To believe the team “Karen” isn’t misogynistic

[SummerAsh]

To start with… I don’t like the term. It can’t be pleasant if you are actually called Karen. And I don’t believe I’ve ever used it….

But I don’t see why it is misogynistic…. Unless someone says that all women are Karens. Some women are just insufferable, the same way some men are. Admitting this doesn’t make you misogynistic! And more than calling someone a Dick makes that person a misandrist.

Bandying the word “misogyny” around whenever anyone says anything that’s not completely complimentary about a woman just devalues the word, and makes it more difficult to call out real misogyny.

It’s a similar attitude to when people were calling Rachel Reeves ‘ Rachel in Accounts’. A term used to belittle the job. People ( including many women) seemed to think it was hilarious.

You didn’t need an apostrophe there. (Prepares to be called a ‘Karen’)

I do think it’s misogynistic- it’s just telling middle aged women to shut up isn’t it?

My main issue with it though is that Karen is an actual name that lots of women have, and it’s shit for them that this has happened to their name. As someone who was born in the late 70s, I know lots of Karens, most of them very nice indeed.

There's literally no equivalent - whether an insult or a meme or a cultural drift - which makes men doubt their ability to speak up or their right to do so.

And even if their were, it would have to be seen in the context of the rest of their experience, which tells them they have agency all the time.

My daughter - unlike my son - has always been afraid to stand up for herself, and now more so for fear of this insult.

So yes, you are unreasonable, unobservant, and lacking in critical thinking skills.

I'll give you that one.

Well played!

The women I've actually heard being called Karens do need to be shut down though, as they're usually being invasive, horribly nasty, entitled, racist and often outright dangerous

Then call out the behaviour. Don’t be lazy and use a perfectly normal woman’s name to try and label these actions.

Think of your own name. Imagine what it’s like hearing one’s name linked with either egregious actions or as a way to shut down women using their voice and agency to express their viewpoint.

It is awful.

You could always come up with your own ideas instead of jumping on internet trends from the US like a teenager.

I agree. But actually I now see it used casually and lazily for any viewpoint expressed by a woman that doesn’t seem to meet the consensus populist view, regardless of age.

-That behaviour needs shutting down whoever it comes from, it doesn’t stop the use of a widely used female name being used to describe that behaviour being misogynistic and ageist.

The experience I’ve had IRL of it being used is by people who haven’t got the balls to actually name specifically the behaviour they take issue with and choose instead to hide behind what they they think is a cool insult that they believe makes them look clever.

Of course it’s not misogynistic, that’s why it uses a totally unisex name.

oh wait.

💯 this.

it’s a shortcut way, users believe, of saying ‘look at me! I’m on the ‘right’ (meaning ‘correct’) side of the argument. It annoys me in addition as it suggests there’s only one way to think or believe. I am fine with opposing views - just don’t decide you get to be the only one allowed a view.

The men have their name, and Karens are young and old on my side of the Internet.

I think it is misogynistic and I hate it. It’s just a way of shutting older women up when they dare to stand up for themselves

My sister in law is called Karen and she is a proper cunt so I kind of love that her name is an insult. It suits her.

It’s not even though.

It’s worse again. On the Internet, it’s any woman, and she doesn’t have to be standing up for herself. She can be expressing an opinions that a certain woke cabal (including, unfortunately, other women) disagree with.

It’s lazy and sexist, and it makes me miss the days before the internet existed.

Mother in laws
Blondes
Essex girls
now Karens

And what do they all have in common?
Primarily used by men to keep women small, quiet, in line. We’re battleaxes, idiots, slags, anything but human.

Her name isn’t an insult. It’s her name. a woman’s name being misused by lazy commenters.

she may well be as you describe (I also abhor that term, beloved as I know it is on MN). But that’s her and not to be aligned with her name.

Think if everyone started using your name pejoratively.

I’ve been called a Karen on Facebook for daring to express an opinion.

What’s a name used for unpleasant racist ignorant men that has spread into common use to belittle men in general that is as widely used as “Karen”? I don’t know about other places but in the UK most people called Karen fall into a certain age group and there’s no reason to suppose that they are more mean, unpleasant and racist than anyone else.

It’s a dick, not Dick. As in the male appendage, not the abbreviated version of Richard. So women can be dicks, not just men. There is no male equivalent of a Karen.

When DD was in primary a boy called her one because she asked him to be quiet

What’s the male equivalent, then?

It’s not Dick. What is the name for a bolshy middle-aged man who talks down to retail assistants and wait staff and who thinks he’s the boss of the world? Because I encounter a lot more men like that than I do women and yet I’m at a loss for a name that instantly conveys this stereotype.

Yes, I do know that. Thats why I commented as I did. Its OP who appears not to know.

It is misogynistic and it has been such a boon to misogynists. Any woman over 40 who dares to have a opinion; stand up to twatish behaviour or advocate for something can be dismissed as a “Karen”. I hate it.