New Meghan Murphy article - Karen

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

This article really got to me.

Misogyny is now so progressive - that you are not doing it right if you don’t utterly destroy women’s lives.

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/06/23/the-karen-becky-meme-has-officially-gone-too-far/?fbclid=IwAR0JtpW919H2BYiboGFsqBqmE6A13c3bxiSA0YHyYC5X0Ec0XAvWBpR4zgA

50p Tuesday at Bennetts!! Omg!!

Unless Mumsnet has masses of male members women who criticise the meme on her are piled upon by other women.

Mumsnet definitely does have male members. But women can act misogynistically, too - 'complicit in their own oppression', is a relevant term, I suppose.

As for Glasgow pubs, I do miss the Woodside pool hall.

And I chose my name thinking no one would get the reference.

@ClattyPat

And I chose my name thinking no one would get the reference.

That has made me proper laugh!!!

Ha! Nae luck, Clatty!

@SunsetBeetch

Excellent article. But; is Meghan correct about the origin of the Karen meme? I thought it originally was used by black women for a specific type of racist white woman? Happy to be corrected though.

You are correct.

It's such a mystery why certain men took on a black womens meme so enthusiastically .

Thank goodness society is now on the side of the black woman.

The Karen meme has become an outlet for a lot of male rage, I think. So much easier to dump on women for microaggressions rather than tackling the life-threatening aggression of men who are rapists and murders. I recall one case of a White female police officer, Amber Guyger, who shot and killed a Black man, Botham Jean, in his own home (she went into the wrong apartment when coming home off duty, thought he was a burglar and shot him) and she was fired immediately, convicted of murder and jailed for 10 years. No question, she absolutely deserved to go to jail but there are White male officers who have shot and killed Black men just like she did and they are still on their jobs, protected by their buddies and the male patriarchal power structure.

It’s so easy to attack and laugh at women, whatever our race, when men still hold most of the power in society.

"No 'Karens'" sounds like a great policy for anywhere planning to give bad customer service.

Women insisting on being given the same standards of service as any other customer are frequently called Karens.

Every study ever conducted on consumer complaint demographics and who actually "asks for the manager" discovers the unsurprising truth: men do it more, across all racial divides. Men.

This is like when women are told they "dominate" a conversation as soon as they take up 1/3 of the words. Women were expected to be gracious and submissive for a very long time, and any hint of women actually acting like they're equal to men is to be slapped down immediately with a new label, preferably with some woke gibberish tied in so that the leftists can conveniently use the same exact labeling that conservative, white MRAs from divorced men websites do.

Please note: I come in peace!

I like to think that I am aware of, and empathetic with social issues. I was born female and identify with that, and I am completely for gender and sex equality.

I have read into it a bit, and I really do not understand why the term Karen is seen as offensive? While I agree that it was completely wrong for that woman to be called out on twitter for apparently flipping off and using racial slurs, personally I have found the Karen meme amusing.

I thought that being a "Karen" is being a privileged person (male or female) who complains unreasonably in a customer service kind of situation. Unreasonably being the key word here! And honestly I don't understand who that is offensive to?

I really am not trying to start some kind of argument here, I would just like for someone who finds the word "Karen" offensive to explain it to me so that I can understand from someone else's perspective

Karen's aren't male. They're middle aged women. Read this thread and all the others to find out why it'd offensive

Beni1993 Have you actually read the thread? Plenty of explanation on here. It started out as a fairly amusing meme, perhaps, but has morphed into something different entirely.

@Beni1993

Please note: I come in peace!

I like to think that I am aware of, and empathetic with social issues. I was born female and identify with that, and I am completely for gender and sex equality.

I have read into it a bit, and I really do not understand why the term Karen is seen as offensive? While I agree that it was completely wrong for that woman to be called out on twitter for apparently flipping off and using racial slurs, personally I have found the Karen meme amusing.

