being rude to all sorts of staff too. Which is why the behaviour that gets described as "karen" should not be given a gendered insult.

And I didn't say that 90% of men mansplain. I said that +90% of that type of behaviour (along with manspreading) is demonstrated by men. And I stand by that.

Yep, and I’d call them a wanker or whatever for doing so. I tend to think of wanker as referring to a man, I know others don’t. I’ll happily use Karen as a female alternative.

Most mysoginists do.