For any woman reading this named Karen, I deeply apologise that you are once again being made reference to by proxy. However, I've been seeing this topic float around for a while now and I figured I might as well try to add my input that no one asked for. Apparently, the "Karen" meme is now a slur and is sexist and classist towards "outspoken" upper class women. We'll get to that in a bit, but the mere fact that it's being referred to as a "slur" kinda caught me off guard and now I feel like I have to talk about it. Now of course this proclamation is jetted out by TERFs so it's not hard to see why no one takes it seriously, so I wanna give a more in-depth look and see if the Karen meme really is offencive to women.
Right off the bat, what exactly entails a "Karen", beyond just being named such? According to its common usage on the net, a "Karen" is described as normally a white middle-aged blonde woman with a short haircut and is somewhere in the middle class and often married with kids. That's as far as stereotypical appearances go, anyway. "Karens" are defined as entitled people, usually white, who treat service workers like shit and follow pseudoscience (see also: anti-vax mum, which I'll get to as well) or vote Republican. You've probably met someone like this before, I know I have, maybe "Karen" is just the perfect word, or name, to describe them, as if just has that ring to it. Although it is a caricature of a woman, "Karen" is sometimes used as a gender neutral insult, like being a Karen is a mentality in the same vein that "boomer" is.
Now that you have a decent idea of what a Karen is, let's talk about whether or not it's sexist or classist. I'm gonna deal with the classism aspect first because I have no bloody idea how anyone beyond an uber-privileged white person could even come to that conclusion. Like, classist towards upper class women? Really? I'm not gonna pretend that classism against upper class women doesn't exist, such as no one believing a woman can be rich or financially well off without sleeping her way to wealth or some other easy-come-easy-go means, but this is far from any conceivable classism I can detect. Firstly, I can promise you I'm probably richer than like 75% of these Karens you've come across (I'm just throwing numbers around so don't think too hard on that). Second, if you're attempting to garner sympathy for the upper class, you're failing miserably. No one's gonna leak a solitary tear for some upper class toerags who happened to be distraught over simple name calling. That's pretty insulting to lower income people who actually do face classism on the regular don't you think? Oh of course not, you're the people engaging in said classism anyway, not that you care.
Now onto the sexism aspect of this. I probably have one of the most unpopular opinions on the subject but here goes nothing: I actually do believe there's a scoop of sexism to be had within this meme. Like I mentioned earlier, Karen is a caricature of a woman, and it'd be remiss of me as a feminist to not call attention to how a caricature of a woman is being used as a common insult. The parallel between calling a man a Karen and telling a man he hits like a girl is noticeable if you really think about, cuz in either vein you're saying he's acting like a woman and that itself is a huge problem. As for the outspoken woman part, I don't think this is valid. Karen originally means someone who is rude to service workers, and feminism definitely does not encourage women being needlessly hostile in the name of empowerment. I will be 100% fair and say I'm aware of the male equivalents of Karen, such as Kyle and Chad, who are misogynistic caricatures of men, but I've seen way more variants of Karen and it's definitely the more invoked. I think what really makes the sexism of the Karen meme stand out to me is that personally, I've seen WAY more men act like Karens than women (even women named Karen to boot) so it almost feels like it projects men's behaviour onto women, something that's happened time and time again and still happens. This ties into my issue with the "anti-vax mum" stereotype, since Karens are also used to refer to anti-vaxers. The whole "vaccines cause autism" bollocks was started by a man, but anti-vax women are almost always shoved into the forefront and unwittingly furthers the stereotype that women are stupid and don't belong in science (thereby leading to them being gatekept from STEM fields fyi).
With all that said, do I think Karen is a slur? The answer is no. It is the last thing from it. For one thing, if it was, then every woman named Karen is a raging bigot. Second, whilst I don't want to devalue how harmful it can get if it's used more prevalently, at present, it doesn't cause lasting damage. Sure, I'll probably roll my eyes/groan if I were to see it on my news feed, but it isn't as harsh as being called a "bitch" or a "cunt". And for that reason, I think we as feminists can pick our battles a bit more wisely. Our plate's overflowing as it is, we don't need to add anymore side dishes when this one can be saved for later.
...And now I'm hungry. Bugger.
