Using a name meant to paint a picture of a suburban white woman is no different than describing someone as a Jamal, Yousef, Goku, Carlucci, Vladimir, Shenequa, Herschel, or Juan. If a news outlet used any of those names to describe a person in a news story they’d be immediately flagged as racist. And yet we see the term used to describe white woman gracing articles on the front page of even the NY Times.
It is. There are plenty of decent people named Karen who do not deserve to have their name appropriated as an insult.
Better to say "entitled jerk" or something similar. That way, the only person you're insulting is whomever you're calling a jerk.
Because it’s tied to behaviour. Stop behaving like an a-hole and you stop being called a Karen.
You can’t stop being black or a woman.
That’s the key difference.
We wouldn't call illegal gardeners a Hernandez, or terrorists from the middle east Mohammeds. Those are behaviors too.
What makes it wrong is picking an ethnic name to associate with that behavior. Karen is a euphemism for suburban, white, female.
The sexist part doesn’t really fit for me either, as we generally reserve insults for genders too. Bitch vs bastard are prime examples.
By the way, the male version of “Karen” in my part of the world is much worse.
This is very much a straw man. If I see a term that is derogatory towards black people, I have every right to object even though I'm not black. And if I see a term that is derogatory towards women, I have every right to object, even though I'm not a woman.
In fact you seem to be claiming, in this case, that you would only ever object to the term "Karen" if you actually have the characteristics that the term refers to. If true, that would simply invalidate the opinion of everyone who objects. But, just like with race and gender, you can object to that term even if its implied meaning genuinely doesn't match your personality type. Especially if you're objecting to the specific term, not to the principle of insulting that personality type.
Edit: to make it a bit more concrete, imagine the term "little black men" had been used instead. Upon objection, you replied "no, no, no, the term term doesn't necessarily refer to actual black men, just people that behave a bit like black men". That is very much what the term "Karen" is like.
Karen isn't derogatory to women, it's only derogatory to Karens. There is no implication that women are all Karens, only that Karens are contemptible.
> In fact you seem to be claiming, in this case, that you would only ever object to the term "Karen" if you actually have the characteristics that the term refers to. But, just like with race and gender, you can object to that term even if its implied meaning genuinely doesn't match your personality type.
Except that race and gender aren't personality types, whereas that's exactly what "Karen" is, and it's just the personality type that would object to the term.
> to make it a bit more concrete, imagine the term "little black men" had been used instead. Upon objection, you replied "no, no, no, the term term doesn't necessarily refer to actual black men, just people that behave a bit like black men". That is very much what the term "Karen" is like.
The analogy to "little black men" would be something like "white female busybodies" which is completely different because it's putting the focus specifically on that race and gender.
I would dispute this point. The term is, at least, derogatory to women who are named Karen -- whether or not they are "Karens".
What you're really doing there is showing why it isn't sexist even though it's implicitly female. The detail is only there for color, not as a core component of the archetype.
You argue that "Karen" doesn't refer to whiteness, the middle-classes or the female gender - it just refers directly to the stereotype and therefore it's OK.
I invite you follow the same logic here.
Consider the stereotype of a gun-toting street gang member. Our prejudices may tell us that person is probably a young black male that lives in a big city. So he gets a name we associate with the young black urban male like "Deshawn" .
The logic is the same, yes?
If you're OK with "there goes Karen calling the cops on the Walmart clerk again", you should be OK with "there goes Deshawn shooting the neighborhood up again".
Are you?
Only a serious level of bigotry would make someone pretend it's not racist or sexist if the word can also mean something else, in this case a simple name. It's what you meant by it and what you associated that with that matters.
It's the same reason calling someone a "fag" is meant as an insult for both that person (even if they are straight), and for homosexuals since you obviously consider this trait of theirs only suitable for an insult. It's an attack both on the people you address it to, and on the ones you based your insult on. Something an uneducated bigot would readily use but never realize why. They usually feel threatened by everything they don't understand or like (different gender, color, sexual or religious orientations) and "weaponize" that as a cover for their own ignorance. ;)
You could argue that Karen was chosen over Steve or Jeff purely by coincidence because obviously 50% of people are female so why shouldn't it be a female name? Actually a technical author I really like, who doesn't like the singular "they", solves the problem by just using the pronoun "she" for every unspecified person ("if the reader doesn't believe this theorem she can check it herself..."), which I think is fantastic... why not use she over he? But the fact this is so surprising is exactly because it is so unusual. It is, sadly, the default, to use male pronouns and names for things, so when a female name comes up it usually has a connotation (although I just gave an exception). Whether you mean it or not, using "Karen" for someone with that type of personality type heavily suggests that women are more likely to be like that.
That is all already true without an additional fact: historically, it is sadly a stereotype that women's opinions are more petty and unimportant than men's. The use of the word "Karen" for someone with unimportant, ill-informed opinions is directly playing into an existing stereotype. And it is totally avoidable.
Suppose I use "Shaq" as a stand in for a generic basketball player. I'm obviously making reference to a specific famous basketball player who happens to be a black man, so is that racist and sexist? Asians can play basketball. Women can play basketball.
It's not chosen at random, it's chosen as an exemplar of the category. The original Karen (from /r/FuckYouKaren) was a real person named Karen.
> historically, it is sadly a stereotype that women's opinions are more petty and unimportant than men's. The use of the word "Karen" for someone with unimportant, ill-informed opinions is directly playing into an existing stereotype. And it is totally avoidable.
