DANIELLE WOOD
We need to talk about Karen. No, not the obnoxious woman in Bunnings with the phone camera and the colossal chip on her shoulder. I mean the actual Karens of the world.
I am fortunate to have some spectacular Karens in my life: one a wise, warm and deeply conscientious GP, one a talented, big-hearted photographer, one a nature guide with an encyclopaedic knowledge of birds. My godmother — whom my mother appointed to the role when she was just a teenager — is a beautiful Karen.
Their name is a derivation of Katherine, and like all the other derivations of Katherine (Katya, Katrina, Karina), its original meaning is “peace”.
The Karens of today are just women whose parents thought — perhaps back in 1960, when Karen was the third most popular name for Australian girls (after Susan and Jennifer) — that Karen was a name that would carry their girls safely through life.
But here we are in 2020, watching the name Karen turn into public pejorative No 1. At this moment in history, the meanings of “Karen” — none of them good — are mutating as fast as a virus.
You’re called a Karen when you think you’re too special to follow the rules, but also when you officiously remind other people that they should follow the rules. You’re a Karen if you argue with salespeople and ask for the manager. Anti-vaxxers are Karens. And, most complexly, you’re a Karen if you’re a racist white woman of a certain age who uses her privilege to threaten and hurt people of colour.
To the actual Karens of the world, I want to say this: Karen, I’m so sorry your name has become a byword for bad behaviour. Maybe, in the beginning, it was harmless and funny. But now it’s starting to feel a little bit out of hand.
“Karen” has become a one-size-fits-toomany-things label. It’s become so complicated that it’s hard to tell whether the Karen phenomenon is having the positive effect of calling out entitlement and racism, or the negative effect of problematising and silencing middle-aged women. Likely, of course, it’s doing both.
There have been people who have entered the debate to claim that being called a Karen is an oppressive slur against white women, and the African-American writer Karen Attiah — speaking as a Karen herself — is right when she says that “calling the Karen meme the new n-word or asserting that it is a sexist slur only trivialises actual violence and discrimination that destroy lives and communities”.
And yet, I cannot help feeling uncomfortable with the Karen thing. On reflection, here’s why.
Labels mean different things to different people, and those meanings depend on an individuals’ experiences and contexts. If you hand the pejorative Karen to a misogynist, he’ll wield it differently to a feminist (who might, actually, just put it away in a locked cupboard for safe-keeping).
You know what I wish? I wish we could just call things by their proper names, because using good, strong, clear language is a pathway to deeper understanding.
A woman refuses to wear a mask in Bunnings and vomits fake legalese all over a trio of very gracious employees, and the social media world calls her “Karen”. I do understand that “Karen” is easier to get your mouth around than ‘”woman with obvious anger issues who needs to deal with them somewhere other than Bunnings”.
However, if we bother to give that woman an accurate name, rather than just slapping the quick and easy label “Karen” on her, then we may begin to comprehend who she is.
I have tried to listen to her tirade all the way through, with compassion, even though the sound of her voice makes me wince. I have tried to understand the kind of anger that made her choose a pointless and unwinnable battle as the one she wants to fight. If you listen closely, you can hear the wailing terror of being unheard and displaced, of being nothing and nobody, of needing to scratch and claw and entirely mangle the entire concept of “rights”, just to get some attention.
So, here’s what I’ve decided. We have plenty of great words in the English language, and I’m going to use them. I’ll deploy “officious” and “pernickety”, “racist” and “entitled”, but I won’t be calling anyone Karen … unless it’s their actual name.