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?

Of course the problem is that one of the most active posters here has been at pains to deny such a manifestation of racism exists or is a problem.

If you’re talking about me - no I haven’t. I’ve simply said I don’t think it happens often enough to warrant waging a war on all women and give them a harmful nickname

Im also pointing out the parallels that despite what the FACTS show us, no similar war on racist men has ever been waged.

its almost like its so easy to just pick on women and if we don’t roll over and take it we are <insert offensive accusation here>

This thread isn’t ’to think the term Karen should not be used too liberally’ or ‘to think there is a better term to describe the particular manifestation of racism than Karen’. If it were this could be a very different discussion.

No its to ask if Karen is used out of fear.

Instead it is full of posters claiming they know better than people of colour how racism manifesta itself and denying or minimising the very widely recounted experiences of people of colour.

I once again am going to ask how you know the race and class of all the posters replying? Or have you gone off what you think is convenient?

Who said white women being racist is worse than white men being racist?

Given women have a sexist nickname and men don’t - the people who use Karen as an insult

It's funny. When I started this thread I took it as read that the use of the term Karen was misogynistic and unpleasant.

I have subsequently learned that it means different things to different people but that some people think it an appropriate epithet.

This last is pretty upsetting.

I worked in hospitality for 5 years and never saw women behaving half as bad as the men. Never once did a woman whistle or click her fingers to get my attention. A woman also never grabbed my arse either, whereas with men it was every Friday night.

But wait - women sometimes raise complaints so they must be worse

We do have Family annihilator specific to men.

But why can’t women speak up when they don’t get a good service?

Agreed!

What makes you think they don’t?

I always do.

Is there an expectation for men, the main perpetrators of racial hatred, to call out racism?

What about sexism? Who calls that out.

Why can’t “racist woman” just be used? Why does a specific female name need to be used?

I absolutely expect men to. That’s why I said it in the previous comment.

Men need to be held accountable by other men for real change.

That’s awesome you call it out, many do not. I know this because I’ve seen many white women stand around looking uncomfortable when I’ve experienced it myself.

Great post

It feels like the institutional oppression and hate of women is forever forgotten and there’s people in the corner telling us we aren’t doing enough for others and we are the most protected group.

White women have power women of colour don’t. It’s nice when they use it to protect others.

When you get to my age there’s little room for random fun any more but making a racist squirm and explain themselves is often up there with one of life’s greatest pleasures

I agree.

I don’t think this should be done by using a slur about white women though.

Can we modify this to say that for those using the term without need for the articulation of a specific type racism it was created to convey, this is completely true.

Can we then respectfully acknowledge the need for articulation of racist issues which makes condeming that use particular use more problematic. I cannot help including from my perspective a warning against the unconscious sexism in the ranks.

I think possibly there is some common ground in condemning those who use the phrase to control women without any racist issue being involved. It would be nice not to be fighting each other.

It would be nice not to fight each other but no part of me will ever agree that women should just accept a slur against them being normalised. Look what happened with the Karen phenomena - if we give sexists an opportunity to they will turn something on its head entirely to attack all women

My favourite version of this lately was gently asking a group of undergraduate boys post presentation when they had set themselves up as managers of a fictional company and the only bmi member who was also the only female as admin to explain the process whereby they had allocated roles and leaving a gap for them to explain. Only half of the boys even realised the problem, I didn't need to say anything further or be mean. We do need to call things out every day, obviously this doesn't make me a hero so I hope it doesn't appear that way. Lets stick together please.

Read my previous posts.

I’ve already answered that.

It’s because many people share your blinked view of racism and like to think of it only as violent or criminal behaviour.

Hence the need to be able to pinpoint the specific set of behaviours we’re talking about. In an ideal world we’d be at a point where it’s not contentious to say that dismissing the lived experience of people of colour, minimising the racism they face, leveraging positions of relative power and privilege to control or police people of colour and centering the sensitivities of white people in any discourse is racist.

But we’re not there yet. As you have demonstrated on this thread. You’ve done all of the above. Now of course you’d love if people just labelled it racist and moved on. You could do the ‘who? Me?’ routine and everyone who’s been socialised to also only think of racism as violence or slurs would agree that you had been grievously offended.

But that is precisely why just labelling all racist behaviours as racist and being done with it doesn’t work - specific terms for specific manifestations are needed precisely so that we can discuss why those behaviours are problematic without it immediately becoming another discussion about how hurt and outraged white people are that someone might think they are racist.

Yep!

This has gone full circle. First we are told Karen is a woman who calls the cops on black men, who may then use violence. When arguing with that trope we are then told that racism isn't just violence, it's insidious.

So what, exactly, is the female specific behaviour that needs calling out separately to racism? Is it calling the cops/ making false accusations against black men per internet videos of the past, or is it indefinable and subtle with no evidence to prove it happens?

I don’t think calling it a trope and referring to situations “ in the past “ is helpful.

These are ongoing issues for the black community.

You can object to the term Karen without belittling our experiences.

ive seen women basically sexually assaulting bar staff and it being laughed off because ‘guys like that don’t they?’ Had a regular in the nightclub who would stand at the end of the bar and whistle at me, big double finger in the mouth whistles.

the women I’ve encountered when I worked the bar in clubs were just as disgusting and in many cases worse than the men I dealt with and don’t even get me started on the state of the women’s toilets 🤢

i Hate the mantra on here that women can do no wrong. They bloody well can and do.

It’s interesting isn’t it and it’s everywhere.

Im not sure if you watch The Traitors (spoilers coming) but over on Telly Addicts there were threads where a few of us pointed out the POC are always booted out first and the white people left at the end in previous seasons. Well it happened again!

Another amusing/depressing moment I had recently was when I I was saying to a male colleague that I was looking forward to the nights getting lighter because I could go running in the evening again. He said “Just wear a head torch!” 🙄 this is a 50-odd year old man whom I had to explain why a head torch wouldn’t stop me getting attacked.