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?

Through all of this you pretend that you’re taking the flak for other women’s views on race, but you are actually constantly demonstrating your own views and behaviours that point to Karen behaviours.

Pretending that insidious racist behaviours are rare (‘a few women’), dismissing the impact of those behaviours, dismissing the experiences of people of colour, and making the whole thing about the feelings of white women is precisely what the term is designed to describe.

Your contributions here demonstrate perfectly why the term exists, and why it can appropriately be used to describe yourself.

I think it is a lovely thought, but no op it is just a disrespectful insult.

I mean you can, but it would be as stupid as calling all women Karen’s.

because not all men are rapists and not all women are Karen’s.

But you should certainly call men who are rapists, rapists. Just as people should be free to call women who are Karen’s, Karen’s.

Of course it means all women! Type in “karens in the wild” anywhere and it is about any woman raising a complaint. Why are you denying this?

When you say that the stats show men responsible for racism - ironically without posting any evidence - I’d be willing to bet that that is based only on the most egregious manifestations of racism as I said. The violence, the slurs. Of course you’re still not getting (or pretending not to get) that people of colour are entitled to discuss and describe manifestations of racism in all its forms, not only the most egregious ones

Are you actually denying men are the problem in violence and racism? It’s not hard to find the evidence. It’s overwhelmingly men.

And stop making things up - I’m not pretending that POC are entitled to discuss racism. I’m saying it’s a fact that women aren’t the problem - women as a clas do not oppress men as a class. Do you understand what that means?

And you expect people to listen to black voices but you’re denying the experiences and voices of women?

@PlanetJanette yes all women who are called “Karen” should definitely be called Karen, I presume that’s what you meant? Why else would you call them that?

Your own post demonstrates the issue.

You went from claiming that men are responsible for ‘racism’ to now shifting the goalposts to ‘racism and violence’.

Youre demonstrating again that the only form of racism you are prepared to consider is the most egregious sort - the violence - which is of course perpetrated by men for the most part. But conflating that with all manifestations of racism and dictating that particular view is exactly the behaviour described by the term Karen.

But here you go. This is called facts

www.demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PatternsOfHateCrimeReport-.pdf

Anyone can be a Karen... it's the attitude and entitlement that qualify them for such a title over
maturity and gender.

The favoured breeding ground of the lesser spotted Karen is somewhere like a McDonald's, where they can complain to a manager because the teenager they shouted at for misunderstanding their order, didn't offer themselves up as a human sacrifice. How dare they not, when they prepared a chocolate milkshake instead of a strawberry one.

Another favourite spot is the local Facebook page, where they keep watch over the community they loath. On said page they insult practically anyone for any perceived social mis-step - whilst being as rude and offensive as possible. They blame everything on bad parenting of youths, but don't ask them about their 32 year old son, Bradley. Apple of Karens eye, he still lives at home... because he's unemployed and not allowed to see his own children anymore. If darling Bradley does come up, Karen will just say it's just political correctness gone mad and make vague references to "boat people". It absolutely wasn't their parenting. At least, Bradley never kicked a ball at a neighbours front garden wall once.

For example, if they display behaviours like leveraging their relative privilege over another person (eg a white middle class woman over a working class black woman) to exercise power and control, to impose their own interpretation of events affecting relatively less privileged people at the expense of those actually impacted, and centring the feelings of the white person over the actual victim of their behaviours.

Thats when I use the term.

You repeatedly ask for “evidence” of such incidents as if white supremacy is going to be heavily documented in a white supremacist society. You have been given several examples and are still choosing to run with the one example I gave in which I wrongly thought the woman was the accuser. You have denied all of the other examples that people have given to you. You quoted me once and then made a second post just mentioning me and the one error I made in an attempt to whistle your cronies in. You claim that “white women as a group are not an issue”. You clearly do not know many black people if that’s your thought. Women like you are the problem.

But your claim wasn’t that racist hate crime was mainly a male problem.

You claimed that racism in and of itself was mainly a male problem.

That you still can’t understand the difference between racism, and particular manifestations of racism, shows the problem in your attitude.

Now try to back up your claim that racism, not just violent or criminal manifestations of it, is a male problem.

Yep. If I didn’t know better I’d think that poster was deliberately trying to be the most Karen possible in order to highlight what the term means and why it’s important that people of colour have a term to describe it.

