Why is it socially acceptable to stereotype and vilify white women as a whole?

[TheTERFnextDoor]

I've seen this a lot recently, often from other white women bizarrely, and I don't understand why it's socially acceptable?

I think it goes without saying that in most groups, you get good and bad people. White women are surely no different in that respect? Yes, many of them are privileged, and they don't face the discrimination that other categories might. I accept that. However, that doesn't change the fact that they aren't some homogeneous mass of people, surely?

I am genuinely trying to learn here, so I'd appreciate all responses, particularly those that disagree

fact tone policing a Black woman speaking truth to power

Nice use of US buzzwords you've got going on there.

The fact that others frequently misuse Karen is what white feminists should be fighting against, not claiming that all uses of Karen are misogyny

The fact that others frequently misuse ‘aggressive black person’ is what black people should be fighting against, not claiming that all uses of ‘aggressive black person’ are racist.

The fact that others frequently misuse ‘money grabbing Jew’ is what Jewish people should be fighting against, not claiming that all uses of ‘money grabbing Jew’ are anti-Semitic.

The fact that others frequently misuse ‘promiscuous gay’ is what gay people should be fighting against, not claiming that all uses of ‘promiscuous gay’ are homophobic.

Some black people are aggressive, but it’s not ok to stereotype all black people.

Some Jewish people are greedy, but it’s not ok to stereotype all Jews.

Some gay people are promiscuous but it’s not ok to stereotype all gay people.

Some white women are racist but…

Im going to call a Karen when I see a Karen.

And I'm going to call out misogyny when I see misogyny.

Karen is a term widely used to call out specifically racist behaviours by entitled privileged women.

@HadalyEve Is it only used with white women thought? If an entitled privileged Asian or Middle Eastern woman demonstrated racist behaviour, would she also be called a Karen? The Prime Minister’s wife, for example is from a family of billionaires and extremely privileged. Would she ever be called a Karen?

If it’s only used to describe white women, why?

*The fact that others frequently misuse Karen is what white feminists should be fighting against, not claiming that all uses of Karen are misogyny because doing so is erasing and silencing the fact that entitled middle class women do act in classist and racist ways towards Black people. It whitewashes every Karen into a victim of misogyny even if she was actually being overtly racist.

I don’t hate women, I don’t accept racist behaviour by women. To say that me calling out racist behaviour by women using the widely accepted and recognised term of “Karen” is being a misogynist is in fact tone policing a Black woman speaking truth to power on the subject of racism. Im going to call a Karen when I see a Karen.*

I agree with this.

Except Karen was a misogynistic slur BEFORE it was used to describe racist women. It was originally used to pile hatred on middle aged women who divorced their husbands. We keep telling you, and you keep ignoring this.

Making women responsible for the abuse against them, isn't just misogyny, it's classic DARVO - "she made me do it (with her lethal white tears)".

"White women, if you weren't so racist in ways that I have been unable to demonstrate, misogyny would just vanish away. If anyone misuses Karen, it's your fault".

The reason I know this is because I have had this conversation before. You can do Google searches within time frames, so you can search for uses of Karen within different time periods. One time, I actually took the effort to do this. It actual first popped up in a Nintendo advert with a supposedly annoying female gamer. I’m not going to do the whole research again, but suffice to say, I absolutely KNOW I am right about its origins. Feel free to go out and do the research yourself.

What’s really odd is that “Karen” was a white working class name in the US when it was popular. Privileged middle-class women aren’t called Karen!

In my neck of the woods, it mainly seems to be used by my kids when we get the wrong food brought out in a restaurant. “Please mum, don’t be a Karen.” I’m pretty sure it’s not being racist to say, “Excuse me, do you have any vegetarian sausages, please?”

Meanwhile the woman is shouting “Help me!” “Please help me!!” And “Get off me” (when he’s not even touching her- in fact she pushes on him) and then does a fake crying act- oh she’s done nothing wrong, she’s not trying to get anyone violently attacked for thinking these young Black men are attacking her.*

This I disagree with. She was 6 months pregnant and you can see where they pushed her into the bike. She WAS being harassed.

the fact that entitled middle class women do act in classist and racist ways towards Black people

Well if classism and racism are now confined to middle-class women that is one heck of an improvement on how things used to be.
^^

The reason I know this is because I have had this conversation before. You can do Google searches within time frames, so you can search for uses of Karen within different time periods. One time, I actually took the effort to do this. It actual first popped up in a Nintendo advert with a supposedly annoying female gamer. I’m not going to do the whole research again, but suffice to say, I absolutely KNOW I am right about its origins. Feel free to go out and do the research yourself.

Same here.

If we're going to be US-centric then the brutal reality is at the demographic most risky to black males is other black males. Wealthy white women are pretty far down the list of threats in most people's day to day lives.

What I suspect in reality is a seething resentment from some quarters at a group of women who have amassed a modicum of power and influence for themselves. Please note I am not denying that certain members of that group will have racist views, or even act on them, but once again claiming that it is routine is an extraordinary claim that definitely requires strong evidence, not another paragraph of buzzwords.

