Anonymous
06/07/21 at 7:25PM UTC
Commented on 05/27/21 -
Does anyone work w/a "karen" of the world???If you do not behave like this, great, but the *term* Karen is not a reflection on people who are *named* Karen. People know the difference, and every woman named Karen who I know (there are 5) sees the *term* as separate from the *name*. Not a single one feels mocked, ridiculed, or silenced. They are simply not that fragile and are intelligent enough to know the difference.
Using a name as a term is not new, but it is usually focused on non-white people and has been historically seen as an acceptable, even if frowned upon, use. While it may be annoying, Karen as a term is a statement of bad behavior. When people refer to an entire group based on ethnicity, not behavior (a la Jose/Maria for Latinx, Jamal/Shaniqua for Black) it is intended quite differently than behavior. It's not a stretch to see why. Recognize the difference and educate yourself... being fragile is not acceptable anymore.
Anonymous
01/10/24 at 8:37PM UTC (Edited)
Personally, I like the name Karen.
When we were planning what to name our daughter, this name was on our list. We had a large list Girl Names https://creativenomenclature.com/baby-name/ and tried to research as much information about each one as possible. Since each name has its own meaning.
Anonymous
06/08/21 at 12:52AM UTC
Perhaps you know the difference, but most people do not, especially on the internet. If it's really about the behavior and not the name, why are high-profile white male mouthpieces like Jimmy Kimmel and John Pavlovitz, and Dane Cook before them, making careers and money off ridiculing the name as part of their act? Why does such glee surround the alleged "extinction" of the name for baby girls? Why are parents who are thinking of naming their child Karen after a beloved relative being accused of child abuse?
I'm glad that the people named Karen that you know aren't bothered by the fad, but they aren't representative. Some women named Karen are having a hard enough time with seeing their name equated with everything they hate and fear that they need support groups. Some girls named Karen are being bullied at school. Retail workers with name tags that read "Karen" are getting harassed at work.
Names are personal. They are a part of a person's identity. It has traditionally been considered important in business to learn your client's names and to address people by name. Teachers too need to get their students' names right. Even babies and people in comas respond in a heightened way to the sound of their own names. The "term" and the name are spelled and pronounced exactly the same. The limbic system of the brain cannot and does not parse these esoteric distinctions you are trying to force.
The behavior deserves to be called out. The high-profile racist women who exhibit the behavior you are describing are named Amy Cooper, Patricia McCloskey, Miya Ponsetto, and others. A partial list of people exhibiting this reprehensible behavior can be found here: https://stopsayingkaren.blogspot.com/2020/09/these-are-names-of-your-so-called-karens.html
Not one of them is named Karen. Calling them by someone else's name is lazy journalism and allows them to hide and escape accountability.
This has been a terrible year for everyone, with the pandemic, social isolation, people losing their jobs, climate change, the country divided by racism and more. People named Karen are just ordinary people, trying to get through this like everybody else. In such a year, ordinary people's mental health is going to be fragile, whether or not you think it is acceptable.
I continue to educate myself, and my education teaches me that kindness and compassion are a better response than name-calling.
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