No I won’t take responsibility for racism I haven’t committed. I have said racism does exist it that women the world over shouldn’t be lumbered with a slur over it. And what is “Karen behaviour”? So you can use a sexist term towards me and that’s ok because <checks notes> I’m a woman and some people say that’s a problem?

Exactly this. @JandamiHash yes, I call you Karen because I fear you. I fear you even on a website like this where you can use your middle class white ways to skirt over the issue that we are discussing and rally your fellow middle class white women in an attempt to silence us. Will it work? Of course it will. This is your space and your world. You do it online, you likely do it in real life, and in doing so you cause damage that your whiteness protects you from even understanding. I’m not expecting this debate to be settled because I don’t expect women like you to ever care enough to even try to understand the points we’re making. But you, undoubtedly are a “Karen” in its purest, original form and you will always be one until you recognise how your whiteness protects you and harms others.

Indeed, it is a very misogynist term.

The usual hatred for women, especially older women, who are not afraid to have good boundaries, make their voices heard and don't want to spend their time pleasing men with fragile egos...

What saddens me as well is that I have heard women at work referring to themselves as Karens which is equally daft.

The Post you quote literally describes the sort of behaviour I’m talking about. So instead of checking your imaginary notes, perhaps just read what I said?

Pretending that insidious racist behaviours are rare (‘a few women’), dismissing the impact of those behaviours, dismissing the experiences of people of colour, and making the whole thing about the feelings of white women is preciselywhat the term is designed to describe.

The term 'Karen' is not used for any middle-aged woman, so I don't understand the outrage. It's specifically referring to a woman who behaves in an appalling manner - bullying, aggressive, unreasonable, rude and often racist.

You would not be called a Karen for, say, making a reasonable complaint in a normal tone. You would be called a Karen for screaming at and threatening someone in the street because they're doing something perfectly reasonable which you happen not to like.

There are tons of videos of people being abused and bullied by women like this, and the pure amount of them has led to a name being created to describe these aggressive women. It's fairly normal in society for people to come up with names to describe groups of people that they're seeing often. Not all of the women are middle-aged.

If you're defending yourself or standing up for what is right, you won't be called this name, so why worry? Unless you're planning on launching a public racist attack on someone or something, nobody will use this name for you.

It’s because so many of them do behave in this way and they don’t like the fact that there is now a word which belittles them for their nasty behaviour. They think it means they’ll lose their privilege (which, being a part of the most protected group in society, they really won’t, so they needn’t worry so much.)

I'm more interested in why the term is used not its etymology.

I think that has humans we group together things we are afraid of and apply a diminutive to them to lessen their impact on us.

Hence my suggestion that fear is the motivation.

Historically older women have been marginalised in our society. I feel this is changing for some if not all.

Also no matter how it is used it is a horrible term and as PP have said there appears to be no male equivalent. I am afraid I just don't buy the argument that it is genderless.

I have. I've also seen the Karen insult thrown at women on social media whose race isn't known. The only things that are true are:

The person doing the insulting (usually a man) believes the target to be female.

The target has done something to offend the man, usually having an opinion he doesn't agree with.

Or you could just point out their behaviour instead of appropriating a woman's name?

The only women who are Karen’s are women whose name is Karen.

Surely if it’s about racism you’d advocate for “Karens” to just be called racist rather than a term women (and people called Karen) have told you is hurtful and damaging to them?

Indeed.

But shorthand terms to describe specific behaviour is a powerful tool in the fight against prejudice.

Yes, someone could just call a Karen racist but that’s not massively effective in a society which still sees racism only through the lens of violence, hate crime or slurs, and not though the lens of more subtle, insidious and pernicious forms.

I don’t think what the word is matters so much as the fact that there is a word for it. When specific forms of abuse can be named, they can be more effectively organised against.

You are the perfect demonstration of why you can’t just label the behaviour in question as racism. Because in a white dominated society racism is seen only through its most egregious manifestations.

More subtle manifestations are dismissed, minimised and ridiculed when called out as racism.

It’s not shifting the goalposts at all. Black men are victims of violence almost exclusively from men. Thats a fact.

Youre demonstrating again that the only form of racism you are prepared to consider is the most egregious sort - the violence - which is of course perpetrated by men for the most part. But conflating that with all manifestations of racism and dictating that particular view is exactly the behaviour described by the term Karen

Im saying that until im shown otherwise, I dont believe that white women are oppressors of black men. And if you are talking about listening to black voices, why won’t you listen to women who don’t like being called a Karen?