Do you find the term/meme 'Karen' an insult?

[VladmirsPoutine]

This is a discussion I have recently read a few opinion pieces about.

Do you think it's indeed classist, racist and misogynistic to describe certain women as a Karen?

It’s sexist, ageist & lazy.
I can’t think of any male type names that are used in a similar way.
If you replace Karen with “bitch” it usually scans

That's an absolutely fascinating article OverMy. Thanks for sharing. I've just bought the author's book on the back of it!

Me too!

Mildly annoying. Useful to know who to avoid and not take too seriously. Mostly kids on the wind up.

It’s sexist, ageist & lazy.

This. I was born in the mid-1950s and went to school with a host of Karens. I never much liked it as a name but this newly created stereotype is as ridiculous and offensive as any other.

No not at all it's just humour... it's funny... it's like 'boomer'.... Karen's are not an oppressed or vulnerable group... you might say its misogyny but I really dont think it is as it's a certain type of attitude from a certain group of women that is being criticized and there are male equivalents... it's certainly not racist I do not believe reverse racism exists I think its nonsense... completely different impact

It's another way of saying a 'scold' or Trump's 'nasty woman'.

Just another way to knock middle aged women who do all the fucking grunt work of keeping society going

The giant straw man (men?) I see all over Twitter, put about by woke idiots, is that
(a) middle aged women are complaining because they think Karen is racist and aimed at white women, despite having nothing to back up this assertion. The woke people can then say HA! white women claiming to be oppressed, how dare you, *insert multiple reminders as to why white women aren't oppressed**

(b) middle aged women are calling for "Karen" to be deemed a slur and banned. Again, see above.

What I HAVE seen is women asking those who use "Karen" as an insult to reflect on the way older women are such hate figures to men and younger women alike; the deep misogyny it betrays, and also, hello young women, time can be a bitch.

OverMy - that's such an interesting article, thank you. I read it just after you posted and I've been thinking about it ever since. Very thought provoking.

It's ageist, sexist, a bit classist, not racist. Basically a way of shaming middle aged women into anxiety in case they look, feel or behave a bit 'Karen'. Now gen-Karens largely don't give a f. what other people think of their attractiveness (menopause is good like that) society comes up with a replacement thing to try and make them anxious about. Does my hair look 'Karen' like this, etc.

Krisskrosskiss

No not at all it's just humour... it's funny... it's like 'boomer'.... Karen's are not an oppressed or vulnerable group... you might say its misogyny but I really dont think it is as it's a certain type of attitude from a certain group of women that is being criticized and there are male equivalents... it's certainly not racist I do not believe reverse racism exists I think its nonsense... completely different impact

It's used by lazy, stupid people labouring under the delusion it makes them seem witty, instead of being lazy, stupid, unthinking herd followers who wouldn't recognise an original thought if it slapped them in the face. The same applies to everyone who uses "boomer" .

Of course it is possible to be racist against white people. It's not "reverse racism" - it's just racist.

It’s used by sexist arseholes like this Twitter user. My kids think it’s hilarious and when I pull them up on it they say ‘oh it’s just come from a meme’. I am trying to educate them but it’s an uphill struggle.

Yes it's an insult aimed at middle aged working class women.

I saw a "share your rant" thread on here recently in which the name "Karen" was used about 5 times in around 200 posts. I also saw Pam, Ann, Becky, and Tiffany used on the same thread. Almost all of them were about non NHS key workers having the audacity to think that their jobs were important. Things like "no Karen, you're just an admin worker at the hospital, no one was clapping for you so stop thanking people on Facebook". It's definitely mysogynistic and often classiest. I've seen it used on numerous threads on MN over the last few weeks, so definitely not a fringe Americanism referring to "soccer mums" or "customer service nightmares". Also the idea that middle aged women act in a more entitled way than men, to the degree that they need a specific meme targeting them for it, is so fucking ridiculous I don't even know where to start.

