"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.

Well, I call old male bores of a similar nature “Victor Meldrews”…so…

Why is it that women in their 40s and 50s get all the vitriol? Why don’t we get it in our 60s and 70s? Are we somehow less threatening then?

Yes, but two things:
1 It doesn’t serve to get them to stop, where calling someone Karen is saying shut up and pipe down, women your age shouldn’t be complaining about anything, ever. Know your place and be demure
2 Victor Meldrew isn’t a global term like Karen has become

I think it’s because women in their 40s/50s tend to be more confident than younger women, have more life experiences etc, more likely to have better jobs… whereas 60s/70s is retirement age, I’m guessing SOME men think they are less attractive etc

Winds me the fuck up and agree that now (recognising its roots are the use of it to address a racist whiten woman) it's used to put a middle age, considered irrelevant, woman back in her box.

And actually there are times when we all may need a quick word with a manager and it's perfect possible to do this in a polite, courteous and discreet way yet apparently all other demographics are allowed to do this yet ladies like myself can't.

I really don’t understand what the issue is with complaining if you have bad service?

I found a hair in my food, do I just say nothing and continue to eat my meal? 🤢

Also imagine men would be lauded for being assertive

I fully agree with this. The names suggested by posters on this thread as a male equivalent to Karen were pretty much all WC names (e.g. Darren). Because names carry such strong gender/ class / ethnicity / age markers, it's pretty much impossible for an insult based on a name to avoid those classist etc. connotations.

The only neutral(ish) examples I can think of are names like John, but no-one is going to base an insult on John, are they? The class snobbery is part of what makes the insult effective in the first place.

And to be fair you will meet rude, entitled and disrespectful twats in all walks of life. Funny how we only have a name attached to one demographic.

A John is a client of sex workers.

@Lizzie67384 absolutely and I'm agreeing with you. I'm quite comfortable doing this also

I do think, however, that POC have a right to their own slang, including derogatory names for racists.

The issue here is that this particular word is not being used mostly by POC to describe white women weaponising their race privilege. Instead it has been appropriated by white misogynists, and is being used to mean any woman who steps out of line (as opposed to in an anti-racist context).

I strongly object to that usage, and that is the usage that I am currently seeing most commonly in the UK. I think that any discussion about this word has to recognise and address its current usage, not just its origins (which are valid). Language evolves, and we can't ignore that.

Me too 🤣

True. And it has no class associations that I'm aware of. Maybe because exploitation of women cuts across all classes.

I've also not heard it be used as an insult... more as a factual description.

Thanks for sharing this - it's interesting.

The patriarchy has a wonderful way of twisting men's bad behaviour into attributes. At one time, calling a man a pimp was a compliment. And we all know how the old dog gets around...

Yes, I don't know about the US, but in the UK it is definitely a working class name (based on my experience as a WC woman). That may be why it has caught on among white people in the UK - the class snobbery element adds to its connotations.

The US class system is very different to the UK. There, "middle class" appears to be used to mean what we would describe as WC or lower-MC in the UK.

That’s horrible. I don’t suppose anyone called him out on it?

I don’t think it’s intended use was know your place as in you’re bottom of the pile, I think it was know your place as in you’re actually on the top.

For example, the middle class white woman in the restaurant who complains loudly about the ‘unacceptable’ service from the working class non-white waitress. There is no awareness or care for the effects of her actions on the waitress.

The let me see your manager memes struck a cord to many.

But I agree that it is used wrongly now. And that it’s not exactly nice for people genuinely called Karen.

Would everyone be okay if there was another word for this category of white woman?

Is the anger because it’s someone’s name or the defining of that type of person in itself?

Because lots of people say bitch is the same but it isn’t.

Because lots of people say bitch is the same but it isn’t.

According to whom?

Nope, no one! 🙄🙄

It was a genuine question, and so are these:

Do you mean that the use of the term by white people about women (of any colour) having an opinion is not misappropriation? Or that you don’t care about the misappropriation?

Do you think that the women who get labelled with the term for, say, asking a young white male to pick up the litter he has dropped are deserving of being insulted? You seem to be saying you think they are “Karens”, i.e. racist. Or are you just using the term in its current U.K. usage, and think they deserve to be insulted for having an opinion?

Yes I am not talking about the origins - but how I have seen it used in the UK. Any middle aged woman who is upset about something and speaks out seems to be fair game.

Because using a woman’s name as an insult - even when the target richly deserves public humiliation for their despicable and manipulative behaviour - is misogynistic.

I agree with you. Of course it's hurtful to use a person's name in this way. It's about challenging female authority and perceived departure from 'approved' role and behaviour; in this case that's about being a woman and objecting to a woman doing it. There's an element underlying this that's not particular to women speaking up but is that general disapproval of anyone speaking up, complaining about something in a public place, 'making a scene', as opposed to 'putting up', being 'polite' and not disturbing the serene surface of the calm and orderly conduct of life in public. When someone objects on the bus about something someone else has done, often the rest of the bus passengers will turn on the complainer, disapproving and tutting. You should put up and shut up.