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

Huh? Never heard this.

Karen is a common Scandinavian derived name and prevalent in the Midwest for about a hundred years-in places largely settled by Scandinavian immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century. Variant spelling is Karin.

There are plenty of examples of prejudice rather than racism being directed at Black people. I’d never disagree with that since prejudice is obviously not always related to race. It’s a set of beliefs which are usually formed because you don’t know enough about the thing/person you are prejudiced against. My Black gay friend has faced prejudice because of his sexuality both from within the Black community and from other races.

The example I gave of the Asian man giving a ‘dirty look’ to the white woman was simply to point out that this might have nothing to do with her race. If a white man gave a white woman a dirty look that wouldn’t be because of her race so why can’t the same be true for anyone else?

None of this detracts from my original opinion regarding the difference between racism and prejudice. Based on the definition of racism I described, white people cannot be the victims of it in this country. They are not oppressed by any other racial group.

But if you think they can be/are - that’s fine!

Rambling before I go to bed - the weakest versions of the S-W hypothesis hold some water. Apparently in Russian there is a word for light blue and a word for dark blue but no word for just blue. Apparently Russian brains also show a greater ability to distinguish between light and dark when looking at blue things. No shit, human brains are extremely plastic.

But it's always about the minutiae of colour perception or something like that. It's never about really basic categories like male or female. Every single one of our ancestors, regardless of race, geography or culture, managed to work out those categories, at least well enough to have sex and leave offspring.

I think this focus on homicide is setting a rather high bar for measuring the impact of racism on someone's life.

I only brought it up in response to the suggestion that middle class white women were regularly and deliberately behaving in a way that risked black men's lives.

It is, @Spendonsend , but it does lead back to the theory that middle aged white women are being stereotyped and vilified because they’re relatively harmless. They’re seldom perpetrators of violence, for example, so people feel they can say anything to them/about them.

If someone used the Karen slur to a man’s face, what do you think might happen?!

Yeah, he absolutely does not think it's a credible theory. I hadn't ever connected it to postmodern theories, now that you've said it though it seems obvious it would be, I might have to go back and re-listen to some of the podcasts where he talks about it.

Violence is one possibility, men will sometimes take that route in conflicts.

Though I think there would be a very real likelihood in that particular example of the guy just laughing or rolling his eyes and walking away. Which is why people are less likely to use that kind of manipulation towards men.

Women seem much more likely to take it personally or take it seriously.

It's one area where I think many women could profitably adopt the male attitude, just brush that shit off and forget about it.

@DemiColon We do overthink things sometimes!

True, but that’s because men don’t pay a heavy social price for not being kind.

Women need to push back against this racist stereotyping, though. We have seen with gender ideology what happens if we don’t.

women could profitably adopt the male attitude, just brush that shit off and forget about it.

It has real word implications.

For example, I know a woman, an American- (and in the name of oppression olympics, a Hispanic American woman), really devout Christian and generous person, thinking of others always. She was talking about a situation where she was being treated unfairly and dreaded asserting herself because “They’ll just call me ‘Karen”. The way said “Karen” was with an eyeroll and a tone like ‘tedious, whiney, pain in the backside’.

So in real world terms the word is used to discourage women from setting their own terms, boundaries and expectations.

There are other words to discourage women asserting ourselves eg - bitch

Women as a whole need encouragement to assert ourselves. It’s not easy when it is affectively socially acceptable for people to say “Woman know your place!” which is effectively what is being said when we are called Karen.

Men do not “brush that shit off” at all. I have known men who are really anxious that they are being singled out and passed over for promotion, etc, because they have a Northern, working class background, didn’t go to private school, etc. You may think they are ‘brushing that shit off’, when actually they are styling it out, having their insecurities needled.

@AnalogueFondness I definitely agree that men can suffer from feelings of inadequacy/imposter syndrome etc etc. I do think though that women are more** likely to be influenced by feelings of shame/guilt which is a bit different to lack of confidence. That's why advertising towards women tended to look different to advertising towards men: . Telling women they are terrible people can encourage them to buy stuff. When they tried that shit on men (ironically with both shaving razors and beer) the response was "Fuck Off". And of course I don't like that hugely negging advertising. But they use it because it works.

**obviously this is a huge generalisation

So maybe men are better at pretending this stuff doesn’t bother them, which means that male insecurities are not such open targets to manipulate men with.

There’s the other side too - that there is a collective abhorrence to men looking vulnerable and weak (or anyone of higher social status for that matter). People want to think of ‘those in charge’ of being strong and invulnerable - unfazed. Any sign of weakness and they seem unsuited to their position.

If you had an ad for, say, hair growth shampoo for men, where a bloke was measuring his hairline closely in the mirror, looking almost tearful as it cuts away to his memory of how it looked thicker only last month, followed by him scrolling through his dating apps hitting ‘like’ on loads of women’s profiles on his laptop, then ‘no matches’ appears in a dialogue box, then he holds his head in his hands in despair, only to touch the increasing balding hairline and almost jump with the shock and look really mournful… this vulnerability and weakness would freak everyone out so much they’d switch channels, complain, boycott the brand, etc. It isn’t ‘manly’ to be bothered by things - and it threatens the status quo for everyone for men to admit it.

Yes, the closest is those hair dye adverts and even then there is more of a positive spin. e.g.
I do think maybe this is where women could pick up a few lessons though. There is nothing wrong with men and women being able to express vulnerability or admitting fault/shame or self reflection. But the bad old days of adverts/even society trying to make women feel bad for who they are seem to have been replaced by the even worse days of trying to make everyone feel bad/apologise for existing. Which is a type of equality...

Haven't read the whole thread but a comment above reminded me of Karen Blixen the Danish writer who wrote Out of Africa and many mesmerising tales. She was Karen Christenze Dinesen who married a Swedish baron which is where the Blixen surname came from. She also used the pen name Isak Dinesen.