"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.

That is much less used than Karen - along with Dave, Darren, Ken and Brian, which have all been suggested as the male equivalents by PPs

It’s also much less broadly used than Karen

'Nope. The word originated in the US to describe a specific type of racist white woman who weaponises her relative privilege against people of colour. Its original meaning had nothing to do with being rude in coffee shops.'

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist

Maybe middle class white women should stop being so racist then. Blame them for the slur becoming so popular, If they were the reason it became so big. Not the menz. But we always have to blame the menz.

Resorting to spelling pedantry because you're not able to challenge someone's point in any other way always reflects more poorly on the person doing it.

@KimKardashiansLostEarring

i agree. I think that using 'Karen' as the 'word' to name the behaviour was unfortunate & I can imagine how horrible it must be for all the Karen's out there.

however, there is definitely a 'type' of person it would be useful to have a name for.

That's ironic. When it actually originally came from a guy on red or who had an ex called Karen and the term went viral.

Well obviously yes, seeing as in my view it falls into the same category as wanker (as I’ve said multiple times but yet, here we are), then it’s an irrelevant point.

'Resorting to spelling pedantry because you're not able to challenge someone's point in any other way always reflects more poorly on the person doing it.'

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist
As is also your point of not knowing where the term actually originally came from.

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist

The term originally came from a guy who had an ex girlfriend called Karen on Reddit.

If it's about a type of person, why use a name, thereby making the insult a gendered one? Why aim it just at women, when the behaviour is demonstrated by both women and men?

With kindness, you are moving the goal posts of this thread conversation.

I get your points that white women don’t understand black women’s experience of racism, that it doesn’t get talked about enough generally or on mumsnet, that white people don’t call out racism anywhere near enough and that chat on MN is from a very white perspective - all true.

But this thread is about whether Karen is a sexist and ageist term, which it is.

Then I'm surprised you can.

So you're claiming it has very explicitly misogynist origins then?

I don't believe that's true (because every other source says it has its origins in the US BME community) but if it is, it makes the use of the word worse, not better. You're colluding in a man's harassment of his ex.

Even if you think (I don’t) that arsehole behaviour comes from a single ‘type’ of person, that term does not need to be gendered. The type of behaviour you describe is neither particularly male nor female, nor about being a particular age.

Wanker isn’t gender specific, so it’s not an equivalent, at all.

I use it to refer to men, so the way I use it means it is gender specific. Not hard to follow is it, imagine if I’d said I use it to refer to men…oh wait, never mind.

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist I'll be honest, I don't get offended or upset by other people's problems and issues when they are so superficial. So I don't have any emotional tie or feelings to the blokes ex on Reddit where this term came from.

For all we know, she could've been nice a pie. Or a raging white middle class racist that frankly deserves the title. Who knows.

I think there are people who fit the term 'Karen' accordingly and being racist is one of them.

If it's blown up due to middle class racist women, why aren't you blaming them?

It doesn’t matter what you personally do, this is a conversation about how these terms are generally used by society.

Karen is gendered, wanker is not.

It means using a friend to gain access to her friends and then dumping her. So to me, again like Karen it's using someone's name to refer to unpleasant behaviour. It does come up from time to time and I suppose it's a useful shorthand, but since it's an actual name I don't think it should be used.

Because it hasn't blown up due to racist middle class women.

It originated in the US BME community, but it blew up in the UK because it's an easy insult to lob at a woman who has opinions you don't like. It's not typically used to call out racism in the UK. In fact, it's frequently used by white men and women who aren't experiencing any racism from the women that they are calling "Karens", but want to shut them up.

Be honest - when you use it, or when you hear it used, is it in an anti-racist context? No. It is not. The first post on this thread nailed it - it's used as a synonym for "bitch".

It's just yet another convenient sexist slur.

From what I understand it comes from Wendy House. Little girls getting excluded from the Wendy House.

Hang on, someone whose name is Karen isn’t “a Karen”. I thought being “a Karen” is like slang for “being an arsehole”.

It's dismaying to see how some here are quick to translate this slur into a common misogynist term of abuse.

It is used to disarm a mature or older woman from exercising authority or influence in any public sphere or interaction.

It's intended to put a woman in her place, i.e. not to take charge and be any sort of authority or arbiter but to cede the public space, be quiet and defer to the authority of the dominant male.

If it doesn’t matter why are you telling me I’m wrong?

Don't be a dick would be the male-name equilivant, no? Must be hard on people called either Karen or Dick.

But women called Karen are getting a whole lot of shit because of their name, regardless.

Would you like your name to be a synonym for "arsehole" or "bitch"?