"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.

@Blueybanditbingochilli I agree.. I don't know if some posters are purposely playing up to the Karen insult, waiting for someone to go 'you're literally being a Karen now.' And then for them all to pile on shouting 'misogyny' and whatever else.
Seems like that to be so personally offended by it.

To be named Karen is utterly shit atm.
There are very few women/kids named Karen in younger generations so obviously (in the uk) it is women of a certain age who get the piss taken out of them AND are subjected to the slur.
Racism is not in my nature.
I also don't make a scene if I'm dissatisfied with a service.
And yet have had Karen used against me, quite possibly by people who have no clue of its origins, but definitely were trying to be offensive in their delivery.
I am sad to hear and see (a post here the other day actually) that women are weaponising Karen against other women.
If as a woman you personally aren't offended, at least have the forethought that someone else might?

I thought the male equivalents were called "Kens" or "Kevins", but Karen can be applied to a man too.

I've known four actual Karens in my life. Three were just fine or lovely people. One could actually have been the reason the term came about.

See my post upthread - calling a man "Karen" does not mean that it isn't being used in a misogynist way. Quite the opposite.

And Ken, Kevin etc. are not equivalent because hardly anyone in the UK has heard of or uses them. But everyone knows what a "karen" is.

Sure, but they haven’t burst out into mass popular culture to be used as a way to call older women ‘mouthy bitch’ regardless of whether the woman in question is being unreasonable or not.

I think many women like me are just sick of being ordered to take offence about something we just couldn’t care less about. And sick of all the snide, whiny little comments about ‘how we think we’re so cool’ for not caring. This kind of superior, school mistress attitude is far more annoying than occasionally hearing ‘Karen’ tbh - I can react to that how I want, whereas I’m instructed to find it offensive otherwise I’m ’an internalised misogynist’, ‘clearly a woman who just wants to suck up to men’ by the ‘five star feminists’ who will probably regret spending their life getting worked up over so called ‘microaggressions’

The interesting point is, with the Costa-type example you're talking about, it's pretty clear to me that a lot of those are autistic meltdowns. To be 100% clear autism isn't an excuse for being aggressive or abusive, but as an autistic woman, my meltdowns also can look like a less extreme version of that and yes they are triggered by things that appear tiny to others (such as something not being the way it would be normally).

I recognise this now and try to get myself out of the situation before I meltdown like that (and I should stress I am mortified afterwards and would always apologise) but every time I see a video circulating of a women who kicks off because they're out of stock of her normal milk option (etc etc) I do think 'there but for the grace of god'. Many of them aren't actually the woman being abusive or aggressive, just going on and on about something that it isn't 'normal' to complain about.

[I'm not suggesting that the US 'call the police because there's a black man walking in the park' behavior is autism]

@Ihopeithinkiknow

Also I have noticed that most of my unpleasant interactions through my life have been with and from other women and it's other women that have tried to shut me up

And there we have it.

There wouldn’t be a pile on, because the post calling a poster a Karen would be deleted. Because it’s a misogynistic personal insult. Can you give an example of ‘purposely playing up to the Karen insult’ by the way, since certain posters here seem to have convinced themselves it’s just about racism it would be interesting to see what you believe the term to mean.

I'm finding it very interesting that those claiming a male equivalent are using so many different names or terms. It does kind of reinforce the point accidentally that there is no male equivalent. Is that because men are forceful and determined but women are hysterical and irrational?

'The word "hysterical" is misogynist. Look up its origins.'

@TarantinoIsAMisogynist

Oh for crying out loud. If that's the case that that is honestly just utterly ridiculous. Hysterical is a describing word for someone who is incredibly upset and uncontrollably crying. Toddlers and babies can be hysterically crying.

Jesus wept.

To be clear, my name is Karen and I love it. My mum gave me my name with love and I'm proud of it. I don't care that they settled on my particular name, I care that they came for me and all the girls I was at school with. They don't mean literal Karens, they mean all of us. Sandra, Debbie, Sarah, Tracy, Angela, Amanda, Lindsay, Catherine, Lesley and Sharon. They mean women over forty. It's all of us and it's because we're past shagging age.

What has any of that to do with misogyny, which is what we are actually discussing here.
@LostTheMarble has every right to debate with you on here despite them (you assume) not being BAME.
You might have much more knowledge than a white woman of racism and I am sure no white woman would try to tell you what is/isn't racist but any woman has a right to tell you what they consider sexist.
Women of all colours experience sexism and misogyny and don't deserve to be shut down and told they can only discuss it when they become BAME.

The vast majority of these post are discussing the use of Karen as an insult, a description, a type of behaviour. Whether it's appropriate to use it, justified, misogynistic etc this is the problem, it's now seen an adjective. Its NOT. IT'S A NAME! IT'S MY NAME! I'm so tired of seeing it trashed! Thank you to the poster who linked the empathy generator. Everyone should use it. It's so disheartening when, just having a scroll on social media, you suddenly see your name flung into the conversation with such disdain.

Hysterical is derived from the Greek meaning womb. It's historically applied to women and was a big part of medicine for centuries. It's mysoginist to call a woman an hysteric.

If you really want to insult a man, you can apparently just use "karen" anyway, according to some PPs. Because there's nothing problematic about that. 🙄

'Every time this chestnut comes around I google the male equivalents and come up empty handed. My brother in law is called Ken. Nobody has ever called him 'a Ken', slagged his haircut or asked him if he wants to see the manager. Because it's not a thing.'

@MorrisZapp

You only have to look on google. I just have. Plenty of examples.

No one can make you see a misogynistic term for what it is. Same as you don’t have to see a racists/homophobic/ablest one for what it is. But I bet you’re not blind to those other groups being insulted, you just don’t actually believe misogyny is ‘as bad’ or possible even exists at all. You think you’re above all that but you’re actual just wilfully denying it. Bringing up shit things directed at women makes you a difficult woman, and no one wants to be seen as that right? You’ll say you're fiery or a ‘say it as it is’ type of woman but you’re not like those ‘difficult Karen’s’, they’re a whole different breed from you aren’t they…

"Hysterical" is probably one of the most gendered, misogynist terms for a behaviour that there is. Throughout history it has been specifically applied to women. Women were locked up in asylums for behaviours that would have been considered acceptable in a man.

It's not ridiculous in the slightest to object to it.

You may not have known before, but you do now.

Some black men now refuse to use Karen,
They're angry at it being misappropriated, allowing white men to be abusive without getting called out for it.

I googled 'stop being a Ken' and most of the links were straight to Karen, barbie or reddit from five years ago. Stop trying to make Ken a thing. It absolutely isn't.

'There wouldn’t be a pile on, because the post calling a poster a Karen would be deleted. Because it’s a misogynistic personal insult. Can you give an example of ‘purposely playing up to the Karen insult’ by the way, since certain posters here seem to have convinced themselves it’s just about racism it would be interesting to see what you believe the term to mean.'

@LostTheMarble

The poster who said the word 'hysterical' is misogynistic. When I used that word to describe men being hysterical. It's literally a describing word for an uncontrollable emotion, that any race, sex, gender, age can feel.

If I went into my office tomorrow and asked my colleagues (a mix of ages, sexes and classes) if they'd heard of a "karen", I'm pretty sure every single one would say yes.

If I asked the same question about "ken", only the few who spend the most time looking at memes would know. It may exist on the Internet, but it's obscure, and nobody named Ken is thinking of changing their name because of it.

It is not the same.

"Karen behaviour" You are as bad as anyone else using this term. Stop it.