Use of 'Karen' as a slur

[HDDD]

3 times in the last few days I've seen this and it irks me every time. I naively thought it was a short-lived thing and had faded out...clearly not. Is anyone else still seeing it? Are you calling people out when you see it? Or am I in a minority of one at getting annoyed by it?

I hate this so much because there are lots of women called Karen, who have happily used that name all their lives long, and suddenly their names have been turned into an insult. They've been called Karen by their families, their friends... it's the name on their professional qualifications... their certificates of accomplishment... Why should they feel as if Karen suddenly means something bad, as opposed to something to be proud of? I really feel for them. It was their name first, their badge of honour.

It's just wrong. I refuse to perpetuate Karen as an insult. It doesn't just attack certain women, it attacks all women called Karen, most of whom are probably very nice people.

Yes it ticks me off and I do often say something but it's impossible to respond every time. I can't get on the internet and do much of anything for long without finding something sexist to get me riled again.

I had a big row with my teen DS about this. It's definitely misogynistic and ageist and telling women of my age to shut up. Our views are not important.

I'm glad I'm not a lone voice. I'm not glad it's still being used. I will continue to call it out for what it is.

FWIW, I was happy to see someone else on the FB thread agreeing with me about the misogyny of the term. It was invented, as far as I could make out, by a man who wanted to slag off his ex wife. It's very clearly sexist, given about ten seconds of thought.

What I do find horrifying is how quickly these tropes balloon and spread, and the consequences of them. It's as though they tap into this primeval pool of - what, mother issues? common or garden women hatred? - and from that fountains of anger and aggression readily spring forth. I find it frightening, and I find it very worrying how quickly so-called 'woke' social justice people are ready to jump on and bully people. I watched the video of that man who chased a woman home and filmed her, basically breaking down and begging him not to put her home/car footage on the internet. It was abhorrent to watch. Such cruelty, and so many people happy to cheer it on.

Reddit has a sub forum called Karen where people post videos of women arguing etc and automatically refer to said women as a "Karen"

Where did it originate from? Wikipedia seems to know

So, yet again, they're appropriating other people's lived oppression and using it to oppress.

Can these bleating sheep really not think for themselves?

I've seen it everywhere. It's used to put down a woman you disagree with. Its use bares little resemblances to the original idea. It's just another slur

Ironically there was a piece of research in the New York Times that said women called Karen were more likely to vote Biden too!

I've tried to have this conversation with my older teenagers (who are normally quite politically correct) about how ageist and sexist Karen is, and they completely gaslight me and can't or won't see it

I was recently watching a fairly well-known leftwing YouTuber from the U.S. (Tim Black), and he said that black women are becoming worse Karens than white women are.

He's also black (so thinks he gets a pass). So much for "Karen" being about white privilege. It's pretty transparent many of these constant attacks on white women lately are meant to condition everyone to see an angry white woman with something to say as acting shameful and silly....oh and also other women who act like those angry white women.

I'm also sick of white male supremacist groups shown on the news being referred to as simply "white supremacist groups".

@Tanith

So, yet again, they're appropriating other people's lived oppression and using it to oppress.

Can these bleating sheep really not think for themselves?

Let's keep sheep out of things. They're actually very intelligent.

www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170418-sheep-are-not-stupid-and-they-are-not-helpless-either#:~:text=Reality%3A%20Sheep%20are%20actually%20surprisingly,destructive%20creatures%20on%20the%20planet.

[quote MarieFromStTropez]@Maduixa I spend A LOT of time on FWR and follow the You Tube accounts of a few prominent feminists.

I guess you could say I hate misogyny slightly less than I hate the greed of the Boomer generation 🤷🏻‍♀️.[/quote]
When you decide to attack an entire generation - because you think they're one homogeneous group, instead of actually the individuals they all are, at least get it right. The women being attacked as 'Karens' are middle-aged. The baby boomer generation is older.

@SheepandCow, this is from Wikipedia:

"The name Karen was one of the top 10 names for girls born in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s."

Baby Boomers.

And you could argue that young women are at far more of a disadvantage due to generational inequality than they are from sex inequality.

I am not a millennial, but I completely get their point of view.

Is there an equivalent for men?

Not a direct equivalent ASAIK, but there are many male names with negative stereotypes.

Hooray Henries, a "Kev" or "Barry" as a replacement for the word "chav", and Neds in Scotland.

Also a "Chad" in the US. So quite a few when I think about it.

Well then that's not ok either. Whether a male or female given name, using somebody's personal given name as an insult is nasty.

I wish they had created a different (non name related) term for the sort of behaviour associated with 'Karens'. It must undoubtedly be unpleasant for people with this name, but it also overshadows discussion of the behaviour itself, which is something that warrants challenging separately. Without people like those associated with the meme, there would no meme.

Not funny, is ageist, to an extent- name is popular in the 40+age group, and basically decides that any woman, regardless, who stands up for themselves needs to be shot down.

you could argue that young women are at far more of a disadvantage due to generational inequality than they are from sex inequality.

This may be true in some ways, but I'd imagine that the wealth the boomer era women enjoyed was largely controlled by the 'man of the house' and said women had less financial independence than younger women today who can survive without a man's support.

Doh, just realised I'm in feminism chat, not chat (saw the thread title and clicked). 🤦‍♂️

@LordLancington

Doh, just realised I'm in feminism chat, not chat (saw the thread title and clicked). 🤦‍♂️

Welcome to the dark side!

Your previous comment about "Boomer" women being comfortably off in material terms but their husbands controlling the purse strings seems spot on as a piece of feminist analysis.

@LordLancington

Is there an equivalent for men?

Not a direct equivalent ASAIK, but there are many male names with negative stereotypes.

Hooray Henries, a "Kev" or "Barry" as a replacement for the word "chav", and Neds in Scotland.

A ned is short for a ne'er do well, not a name. Ned isn't a name that's used in Scotland very often.

A ned is short for a ne'er do well, not a name. Ned isn't a name that's used in Scotland very often.

Oh, I didn't know that. You learn something new every day! I have wondered a couple of times why I've never met a Scotsman called Ned. 😳

@LordLancington

you could argue that young women are at far more of a disadvantage due to generational inequality than they are from sex inequality.

This may be true in some ways, but I'd imagine that the wealth the boomer era women enjoyed was largely controlled by the 'man of the house' and said women had less financial independence than younger women today who can survive without a man's support.

Well that's a bit of a sweeping generalisation coupled with a fair lack of imagination. The boomer generation is generally defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, which coincides with huge increases in women entering male professions and business.