What’s in a name? Answer: if it’s Karen, quite a lot. Over the past week my moniker has come to denote a middle-aged, uneducated woman who is unaware of her white privilege and cares little about tackling racial inequality. So on behalf of other Karens, it’s time to say: the joke has gone too far.
When Karen first became the butt of online gags a few years ago, she wanted to speak to your manager, right now. The brash mother of three typically sported an unfashionable bob. Friends sent me endless memes about her and I would smile. I’m a middle-aged mother with strong opinions and what can fairly be described as an overgrown bob. And it was hardly news to me that my name is not posh.
But I’m not smiling now. Karen-shaming has got nasty. A BBC podcast called ‘No Country for Young Women’ went out this week asking the question: how can white women not be Karens? The two people tasked with answering this were Charlotte Lydia Riley, a historian at Southampton university, and a YouTuber called Amelia Dimoldenberg.
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