Owen Jones on Twitter today

[Bouledeneige]

twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1260134887165739009?s=21

A tweet that middle class people should pay their cleaner to not work quickly descended into 'rich women paying poor women to clean their homes.' So frustrating the casual sexism. Why is it assumed women are responsible for cleaning their homes and not men. Most working women who can afford a cleaner do so because they have 3 jobs - their work, their childcare and their household. Why aren't the men they are married to taking more household responsibility?

Women know your place.

But to your point - that white men have hijacked the term isn't really my problem or my fault to fix.
That wasn't quite my point though. My point was that you seem far more annoyed (and forgive me but some of your posts do sound annoyed) at women here than you are at misogynistic men. And so what I'm curious about is why they seem to get an easier ride?

That is a pretty good description of the way non-black left wing British people are using it, though. They've appropriated it so it now means something other than the privilege connotations the original term referenced.

Of course this isn't yours or any other black person's problem or fault: that is a separate issue from the criticisms being true. The fact that black women are even being dragged into this is a direct consequence of the poor behaviour and stupidity of white British people. Black people have ended up with more intellectual labour due to white fuckery, all because the identitarian British left seems to have given up on class analysis and doesn't care about misogyny.

And fwiw I have a pretty substantial problem with the way in which criticism of the ageism and sexism in the British context from British feminists hasn't made nearly clear enough the way in which the original term described racism, too.

Vlad are you unable to describe the characteristics of a Karen?

Flo The two are not mutually exclusive. The thread evolved somewhat to discussing Karens - I don't for one second believe that there aren't men out there using Karen as a means to silence women but they are misappropriating the term. I as a mixed race woman recognise that there is a certain type of white woman that makes my existence a lot more harder than it really has to be and behaves in micro/macro-aggressive ways which is distinctly different from misogynistic men. Therefore call that type of behaviour pattern whatever you like - even before I'd ever heard of the Karen-meme the pattern of behaviour to describe a particular woman existed.

What are the characteristics of a Karen? You must be able to describe it.

Looking at the urban dictionary definition again (I realise urban dictionary is not a definitive reference, but it is apparently good enough to get a Guardian link), about half of the references to 'Karen' seem to be complaints about women getting parental custody. Its very clear who has taken control of the term.

I understand that 'Karen' and 'Becky' once referred to women similar to those described in this article.

www.vox.com/first-person/2018/5/30/17406092/racial-profiling-911-bbq-becky-living-while-black-babysitting-while-black

Perhaps the men making complaints were also heavily memed, but it seems that the internet only took notice of the terms that could be used to silence women.

Flo In all honesty I made a mistake venturing on this topic because I really don't speak about race anymore or do the intellectual gymnastics to explain / justify myself and the particular struggles I face as a WOC to white women. I find it leaves me pretty much exhausted because invariably the discussion will lead to white women being the victim or something about white privilege not existing because someone will pop up to say they grew up in a sink estate with a tin of beans between all 10 members of their family therefore white privilege isn't a thing... This isn't my first time at the rodeo.

I mean just look at the recent posts demanding that I explain what a Karen is and must be able to describe their characteristics. I could write chapter and verse about it but the information is out there - indeed it has been covered on this very thread. Ya see! :)

Seems odd that you don’t want to take this opportunity. I’m keen to learn what a Karen is.

I think the links I posted explain who was originally referenced by 'Karen'. Is it sexist? Maybe, but I am grateful that if my 16 year old son goes for a run, nobody will assume that he is running away from something.

However, in internet land the original meaning has been lost.

Pretty sure OJ pays poor women - badly - to make his clothes for him. In fact almost every aspect of his life will be dependent on the labour of others. That's what modern economies look like.

Why does monetizing this aspect of women's traditional work upset him so much? He's really keen on commodifying and monetizing women providing sexual and reproductive services. Prostitution and baby farming are go go go in his nasty little misogynistic book.

So why not cleaning? Is it perhaps not so much that some women are getting paid for providing cleaning services, as that others are managing not to provide them for free?

And of course in the UK a lot of cleaners work for themselves, so there aren't the layers of men creaming off profit as in the prostitution and surrogacy businesses leftist men so admire.

Vlad you said it is great to finally have a catch-all term to describe a particular type of person. It’s not that surprising that people might be interested to know more about what type of person you’re using the term to describe. Right now I don’t know what you’re referring to so if you don’t want to explain then I assume you’re not interested in communicating anything to me or other women who don’t know what you mean by using the term. Do you intend to use it as in-group language that I’m not supposed to understand?

Prostitution and baby farming are go go go in his nasty little misogynistic book.

He’s all up for women ‘sucking dick for socialism’ too.

“that there is a certain type of entitled white woman who really goes out of her way sometimes intentionally sometimes accidentally to make life absolutely unnecessarily difficult for black and WOC.“

That’s not how I’ve seen it used. So If that behaviour gets a whole name, meme etc - what is the name given to men who harass, intimidate, threaten, beat, rape and kill women - black, white or whatever?

Vlad
Ok. If you do decide you want to discuss it I would be interested.

I'd be interested in vlad's point of view.

From something I remember reading, a Karen was originally used to describe a certain type of white women who talks down to people of colour? To be honest, all those misogynist Karen memes for me carry an intrinsic assumption that the Karen who is the ridiculous obnoxious soccer mom is probably ALSO racist. But maybe that's just my take?

I find it leaves me pretty much exhausted because invariably the discussion will lead to white women being the victim or something about white privilege not existing because someone will pop up to say they grew up in a sink estate with a tin of beans between all 10 members of their family therefore white privilege isn't a thing... This isn't my first time at the rodeo.

I completely agree with this. And it drives me mad. There's a real lack of understanding of what white privilege is. In our extended family there's a white man who had a very tough start in life. It has impacted everything about who he is. At some point, while homeless, he got a hand extended to him but he never went beyond that. I struggle to believe that a black teenager in the same situation would have received the same hand. Or that 20 years later that black teenager, having achieved nothing, would be viewed with the same sympathy he is.

Of course white privilege exists.

However, in the context of feminism, any kind of privilege is used as an excuse to justify sexism. Equality can only be tolerated up to the point where women are a threat, and then they must know their place.

Heaven forbid that a 'middle class white professional' woman should speak up about inequality - where would that leave middle class white professional men?

Owen Jones is on The Jeremy Vine show (channel 5 ) tomorrow discussing whether people should pay cleaners during the lockdown. Might be interesting.

I can’t stand Jeremy or Owen. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.

.. Heaven forbid that a 'middle class white professional' woman should speak up about inequality...

Some fuckwit would call her a karen..

It seems pretty clear to me that it’s not good to make a cleaner come to your house during the pandemic. It was gross to see lots of people who employ cleaners logon to say how much their cleaner loves cleaning for them - David Baddiel and Philip Hensher both did this and Janice Turner claimed something along the lines of cleaners “deriving meaning” from cleaning houses. I don’t like I see employers rhapsodising about how much their employees love working for them - it seems like projection, in the same way it does when clients of sex workers log on to twitter to talk about how the worker they see really enjoys their time together. And obviously everything that that happens on twitter is performance to some extent, but I thought it was a striking contrast that on the one hand, SD immediately wrote an article for some hard-right woman-hating rag about the kerfuffle, and OJ shared a link to a hardship fund for domestic workers.

I believe the 'right wing, women hating rag' was the Spectator, which, whatever you think of their politics, has been one of the few publications to challenge the TWAW narrative.

My mistake, you didn't call The Spectator 'right wing' - you described them as 'hard right'. I'm afraid that makes it difficult for me to take anything else you say seriously.