I don't think it is avoidable. If using a woman's name is sexist then so would using a man's name. Either way it would cause the reader to be more likely to picture the person with the contemptuous attitude as that gender. But so would not specifying one at all, which we know generally causes people to picture a male. So you have to make a choice one way or the other.
And if it's "fantastic" to select a female in the contexts where the subject is a meritorious student or engineer, sometimes it goes the other way too.
Assuming you mean a negative stereotype, so for example not just a basketball player but one who does it instead of studying academic subjects: then certainly, yes. Imagine someone saying "oh those guys won't have a clue, they're just a bunch of Shaqs". Even if Shaq is the name of a real person, the racist undertone is clear.
> ... so is that ... sexist?
Not so much, maybe borderline, just as Karen is only borderline racist.
> The original Karen (from /r/FuckYouKaren) was a real person named Karen.
I dispute that many people using the term know exactly who that Karen is, and even moreso the people hearing it. To most, it simply sounds like a generic name that white middle-class women are likely to have.
(After a little Google research it seems there actually isn't an original Karen. KnowYourMeme (not exactly a reliable publication but relevant here!) had a few candidates but no clear winner - in fact the main contender was just a bad comedian using it for an unspecific annoying woman. In a post I found on /r/FuckYouKaren itself no one had any ideas. But that's all irrelevant anyway, if people using the term don't know.)
> If using a woman's name is sexist then so would using a man's name. ... And if it's "fantastic" to select a female ... sometimes it goes the other way too.
Actually, by "avoidable" I meant there's no reason to use any name at all. But let's put that aside.
Look, I get it, I honestly do. Equality really means treating people equally, and that means if we're allowed to use a male name as an insult then we ought to be able to use a female one too, right? I actually do think it makes a lot of logical sense.
The problem is that it only makes sense if the current base line is men and women already being treated equally - then adding extra opportunities, compliments and even insults equally would preserve equality. In practice, current societal norms are absolutely flooded with little microagressions that subconsciously make men and even women themselves think of women as somehow less important than men. I remember a very awkward encounter at a team building exercise where a colleague (actually a fantastically nice guy) jokingly let me go first at something with a cheeky "ladies first" comment, only to realise a female colleague was actually nearby (near enough to cause a bit of confusion!). Note that one woman jokingly accusing another of being a man would never be an insult, even jokingly.
Yes I realise there's the odd extreme feminist that genuinely thinks men are less important or worthwhile than women (e.g. those that say that men accused of sexual assault by women should be assumed guilty). But those numbers are absolutely dwarfed by men who think less of women. In that context, your idea (allowing insults that reinforce stereotypes against women in the name of equality) does not make sense.
I think it would be more like calling a random middle eastern terrorist a Mohammed.
If you haven't suffered the Karens, you might be a Karen...
When could society ever be characterized by an ethos of "let's tolerate people"? ISTM that now anyone might receive for criticism for objectionable behavior, not just poor black young men.
Yet now, it seems all sorts are labeling people based upon sex, colour, ethnic background, etc. It is, quite literally, the definition of sexual, racial, age discrimination. It is linking "external characteristic" with "way a person acts".
I don't care what anyone's political stance is, but if you are using terms like 'Karen', you are 100% contributing to sexism, racism, etc.
Just call someone what they are. "Asshole" has worked fine for millennia.
0. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/891177904/whats-in-a-karen
The above NPR, states that a Karen is a new label, started in the 2010s (which is just last year, even). It also shows how the Karen label is different from other, prior labels.
It delineates how a Becky is different, a "Miss Ann" is different.
We've historically had labels like this for people, which are racially linked. But this is 2020, this is a NEW label, and other NEW labels keep popping up.
We need to collectively STOP this. No more racist, sexist, ageist, anything-ist labels. It's all wrong.
(Not saying you were defending label use... just clarifying my position)
Slurs are not new. And as I mentioned, what you showed were not Karens, but 'white women who act poorly in certain ways'.
"Kaben" has unique connotations, a specific meaning. While I agree that "white women have had slurs" before 'Karen', I'm going to have to disagree that it's germane here.
"Asshole" is as common as salt in our everyday language, but "Karen" is the spice.
Except that Karens and assholes are different. Karens can be assholes, sure, but a Karen is a specific type of asshole. Football hooligans may be assholes but they're generally not Karens. It means something different, and there isn't another word that means the same thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
A lot of these terms link specific behaviour, to specific ethnic/sex/cultural groups. I guess they're OK too?
I find it utterly disgusting, that some people think some things are 'one way'. That racism is OK, but only "one way". Sexism is OK, but only against men. The list goes on.
Let's see how long you last, if you see a lazy black person (they exist, like lazy people exist everywhere)... and you spout out "Bluegum!" Is that OK?
No?
Then why is it OK with 'Karen'?
You'd don't cure social ills by creating more of them.
"An eye for an eye, leaves the whole world blind." is highly accurate, I think.
Maybe you're seen this. I haven't, and many people seem to have the specific definitions listed above.
Well then it's a good thing that it can.
> Let's see how long you last, if you see a lazy black person (they exist, like lazy people exist everywhere)... and you spout out "Bluegum!" Is that OK?
That is a racial slur. Its meaning is defined by race.
A Karen is defined by behavior.
Blaming the disappearance of tiny businesses in residential neighborhoods by saying "It's all those middle class white women" seems both very shallow and specious.