If we're going to be US-centric then the brutal reality is at the demographic most risky to black males is other black males. Wealthy white women are pretty far down the list of threats in most people's day to day lives.

Sadly this is very true, @FrostyFifi I did a quick Google and the 2019
FBI stats bear this out.https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

Thank you for this, I've now made the effort to look him up properly. I've just bought his book, Woke Racism. I found this, from the description, remarkable:

According to John McWhorter, the problem is that a well-meaning but pernicious form of antiracism has become, not a progressive ideology, but a religion – and one that's illogical, unreachable, and unintentionally neoracist.

In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of 'white privilege' and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervour of the 'woke mob.' He shows how this religion that claims to 'dismantle racist structures' is actually harming his fellow black Americans by infantilizing black people, setting black students up for failure, and passing policies that disproportionately damage black communities. The new religion might be called 'antiracism,' but it features a racial essentialism that's barely distinguishable from racist arguments of the past.

Anyone who's been around these parts for a while will be feeling a strong sense of deja vu reading that. The parallels with queer theory and trans ideology are uncanny.

I'm now trying to resist also buying several of his books on linguistics that look really interesting.

what I suspect in reality is a seething resentment from some quarters at a group of women who have amassed a modicum of power and influence for themselves.

Of course, because - classically - any group that is oppressed resents the group immediately above it in the hierarchy. Marxist revolutions were obsessed with the petit bourgeoisie and peasant landowners. A big chunk of anti-Semitism is because Jewish people were traditionally of the small trader class, so hated by poorer workers.

These perceptions aren't totally false - white women have, on average, had more social advantages than black women. But the focus is always on the group immediately above, and not the ones with the greatest power: in this case, men. I guess it is human nature to feel more resentment of people who are quite like you but just slightly better off in the pecking order, than those far above you in the hierarchy, with whom you identify less. It's probably also because everyone lower down in the hierarchy (all women in this case) are strongly socialised to defer to, and to appease, those at the top.

Ha ha this is the reality. If you ask for almond milk now you're being a ''karen''. Heaven FORBID you ask for something in particular when you're buying coffees and treats for three people, two of them teenagers.

In my experience, quite often (but not always) people who use the phrase 'speaking truth to power' as though everyone should try it have power themselves, and have a fucking shitting fit if you speak truth to them.

Re John Mc Whorter, not a progressive ideology, but a religion, it's as if that sector of society that has largely ditched religion has refocused its religious fervour, spiritual yearning and need for some higher direction onto all sorts of dubious bullshit which sometimes makes even the nuttier ends of Christianity look positively sensible by comparison.

And these Puritans des nos jours are just as unpleasant as the last lot.

You might have good luck finding some through the library. I really enjoyed "Nine Naughty Words."

He does a podcast with Glen Loury you might find interesting too, it's on youtube,. They cover quite a few topics of interest, but what I think is especially interesting to Brits is that there tends to be an assumption that American racial politics don't work in the UK because they reflect an American situation. Loury and McWhorter would say that in a lot of cases, they don't reflect what is true in the US either, in fact the narrative they present is often patently false.

It would be better if we kept the original focus which states that the way racism, sexism, classism etc. benefit certain demographic groups and harm others, especially when they are built into the structures of a society (institutional), are about those groups on the overall level, and should be discussed on that level.

If we apply all that to any particular individual, by not focusing on why what she or he is doing is wrong, but by interpreting it as (only) caused by their group membership, then we are using some of the same formulas many sexists and racists use.

Re John Mc Whorter, not a progressive ideology, but a religion, it's as if that sector of society that has largely ditched religion has refocused its religious fervour, spiritual yearning and need for some higher direction onto all sorts of dubious bullshit which sometimes makes even the nuttier ends of Christianity look positively sensible by comparison.

Agreed. Most sectors of society in the west have largely ditched religion. I'm glad about that but it does leave us all extremely susceptible to this kind of stuff. We've evolved to be religious animals, just like we've evolved to be animals with language and cooking and music.

It would be good if we could somehow find ways of doing the good bits of religion - sense of community, sense of awe, shared moral code etc. while ditching the bad bits - authoritarianism, dangerously batshit ideologies, persecution of heretics etc. but I fear the bad bits might be as equally baked in to human psychology as the good bits. Hence we do this to ourselves, over and over again.

I've tried a couple of the podcasts but I find them difficult to follow because they presume a level of knowledge about what's happening in the US that I just don't have.

I've got my eyes on The Language Hoax which appears from the description to drive a coach and horses through at least the strong version of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis. This is kind of relevant to this discussion because the S-W hypothesis says that the structure of a language determines a native speaker's perception and categorisation of the world ('Eskimos have a hundred words for snow' etc.) It's a massive plank underpinning standpoint theory and cultural relativism, and more widely, all these postmodern theories: the idea that language creates reality.

I'm also interested in The Creole Debate for less relevant reasons.

AFAIR, DemiColon, there are also also 15+ years of The Glenn Show on the original platform, blogginheads, with McWhorter, and others. Great stuff.