I thought that being a "Karen" is being a privileged person (male or female) who complains unreasonably in a customer service kind of situation. Unreasonably being the key word here! And honestly I don't understand who that is offensive to?

I really am not trying to start some kind of argument here, I would just like for someone who finds the word "Karen" offensive to explain it to me so that I can understand from someone else's perspective

Read these:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3916981-To-be-bummed-to-be-Karen

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3860225-Please-can-we-talk-about-using-the-name-Karen-as-an-insult

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3877597-Do-you-find-the-term-meme-Karen-an-insult

@hypernormal yes I did read the thread, I was still confused as my understanding of the term "Karen" seems to be different to what is discussed, just trying to learn more!
@raspran thank you! Will have a read

@ScrimpshawTheSecond

Unless Mumsnet has masses of male members women who criticise the meme on her are piled upon by other women.

Mumsnet definitely does have male members. But women can act misogynistically, too - 'complicit in their own oppression', is a relevant term, I suppose.

As for Glasgow pubs, I do miss the Woodside pool hall.

The term often used describe this is ‘internalised misogyny’

Your confusion comes from the fact that you don’t see ‘Karen’ as a gendered term Beni1993. You seem to think it’s being used to refer to anyone, male or female but ‘Karen’ is a woman’s name and I’ve only ever seen the Karen meme used to deride White women over 35.

Then again if you don’t believe in sex-based oppression of women, or don’t believe in ‘woman’ as an identity rooted in biological sex and adhere to the ideology that binary sex is a figment of all our imaginations then that would explain why you don’t see the ‘Karen’ men as problematic.

It struck me how this 'Karen' thing is being used as a weapon against GC feminists.

I'm a member of a gender critical group elsewhere on the net, and recently there's been constant discussions about 'Karen'. We get some people claiming that 'Karen' is used purely for racist white women, or at worst is no different to 'Becky', 'Chad', and insults used for other races like 'Fatima' and 'Lingling'. These may be genuine posters, but when you look at their past contributions to the group they tend to be new, and either questioning GC thought or over-the-top enthusiastic. Whatever their intention, they're breaking up group solidarity by introducing this racial element, and it really isn't helpful.

I'm in that same group NotTerfNorCis and I agree entirely

Ugh, I hate it

DH read an article a few weeks back about this, and asked me (knowing I Have Views) if I thought it was sexist

I said yes, sexist and ageist

15yo DD scoffed and said rather dismissively that it's just about entitled ppl complaining in shops. I just told her I've worked in many shops and cafes since before she was born, and (a) the vast majority of customers are perfectly nice, and (b) shitty customers come in all ages, shapes, sizes, colours and both sexes. But there is only a dismissive, dehumanising, silencing meme for one type of person

And that is the same type of person as has been silenced and dehumanised since forever. It's not a fucking coincidence is it

Since 'Karen' is a way of shutting down mature women, it won't be long before it's applied to women of all races anyway.

It’s dehumanising and misogynistic. People who think it’s just a funny meme are not seeing the bigger picture.

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/06/23/the-karen-becky-meme-has-officially-gone-too-far/?fbclid=IwAR0JtpW919H2BYiboGFsqBqmE6A13c3bxiSA0YHyYC5X0Ec0XAvWBpR4zgA

Try actually being middle aged and called Karen, it's utterly depressing.

Same

'Inn Deep' at Kelvinbridge. Misogynist arses. Karen's a very common name in Scotland.

Well then, it needs a whole Karen army to descend on said Inn Deep and complain to it's manager. Women not called Karen could identify as 'Karen' for the day!

@NotTerfNotCis agree with that completely. I got called a Karen yesterday on Twitter by a 30ish bearded American dude on a JKR tweet where he told her to shut up. He couldn’t respond to me with anything other than ‘OK Karen‘. I have no profile pic or information on my bio about age or sex and my user name gives nowt away. So ‘Karen’ was purely on the assumption I was a woman on a JKR tweet.