"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.

There’s no such thing as ‘Karen’ behaviour. Thats just being a bit of shit person. You don’t need to refer to people (women) by an ugly representation of a woman’s name to say ‘that person is an arse’.

The customer service argument is always used but women are actually allowed to complain about inadequate service that they’re paying for. It’s not unreasonable, but it’s deemed so because a woman doing anything other than ‘being kind’ is considered awful behaviour. It’s very rare a woman would actually start shouting ‘for the manager’ unless the ones giving the service are particularly shit. And being ignored by staff or getting a simple order wrong is shit. As someone who worked in customer service, I’d sooner an irate woman than man any day. Men are much much worse when unhappy with a service than women.

or a Dick! Maybe men are just getting their own back (although you can revert to being plain old Richard as a man, poor Karen’s have no such option)

Wendy and Ken are not commonly used insults. Wendy is MN specific and hasn't been used here for years because people objected to it. Ken isn't a meme.

Nobody intelligent uses the insult Karen, I find.

The word bitch is misogynist and many women don't use it, me included. I hate it. However internalised mysoginy is rife and some women use it as it's normalised. Karen is a new phenomenon and some women use it, others don't. I'd say that the women who are angry about it are more likely to be middle aged and it's been used to shut them down. Because it's not a swear word, it's more acceptable to use.

But its not just used in that context. It is used literally any time a woman (often middle aged) says something that either a man or a young (often extremely left wing) person doesn't like.
And why don't we have a word for men?

"Oooh, stop being a John".

And btw, you judging someone based on their haircut is awful. In my experience its not a good way to tell whether someone is a lovely person or not.
It says a lot more about you than them.

Perhaps you yourself are making glib generalised statements about people in an unkind way ?

Also you do know that she is working ? And you say has never really worked !!!!!!!!!!!!

Shocking attitude.

Bitch does not pass. It is totally unacceptable.

Originally, yes. But it is used by many, many men to criticise any woman speaking up. Regardless of legitimacy.

We're on a boundary road where we live. So one side of the road has a different bin day/ schedule to the other. Our hygiene waste and general waste were not collected for 6 weeks at one point because a crew thought that they did not need to collect our road as it is in X area. I complained, and was told by a rather young middle class man on the phone (customer service line for the council) that I 'should stop being a Karen'. I did get an apology afterwards, but that's just one example of how it is used to silence women making legitimate complaints.

Ah yes, I have never heard of women referred to as 'dickheads'. Plenty of men though. Bug* is also a word I've only heard applied to males.

Bitch is used all the time on here without comment. Karen is never used without the poster being pulled up.

’Shocking’? Sounds like you need the smelling salts!

I've also seen many (many) examples of men being called a Karen. Particularly on discussions on Facebook around politics.

I'll get flamed for this but I do think the general female British public have taken it as a personal insult a little harder than needed.

Again, I don't condone it and don't use the word. Some examples on here are out of order. But some examples I've seen (racism) I couldn't lose any sleep over that person being called a Karen.

'Karen' is not a new phenomenon but it is the modern name for it. There have always been terms used by black Americans for white women who are racist or who weaponise the power imbalance between white and black people. 'Becky' was the 1990s term. 'Miss Ann' is even older.

I don’t know a single woman in real life who is as thin skinned, hysterical (my ‘shocking’ attitude for posting about my driving instructor!) and offended as the ones on here. Thankfully.

I use "Darren" when talking about pot-bellied, bald headed, misogynistic, racist, "looking for a cause" blokes. It sums up so many men of my age that lack social graces.

Hoping it catches on 😁

'Bitch' passes ALL the time on here. Just go and look at any thread about an OW or about a rude friend.

Agreed. As a BAME woman who has been the recipient of racism, to the point that I’m on edge in supermarkets and shops in case a white woman kicks off, I don’t see anything wrong with calling a racist woman Karen or a racist man Dave.

White women are in a bubble, they will never get it.

I’ve a friend who is called Karen.
She has considered changing her name.
it’s horrible.

@KimKardashiansLostEarring

Thats not how it’s used though, it’s used to mean ‘mouthy bitch’ regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable the person is being. It’s used to shut women up, especially older women.

The behaviour you describe is easily covered by the gender neutral ‘arsehole’ and many other words are available.

Youve never heard of women being referred to as ‘dickheads’? We must move in very different circles.

I wasn't being an ageist. I was merely pointing out to PP who have asked or said there's no male equivalents... people are so quick to shout AGEIST! MISOGYNIST! (gasp)

When I was just answering a question.

No one uses Dave though.

The behaviour should be called out, just ideally not with a sexist agist term.

Like we really needed a new disparaging term for women.

There absolutely is a male equivalent, memes, and everything else you've mentioned. You probably haven't seen it.