Chad is not an insult. Chad is a compliment. Chad is handsome, athletic, popular, and incels seethe with envy over him. There is no insulting name for males, only females.

It is just another way to denigrate women, generally and specifically.
It was Sharon a few years ago that was used to mean stupid selfish female. Now it's Karen. It will be another commonly given girl's name in a few years or months.

My teen daughter told me there was a male equivalent of Karen, but she's gone off to bed so I can't ask her. Even if their weren't though, I don't think an not having exact equivalent makes it sexist. Or if there was, it wouldn't necessarily not make it sexist either. You could have two related terms that were equally reductive and stereotypical and sexist to the people they were being applied to, but also men and women may just have different unrelated sets of language used to describe them without them being sexist.

I think shorthands like that are really a kind of stereotype or generalisation which is dangerous at times, but often they can have a kind of truth behind them. I'm a middle class middle aged mom, I can see some of those stereotypes play out in myself or my friends, and it's not always a bad thing to be a little self-concious about some of them, it can be positive to have some pricks to our self-image. If we are mature we know the tropes are exaggerated, and lots of people aren't like that, and even the people that are kind of like that are full human beings and have a lot more to them.

I would say the Karen trope does describe a certain type of person, similar to but not quite the same as a soccer mom. It seems like a very American description to me too but maybe it translates? I'm not sure what I'd say about using terms like this, in a few cases it can be very spot on in evoking a description, or identifying a type of behaviour, but most of the time its pretty reductive, and even used in a way that doesn't even make sense or serves to dismiss real individuals.

Triggsey, my teens disagree. They use it as a term of derision.

As in, yes Chad, you are athletic and good looking but you’re also largely regarded as a bit of an asshole.

Of course not. It refers to the mindset of the sort of person who goes into Asda with an expired coupon, has their shopping rung up, then when the coupon is rejected says to the cashier “I’m going to need to speak to your manager”, with a smug look on their face that says “I’m going to get you sacked for this, minimum wage lackey”.

It’s not the questioning of “poor customer service”, it’s the expectation that someone on minimum wage should give a shit about you, your husband’s six-figure income, or your organic quinoa as they’re shoving it in the bag. You don’t give a shit about them, why should they give a shit about you?

If you’re not the sort of person who exults in the idea you might get a minimum-wage cashier sacked for giving you service that is less than bootlicking, you’re not a Karen.

(Sharon and Tracey may fall in this, as they are the Chigwell/Essex 'chavs' in Birds of a Feather)

Chad is not an insult. Chad is a compliment. Chad is handsome, athletic, popular, and incels seethe with envy over him. There is no insulting name for males, only females.

Karen is an insult, but Chad isn't, oh no. Hypocrisy in action

If you’re not the sort of person who exults in the idea you might get a minimum-wage cashier sacked for giving you service that is less than bootlicking, you’re not a Karen.

That might be the way some people understand it or the way it was originally but like many memes its now evolved.
You only need to take a look at Twitter or Facebook to see that 'OK Karen' is now being used to gleefully tell women to shut up.

Interesting article from Hadley Freeman on Karens: www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/13/the-karen-meme-is-everywhere-and-it-has-become-mired-in-sexism

notmrpootles it’s really not though - it has now evolved into the assumption that If you dare have your hair in a bob, you are assumed to have the “Karen” mentality and your photo will be gleefully taken and put up on the internet. In some places if you are a woman over a certain age anything you say, no matter how bland and inoffensive; is dismissed with “OK KAREN”.

You can’t point to the “Chad” meme as an equivalence as it isn’t used to mock and shut down men in the same way. And “Chad” started as a misogynist meme from the Incel forums; as in “Dumb bitches only want to get fucked by Chads who will treat them like shit”.

It may have started off as referring to a specific set of behaviours but it's now spiralled into a catchall for anything anyone finds annoying or reprehensible.
It's also become a convenient way for the young and the woke to shut up middle aged women while still claiming the moral high ground - no wonder it's popular.