Please can we talk about using the name Karen as an insult?

[NiceKaren]

I'm seeing the name Karen being used as an insult all over social media. It started as a meme, but in the last few days I've seen 'Karen' being blamed for panic buying, refusing to self-isolate and general selfishness. My name is Karen and in these tricky times it feels really unpleasant to see my name being used this way. It feels sexist, ageist and most likely classist too. Now I'm seeing it on MN as well and it makes me so sad. I can't help my name and while I used to laugh it off, I'm feeling quite upset by it tonight. Why do people do this?

I suppose I'm just posting for solidarity and wondering whether there is any point in trying to call this sort of thing out? Before, I felt it was just me being precious or unable to take a joke but now it feels quite personal and ugly.

yep agree with PP, its all part of silencing women. Middle aged women are the ones holding things together generally - dealing with teenagers if they have kids, caring for eldelry parents, usually as we saw on the thread the other day doing all the "wife" work at work and being peri/menopausal. Its used as an insult by younger men and women - I see a LOT of men use it on twitter and its the young women I feel sorry for who dont know they're destined to become laughed at and ignored too once they're no longer considered fuckable....and when they get there, theyll wonder why they feel simultaneously furious and also not give a fuck what people say.

I am a middle aged woman and yes I am going to speak to the fucking manager if Im getting a crappy service which I am bloody paying for

It's used nastily. I've been called Karen on twitter, and while it didn't upset me, it immediately made me dislike the person who did it, for their intention to be nasty, and also for how casual they were about using a potentially quite personal term - a name - into an insult. A bit like coughing coronavirus on someone: the attacker doesn't know if the target will live or die, but has relieved his, her or their feelings and feels a bit more powerful.

It's noticeable that the "ok boomer" comeback has faded somewhat. It was a misfiring weapon (either they got gales of laughter, mockery for mis-aging a Millennial, or "ok groomer". Cowards did not like a wespon which didn't keep them safe, so stopped using it. They feel "safer" using "Karen", as they don't get the same pushback for it.

Wally was an insult back in the day.

I often want to ask how quick they would be to use a racial slur so casually? Flip the target round then go ahead and say it out loud. See what response you get. But it doesn't matter as middle aged women are easy targets. All those young ones with their #metoo placards but dont give 2 shits about the older sisters. They dont truly understand that age is still a prejudice and can e just as damaging.
I want younger women to wise up so they can look forward to middle age with joy no terror of disappearance and becoming a shorthand for silly little woman.

It used to be the names Sharon and Tracy that got the ribbing some years ago.

I think the derivation is that Sharon and Tracy were the names of Viz's fat slags, isn't it?

These names are always used to put women down: silly working-class girl, silly middle-class, middle-aged woman etc. It's always that toxic mix of sex, age and class. "Essex girls" is another one. You rarely see men's names used in the same way.

Has nobody mentioned how "Tarquin" is often used as an insult? As in "poor little Tarquin can't walk the last hundred yards to school, so I have to park on the yellow zig zags..."

wanderings - I did think about it, actually. It's often used with "Jocasta" - "poor little Tarquin and Jocasta". I think that has its origin in Viz too. It's just a lazy way of attacking middle-class parents (esp. mothers) rather than the children themselves.

There are an awful lot of gendered-insults that are age-related in particular. It used to be quite common to refer to someone fussy and pernickety as an "old woman", even if they were a man. Also telling women they are "menopausal" or "dried up" if they are middle-aged. You can move seamlessly from being a floozy, airhead or slag to being a yummy mummy to being a dried up menopausal woman to being an old dear without any point at which you are considered an individual human being.

Gary was the rough equivalent of Sharon and Tracy where I grew up in late 80s. Definitely used as a classist insult, although not a sexist one.

I agree it’s horrible seeing people’s names used disparagingly.

are late 60s early 70s, I have a cousin the same age called Susan. It's absolutely about mocking the middle aged woman.

Being in your late 60s and 70s isn't middle-aged?

This is in the same vein as the "OK boomer" thing. I've been called a boomer before and when I point out I was born in the mid 90s, they say "it'd about the boomer mindset, not your age"

Also, see "some white Becky" use by some POC people.

And yes classism too

Similarly to how black people can't be racist towards white people, how sexism is a structure skewed against women, working-class people can't be classist against the middle-class. Although as mumsnet is predominately MC I'm sure there will be an excuse for how this isn't so.

Yes it's horrible.

My peers and age group are often Wendies and Karens & it is unkind and cliched

Being in your late 60s and 70s isn't middle-aged?

Late 60s and 70s was a reference to when people were born - so those people would be in their late 40s and early 50s.

Late 60s and 70s was a reference to when people were born - so those people would be in their late 40s and early 50s

Ahhh got you! My mums age, she was born 1969.

I've only ever seen Karen on Mumsnet, used by women.
Isn't it one of those "age war" insults.

And yes, Sharon and Tracey, and Tarquin and Jocasta originate in Viz (the latter from The Modern Parents).

I agree. Lazy, sexist, definitely ageist and sneering at people who they perceive to be lower middle class (the worst!) - often by young people who like to claim they are working class but usually aren't.

I'm of the "Karen" demographic and yes, it is a hatred of middle aged women, plain and simple. Lots of men are behaving badly during this crisis and I don't see a male equivalent. I hate it when young women join in and don't get any satisfaction from the fact that they'll realise some day. Because by then they'll have a whole new generation of young women to shit on them in turn.

Wayne is a stereotypical working class slacker who first came to prominence in the 1990s. Remember Harry Enfield and Wayne Slob? Wayne Rooney obviously perpetuated the stereotype. It's a pisstake of blokes with a certain mindset, and it isn't complimentary. I think Wally and Herbert have also been mentioned. Adolf is also a put down. And a Bobby or Bobby Charlton was also a dig at balding blokes who had various degrees of combover, though that was in the 70s when he was still playing. I haven't seen the hairstyle for a while. It wasn't seen as a hatred of Mr Charlton, but it was most certainly a pisstake against vain, balding men.

I hate it when young women join in and don't get any satisfaction from the fact that they'll realise some day.

Yup. Do you remember that Cambridge student journalist who dismissed Germaine Greer as an "old, white woman"? Obviously too stupid to realise that one day she would be old.

Not that it matters, but the Fat Slags in Viz are actually Tracy and Sandra, not Sharon. I have seen Sharon used as a slur on social media, definitely.

This 'Karen' thing is completely new to me. The new 'gammon' or something different?

Wasn't it Keith Waterhouse in 1980s who had a tabloid column about 'Sharon & Tracy'?

I think the female names that get a lot of this are - Sharon, Susan, Karen

I don’t think Keith/ Barry / Gary get off lightly either with the middle age man stereotype.

A Gammon is definitely a male stereotype - white, middle aged, outraged and brexity. It's an insult thrown at men. Mind you, they don't half gripe about it when you say it. It turns their ruddy little cheeks a couple of shades darker.

I don't know a single man actually called gammon though which is the point of this post. It's the names of (usually middle aged) women being used.