"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.

For a man typically Pedophilia , murder or rape

For a woman it could be how she dresses, how much money she earns, her 'attitude'

Karen is a awful term used to silence women

I’ve only ever seen and heard Karen used in situations where a white man or younger woman is using it get a white older woman to shut up, because they are speaking up about something they don’t like or agree with that is not connected to people of colour.

In other words, I’ve never heard it used in its original context - only ever as an insult to get an older woman to pipe down and shut up.

Of course I’m outraged at racist behaviour, and the appalling history of this country and others. But this thread isn’t about racism. It’s about the use of a woman’s name as an insult.

Because whatever is true about the origins of the term is now, in this country, used against women who dare to have an opinion about anything at all.

Why are you not equally aghast at its misappropriation?

@Lndnmummy has been on MN for years, whereas I don’t recognise your username at all.

Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t mean they’re wilfully understanding you.

You are not the arbiter of what BAME women can feel and think.

It still doesn’t need a gendered term - we don’t have the equivalent for men do we?

Racism needs to be called out, and if it’s a type that is generally used by a particular group of people that needs to be pointed out - none of this needs a specific insult term.

Apart from that Karen is no longer used exclusively or even mainly in this context - it’s just an insult levelled at a woman (usually an older woman) asserting herself - whether she is being unreasonable or not. This is misogynist and ageist and that is not acceptable.

The other poster the PP cites is not a woman of colour, they imply they are a white woman at some point, although I think that’s doubtful. Whoever they are they aren’t thinking or feeling anything about racism - they are just throwing stuff in from ChatGPT and enjoying seeing a bunch of women fight.

I've been on here for over a decade but NC occasionally for privacy. Im not saying either poster is wrong about the racist aspect but both are denying that the term Karen used as it currently is is a problem.

It needs a gendered term because it is gendered racism.

It is about white women weaponising gender as a cover for their racism.

Of white women "being afraid" of black men (often after specifically antagonising them) and calling the police on them, putting them, in the US context, in danger of their lives.

Of white women calling black women "aggressive" (Mother of Daughters anyone?) and becoming tearful when being confronted with their racism, resulting in them being the ones receiving comfort and protection and the black women who were subject to their racism made to feel guilty for making them sad.

Refusing to acknowledge this and sit with it- and instead insisting "oh but men don't have a specific term so actually it's sexist" is exactly why non-white women feel so disconnected from white feminism.

But why use a commonly used name? Do you really have no understanding as to why women called Karen might object to their name being used as a gendered insult? Quite a few posters have said this, including the OP.

Would you really want your own name to be used in this way?

Also, why are you failing to acknowledge what other posters are saying, that Karen isn’t used in the context of racism in the UK? It really is simply a misogynistic insult here. So it isn't relevant in the context of this thread.

The name as a term of abuse may have had its roots in race issues in America but it has changed to be generally accepted as not specifically race orientated. The term "gay" used to mean happy, joyful - now it means homosexual. Evolution.

I dislike Karen as an insult and would never use it myself. I feel sorry for those called Karen, it's actually a lovely name.
But its hardly a new thing using a name as an insult. Cannot count how many times in my life ive heard people, or read online, using names as an insult. Tarquin or Felicia is usually used as a generic name to mock posh people. Hyacinth for anyone getting above themselves. I've heard Wayne, Tracy, Donna etc all used to mock the working classes. Countless times on mumsnet have the middle classes been scoffed at with their little darlings 'Annabel and Peregrine' or people on benefits openly sneered at with references to Jayden and Lacey or whatever.
Plus common names in particular ethnicities have historically been used as racial slurs.

It's another way of shutting down women. Now women are being told that it's wrong to complain about being insulted. In fact complaining about it makes you a Karen.

Yes. Misogynist and classist in the UK. A large part of its use here is insulting and mocking the tastes of working class women. Of all races.

Evidently.

As a black woman, in my first week of working in a senior position, having politely explained to a female white woman that their work was not up to standard (which it wasn’t), she went to my boss crying.

She agreed that I hadn’t raised my voice or used rude words but it was ‘just something about how I’d said it’ that upset her so much.

I was made to apologise. For what I’m not sure but it was completely undermining. And it was because of her tears. Not because I’d done anything wrong.

Black women experience this in the UK and US which is where the origin of Karen ( calling the manager on you or getting you in trouble ) essentially came from. A form of racism that is exclusive to white women.

I do agree now though that like all words, people have taken it and used it in the wrong context.

No, you’re accusing people of sock puppeting which is against the rules.

Not sure if this is a reply to me, but if it is:

that Karen isn’t used in the context of racism in the UK?

This is incorrect. White people don't use it in this context. But non white people absolutely do.

Do you really have no understanding as to why women called Karen might object to their name being used as a gendered insult?

Of course I do, I'm not a moron. I'm simply stating the history and ongoing use of the term as it arose, because lots in this thread are doing their very best to pretend that the very real problem it arose in response to, never existed, and the use of the term 'Karen' was simply misogyny from the start.

‘just something about how I’d said it’

I wonder what it could possibly have been.... qwhite difficult to know 🤔

Plain Jane too. As far as I know there is no equivalent male name for a man lacking in the looks department.

I hate it, it's misogynistic and ageist (women called Karen are mainly in their 40s and 50s).

It's only aimed at white women because they're not very nice. They all stereotype.

It's pretty shit when your name is actually Karen. I'm trying to settle on a new name, but nothing fits and Karen is the name my Mum, who I love very much, chose for me.
Yes, there are lots of misogynistic terms for women, but no woman is actually named bitch or slag etc.
I hate having to give out my name, sick of teenage sniggers and people commenting. I'm not racist, I rarely officially complain and even then I am super polite and I'm certainly not middle class, it's a predominantly working class name asfaik.

To be fair - in black circles people started saying ‘Bye Felisha’ basically as a way of saying ‘oh go away.’

My cousin Felisha was not best pleased…