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?

Plus of course if you object, they feel even more justified in branding you.

Yep, the twitter comments on the Guardian article link are very telling - how many are from poor BAME women vs white men? That says it all really on how it’s been twisted to become the new “acceptable, woke” way of calling a woman a bitch because she disagrees with you.

No, it's just a name that was randomly chosen by someone to give a name to an imaginary character that retail assistants knew all to well, the meme first started showing up like 5+ years ago now maybe even longer tbh,

It is a sweeping generalisation of an older woman who won't listen to what you the store clerk says, even though you work there and have more knowledge, they just refuse to listen, get angry over nothing important and ask to talk to the manager just to get what they want, cus they know it's like an instant get what I want button.

It's a pretty weak meme as they go, seems more like a troll meme nowadays and so many people are responding to it exactly how the people trolling them with it want them to act,

It's like a self fufilling prophecy, the more you push back against the Karen meme the more Karen like you become, getting angry and escalating issues that shouldn't be escalated cus why is it even important? People are just laughing at the people getting offended so it keeps feeding the fire.

I guess the Karen meme boils down to someone making mountains out of molehills, now that I'm writing it all out and thinking about it

I imagine it’s pretty annoying if you’re a Karen.

It's interesting how unacceptable it is for women to get angry.

Or want to escalate an issue.
Or have an opinion of their own.

Debbie Downer - also put a woman’s name on a negative. Negative Nancy - same. It’s not like there are no alliterative options for male names.

There are shorthand expressions or memes for lots of behaviours, they can be useful to summarise something. It’s the only using women’s names for negative ones that is the problem. Because the behaviours are not sex specific. The categorising the behaviour as negative is sex specific. It’s a new form of sex based language like bossy for girls where boys would be leaders.

So it's not acceptable to escalate a complaint in a shop. How very pro capitalist that is - shut up silly woman just hand over your money and keep consuming.

Because it's quite plainly misogyny to me.

Except it comes from women far more than men IME.

Used by women as well as men but (from what I've seen) only ever used about women.

Lol no not at all. The only way you could be triggered by it- maybe- would be because of reasons of age.

There are derogatory equivalents for men ie Nigel.

isnt it just Flosime?

shut up and sit down middled aged women - just fuck off back to looking after your kids/husband/house/elderly parents and in laws whilst probably working at the same time. dont you dare be pissed off about the fact that now you're no longer considered fuckable and therefore no longer count as a woman that needs listening too

Is Nigel an equivalent to Karen? Can you substitute “Cunt” for Nigel in any of the current online Nigel memes and get the exact same tone and meaning; like you do if you substitute it for “Karen” in the latest Karen memes?

Im not 100% sure its about being fuckable. More that Karen has more of a likelihood to talk down and be dismissive to people of different ethnicities (non whites). Thats a trait that usually manifests itself in older people.

The race angle legitimises the misogyny. As soon as you argue that the "Karen" meme is all about white women being officious, and in particular, officious to black people, it means that white women are fair game: you can unleash all your pent-up hatred of women in the guise of being anti-racist. It's the same impulse by which accusing women of the crime of "transphobia" allows men to use terminology like witches, bitches, cunts, fascists, Terfs etc.

White men, of course, are utterly saintly beings who are never racist enough to merit a meme.

I think its maybe an anti boomer thing as much as anything. When I read the OP, I saw the word misogyny..... and maybe there is an element of that in it.
But theres more to it than just that.

The first I heard about the race angle was the Hadley Freeman article which explains that USA's notion of Karen does not directly translate to the UK (Karen is a posher name there).

When I've seen it used in the UK it's almost always had a classist undertone. Kind of the right wing misogynist's version of "terf".

So it's not acceptable to escalate a complaint in a shop. How very pro capitalist that is - shut up silly woman just hand over your money and keep consuming.

I don't think this is fair. I'm as anti-capitalist as anyone, but I've also worked as a supermarket as a cashier, and there is absolutely a type of customer who is looking to take advantage and doesn't really care how the workers are treated, and the usual thing is they insist on a sale that doesn't apply, or coupons that don't apply, or your've rung something up incorrectly, and then insist that you bring in the manager.

We didn't have the idea of a "Karen" then but we all recognised the behaviour and that it seemed to be attached to a certain demographic and dislikes these customers, and it wasn't because we didn't want to give good service. My grandmother used to sometimes talk about a similar kind of customer from when she worked in a shop before I was born, they would do things like return curtains years after buying them, complaining they had faded.

I imagine the reason this was associated with women is mainly that women do so much more purchasing than men. I did notice there was a male type that was also inclined to complain in a similar way, interestingly, at least to me, they weren't typically from the same demographic as the women.

The only Karens I'm aware of are a girl I went to school with who'd now be 39 (so not that old) and Karen from Outnumbered who was and is quite young a character. Maybe it's an american thing to see it as an 'older' name? Some things don't translate.

Guess it depends on how many people are waiting behind you in the queue really.

I keep seeing things men have done being spoken about and things like: a man behaved like a Karen, he was a right Karen, this Karen dude, a man was being a Karen etc.

It’s basically the new runs like a girl/throws like a girl/screams like a girl/cries like a girl but for grown ups.

yes you're right the race angle doesnt translate in the same way at all stillathing

in the UK its very much a stereotype about middle aged lower middle class women who fret and fuss what men/young women think are stupid things like crappy service or being patronised.

the endless stuff on social media about the "karens" buyng all the loo roll and hand santiser was a classic example. in nearly all the photos i saw it was couples or men with loaded up trolleys but it's 'Karen' who gets the blame.

I do as it's my name (49) and I wouldn't dream of acting the way any of these memes say I do!

@rufflecrow, my dd whose name is very 2003 has friends called julie, karen and susan. Altho susan is chinese. These are 17 year old girls! But there are all the usual isabellas and amelias too

I don't think it's really intended as a reflection on the name, other than it's associated with a particular demographic.

But that kind of demographic typing is often not very transferable. It's interesting that in the US it seems related to being particularly dismissive of minority women. Here in Canada a Karen would be white but I don't think it would have that particular association.

More that Karen has more of a likelihood to talk down and be dismissive to people of different ethnicities (non whites). Thats a trait that usually manifests itself in older people.
Even if we were to set aside this neantherthal view of older people, why is there no male equivalent?