The misogynistic and ageist slur ‘karen’

[Cursory]

I see this cropping up on here on a reasonably regular basis. It’s an acknowledged ageist and misogynistic term for women over a certain age with an opinion.

Will MNHQ moderate it accordingly if it’s reported, the same way you do for other derogatory terms?

I’ve seen it more and more recently and people appear to be using it in some cases as a synonym for ‘woman’. Some recent examples include ‘thank god we have Karens’ when describing an incident where a woman told someone to take their feet off a train seat, and ‘Karens moaning again’ when a woman wrote about a local planning issue.

It is absolutely a misogynistic slur and the posters who claim there’s a male version are talking absolute crap. It’s the usual handmaideny ‘but women do it too!’ which is disappointingly frequent on a female focused forum.

That’s totally fine 😍
I misread something earlier up thread too.

You are a horrible person to keep using these terms

And what name do you use for men with the same attitude? Or don’t you have one?

I thought the Karen stuff was dying down a bit? Haven’t heard it in a while but then I’ve been off MN for a bit.

I’ve only been called it once and that was by a young white man whose friend was pissing into my neighbour’s hedge, right beside her daughter’s bedroom window, and I objected to this. I didn’t realise that this was an example of punching up but it is now clear to me I was wrong. Or maybe it’s an example of a word that been wiped by many of those using it of its original context and as used by this group, it means “fuck off old woman” but we’re not supposed to object to this because of the original meaning. Which is just gaslighting.

Hi and thanks all for sharing your thoughts on this.

We don’t currently have a blanket ban on the term, and as with many things context and intent really do matter. Where it’s used as a personal insult or clearly meant to demean, we’ll usually remove it, but we also try to avoid over-policing language, especially when a word however flawed has entered mainstream usage.

We completely understand why many posters feel uneasy about it. It’s a term that often trades on lazy stereotypes, and casual misogyny towards middle-aged women is, sadly, something many of us will recognise all too well. The good news is that on Mumsnet, unlike many other sites, we tend to see those stereotypes challenged (and challenged robustly!) by other MNers. We can only hope that it dies out before inevitably being replaced by something else.

As always, please report anything you think we need to see.

I wonder if anyone names their child, Karen these days?
Maybe the meaning of the word has changed. Not much fun for those still called Karen though. It depends on how thick your skin is.

https://www.internetsbestkaren.com/

A certain look? Are we supposed to look a specific way?
A bad attitude? Or merely an attitude? There's substantial research that identical forthright behaviour is judged negatively as abrasive in women and neutrally or positively assertive in men.

What's the equivalent widely-used and instantly recognisable name for a man who's overbearing, entitled and unreasonable?

Thankfully Mumsnet recognises how ageist and mysoginistic it is and is pretty good at deleting posts that use the - let's face it, juvenile - slur

Out of interest, I wonder if MN takes the same approach to “gammon”?

FFS
It’s ridiculous

You never see someone accused of being a “Karen” in anything but a derogatory way and the same is true of the term “gammon”.

It’s always used as a way to demean someone of a certain age so I think you should rethink your policy @BeckyAMumsnet

I also think “boomer” is used too often on Mumsnet to insult people of a certain age. Again it is a word that has been weaponised to be derogatory to people of a certain age.

Jesus wept, sticks and stones

No, Karen is a woman of a certain age who dares to have an opinion.

That is all. And therefore it is sexist and ageist and people should stop using it.

It's actually a lower level version of "terf" which also comes down to women who dare to say no to men.