Woman’s Name as Target
A light-skinned woman, somewhere between 30 and 50, is captured on video having a disagreement with a grocery store manager. It’s getting a bit heated. The woman loudly and repeatedly insists that the manager is wrong and should give her a refund on whatever it is she doesn’t like. You can hear the person videotaping saying to their companion, “What a Karen.”
We don’t know the context within which this captured, and probably viral, video took place. If a video clearly shows someone doing something wrong, there’s a reason to be angry. There’s justification for calling them out on their truly shitty behavior. But these videos aren’t always that obvious. Where many videos on Twitter show this same demographic throwing food, yelling about not wanting to wear a mask, or being bigoted, the one in the scenario shows none of that. Yet, she, like all the others, is a Karen. Why? Because she is making a scene.
She — is making a scene.
They say anyone can be a Karen, but that’s just not true. Only women can.
About ten years ago, people woke up to the misogyny of name-calling particularly around the term “bitch.” A man would be assertive. A woman who spoke up — with or without increased volume — was a bitch. There is no masculine equivalent to bitch, by the way. Sure, you’ll still see people calling other people “bitch,” but in these last ten years or so, the wide world of memes changed the game. Enter the personal pronoun.
Now, I’m going to stop for a second and attempt to save myself a headache later. If you have even an inkling about where I’m headed with this argument, you might be ruffling your feathers in preparation for a fight.
Karen. Becky. Sharon. Chad. Odds are, people with these names are white. Not always: but usually. Calling someone a name like this in no way equates to the derogatory names used against minority groups. I happen to be a member of a minority group whose derogatory name starts with “k.” Only because I pass as white, I have experienced white privilege until people have found out my particular minority status. What I am saying is that the vast majority of the name-calling with people’s names as the insult are accepted as female names. And women, as you know, are a protected group. What I’ve written here is not meant to detract from the revolutionary changes going on with black and transgender lives right now. It is, however, to say that we have another group being victimized in the midst of the revolution.
Women are just as guilty of name-calling this way as men are. Why? Because historically women have been raised to believe that they are both inferior and problematic. A woman would call another woman a “bitch” for being assertive and taking a promotion that “should have” gone to the first woman. So it goes for today’s Karens. Women are perpetuating the idea that women shouldn’t stand up for themselves just as much as men are.
This isn’t just about using a proper noun as an insult. This isn’t just about the fact that name-calling is the number one form of bullying, and that lots of women named Karen are actually suffering from anxiety and depression simply because of their names. There are two other, very significant, problems with continuing down this frankly juvenile road that is so vastly spread across social media.
The first is dis-empowerment of women. Yes, these would be mostly white women. But they are women, nonetheless. Take that woman in the scenario above. She could be any woman in this particular demographic. She could be just about anywhere. And now, if she feels that the waiter brought her the wrong dish, or that the idiot who hit her parked car should pay for the damages, or that her child isn’t receiving the special education services that child needs, she has to consider whether to leave it alone or risk being called out, out of context on social media if someone happens to have their phone. And that is contrary to the whole notion of female empowerment.
I’m on Twitter. Probably too much. Several weeks ago, I was reading a thread about a bunch of white women holding signs about wanting to get their hair cut after weeks of COVID-19 isolation. I posted my agreement that these women were being selfish and whatnot, but I also replied to someone who called them a bunch of Karens, asking if they would please not use the name as an insult. The reply: “Okay, Karen.”
(And now I hear many of you laughing. But guess what? You’re laughing at “disparaging humor.” Minorities are targets of this kind of humor a whole lot. Women have been targets through the ages as well. It’s a form of prejudice. It’s demeaning. And actually, it’s not funny. But memes are supposed to be funny, and yet, when you laugh at it, you are contributing to the continuation of discrimination.)
Without knowing at all what happened to lead up to some confrontation that ends up on social media, this demographic of women are the potential targets of online firestorms: aggressive, insulting, sometimes threatening barrages of commentary from users who feel safe behind their computer monitors or smartphones to attack ruthlessly and often without anonymity.
It’s like most humans just need to have someone to hate. There must be an “other” to put down. And no group is innocent of this behavior.
Here’s the second problem.
There’s an entire social media/internet culture where calling people Karen, for example, is accepted as a “thing” people do. It’s not like they’re using the “n” word or the “k” word. It’s just a name, right? These are teenagers now. Kids who grew up with social media, phones in their hands, and few (if any) neighborhood playmates.
Imagine a group of those people are waiting in line at a coffee shop. Behind them is a mom and her 10 year-old daughter named Karen. Young Karen isn’t on social media yet.
Karen waits behind the group of teenagers, who in rapid-fire conversation badmouth a “Karen” from a video. The details aren’t important, but what the little girl hears is them laughing. “Stupid Karen wouldn’t shut up.” “Karen got her ass handed to her.” “Karen gone wild!” “Don’t be a Karen.”
In this case, whoever was in the video may very well have been doing some awful things. But that doesn’t matter. For that little girl named Karen, she was just told that simply because of her name, she could be a bad person.
And what if Mom asks the teenagers to stop using her daughter’s name? Might they say, “Whatever, Karen”? What if that is the response? If I were that mom, I’d let lose on them. Then I’d probably end up on Twitter, labeled a Karen.
This little girl has been negatively affected by a meme culture she doesn’t even know about.
What if the next targeted name is yours? Or your child’s? Or another young loved one’s? Do you just ignore it? What will you say to your young loved one who is now a victim of bullying?
We would all be better off calling horrible people assholes. Anyone can be an asshole, and everyone can get behind calling assholes out on their shit.
