To think they call us Karen because they fear us

[InformEducateEntertain]

I absolutely hate the term Karen. It's pejorative and deeply unpleasant.

Middle aged women (of whom I am one and to whom the term is most generally applied) are bloody amazing. Putting us down for our don't give a f**k badass attitude and willingness to fight back strikes me as lazy categorisation.

I'd go as far to say that those who use it are scared by the knowledge that looking the menopause in the eye has given us the courage to have a voice at last.

AIBU?

@MidnightMusing5 my teenagers called me a Karen because we stayed in a hotel (in a hot summer) with aircon and the air con didn’t work, so I asked to move rooms. Obviously I have since educated them about how offensive it is to use “Karen” in a derogatory way. But nonetheless, by their understanding of the definition (young people who watch tiktok, so probably the main users of the term) , I was being a Karen. Do you think I should just pay for air con and then accept it when it’s broken, and not be able to sleep?

I’m 50 this year and I’ve never been called any of those things. I wonder why?

@RisingSunn it may have started out as a name for women like that, but trust me, you only have to watch YouTube to see that it’s now been extended to include women who stick up for themselves.

The word “Karen” started in the Black American community when white women would call the police on black people for little to no reason at all. For example, jogging in public, having a family gathering in a public park, etc. etc. They did this knowing about police brutality towards Black Americans and were weaponising their whiteness. So yes, they were called Karen because people feared them.

She's not pretending. It is something else now, having evolved from its original meaning and now widely used as an insult for middle aged women who are saying or doing things people don't like, or simply existing.
The reason it's so effective as an insult is because the last thing most women want is to be grouped in with the original 'Karens' so will often police their own perfectly reasonable assertiveness (complaining when there's cause for example) in order to avoid the label.
Whether people use it in the 'new' way to control women because they fear them is debatable. I think its far more likely based in contempt and dismissal. So when they say "OK Karen" to shut a woman up, it's because they've genuinely no interest in her views, not because they're scared to hear them.

Google 'gammon videos'. Hope that helps.

Depends on what they are like.

Many years ago my husband worked in a shop to get a bit of extra cash while he studied. So he mainly worked weekends but not every weekend. One of my friends asked me if he would be working next weekend and I got all excited because I thought she was going to suggest that we should hang out, do something fun. Nope. She was asking for her mum because her mum was afraid of his menopausal coworkers. Turned out that this applied for all my friends too. I wasn't exactly afraid of his coworkers but I did avoid them as they were highly unpleasant.

Really? Spinster?

See, this is the difference between white women and women of colour.

Spinster was not the most awful thing to be at one time for the rest of us.

I think it's fascinating that white women find this term so horrifically offensive, seemingly more offensive than the white women it was coined for.

There is a degree of privilige ignored in this, which is why many women of colour don't feel acknowledged by white feminists.

White women were slave owners. White women got black men killed for daring to look them in the eye. White women had far more power and continue to than people of colour.

There's a reason it's Black Lives Matter.

I find this whole narrative of middle aged white women finding their voices which scares people to be so disingenuous.

Middle aged white women and white women in general are scary because they still have the power to get black men arrested and we all know how the police respond to black men.

White women/ Karens still talk to those they deem beneath them/service industry people like they are their owners and threaten to get them fired.

That's what makes them dangerous.

This whole obsession with your oppression as primarily middle aged, middle class, privileged white women who can't speak up?

Try being an "angry black woman". An angry black woman who is terrified for her black son to come across a Karen one day who decides he doesn't belong there and calls the cops.

What is the gendered term for the police officers meting out the brutality?

I think Margaret has become the new Karen now, or at least that is what I see online.

People using it incorrectly should be educated otherwise. It's not accepted that its meaning has changed to a woman simply existing, or being assertive or "kick-ass" :-

Webster:

"Karen is a slang term used to disparage a stereotypically middle-class, middle-aged white woman who rebukes or reports others in angry, sometimes racist public displays. More generally, it is an insult for anyone, though still typically a woman, who shows entitled behavior, especially in the form of outspoken complaints or intrusive criticism. Depending on context, it may be considered sexist."

That is where it originates from, it's not used to 'shut-up' women.

Quite frankly, you can't dismiss something that clearly explains where the term comes from (just because it's 5 yrs old) women using their feminity and privildge as someone to be 'protected', when actually they are just being racist or ignorant. Then in the next breath say it's used against women who historically didn't have a voice.

Its now used as a throwaway comment. I don't use the term and I've only ever heard teenagers use it to describe a person being absolutely ridiculous or to annoy them. No teenagers or young adults are using the term because they're threatened or fear you.

Yes this. Except I did once have my hands full, and I just let go of the food… I walked out later that week.

Are you suggesting that women should hand wave ageism and misogyny happening here right now, because of American history?

My Scottish great granny was too busy burying her children and gutting fish at huge cost to her health to fret about being triggered by derogatory language, so what? Life was mainly horrific for all but the very rich until two generations ago, this isn't an argument for piping down about abusive language now. Are you familiar with Irish history at all? The last mother and baby homes closed in the 1990s.

I would love to know which posters on this thread are from the US.

Well said.

The implication that black men (who are still men and therefore part of an oppressive class) are under the foot of middle aged white women worldwide is almost hilarious in its inaccuracy.

Also black men can be rapists and some rape white women. Ht I guess those women should STFU because <checks notes> white women used to be slave owners in some states of the US?

@Fencehedge don't you think anyone using it should be educated otherwise? After all, it’s a name. And turning a name into a derogatory term is really unfair on anyone who has that name. The term “Karen” should never have been coined. It’s an irony that a group with a history of being prejudiced against (ie black Americans) should choose to use a word that then leads directly to more prejudice (against people called Karen).

The ones who can’t understand that relations outside the US are different to ones inside the US. Nothing worse and than US-centric identity politics obsessed misogynist

Middle aged British…(though not exactly clear what age is deemed middle aged on MN!)

Being a middle aged woman isnt what gets you called a Karen. Being a middle aged c u next Tuesday is.

Problem is some women in that age bracket seem to take out all their pent of rage at people who dont deserve it or people they think are beneath them, that's what a Karen is. If you are routinely called this then you need to take a look at yourself, I suspect what you consider assertive is more just plain attitude and rudeness.

The term originated in the States.

If a black man calls the cops on a white woman what do you think will happen?

If a white woman calls the cops on a black man what do you think will happen?

These things matter.

Hmm. I'm a middle aged woman myself.

I don't aspire to be "badass". Because I think it's quite rude.

I don't like the glorification of middle-aged female badasshood.

It's possibly to be a strong person without being a loud badass who flaunts how little of a f they give.

I wouldn't call anyone Karen because it's rude and pejorative.

PS I have always "had a voice" - this has not been affected by whether or not I'm perimenopausal or not.

identity politics? You're going to use that as an insult on a thread about white women being targeted for being middle aged women?

OR do you just mean identity politics outside of white women?

So what behaviour caused the women in this photo to be called Karens then?