I was enjoying a chai-spiced flat white with a friend yesterday, when she reminded me of something that’s been on my mind for ages. Sitting in our local plant-florist-coffee shop, I was midway telling her how I last wrote this Substack over a year ago, when she drew close and whispered, ‘when you start it again, could you share a list of nice people called Karen?” Because, that’s what she’s called.
It suddenly struck me how hard it must be for her to have her identity trashed on a daily basis. How she feels embarrassed when she says or writes her name for no other reason than the Hive Mind has decreed it’s an acceptable label for middle-aged women who speak up – and therefore a shortcut to shut them up. Most of us have seen the Facebook videos called ‘Evil Karen gets Karma when she loses out on a big promotion’ or ‘Watch rude Karen get arrested for drunk driving’ or ‘See bitchy Karen ask for the manager – and get barred.’ Admittedly, the majority of these are filmed in America, and while I haven’t heard the term Karen used so freely here yet, I worry it’s only a matter of time. Already eponymously-christened British friends feel ashamed to fill out forms. A friends’ daughter told her ‘not to be a Karen’ when she was (politely) returning something to a shop in West London. And what about the Aussie burger diner chain, Karen’s, now in major UK cities, promising 100% rude staff so that you get to play a Karen and ask for the supervisor? Go there, get insulted by obnoxious servers and have a great old time pretending you’re a mean old battleaxe who wants to exorcise her consumer rights. It’s okay if you are really called Karen though – you get a free drink. Check the FAQs on their website.
Q. I am a Karen.
A. Welcome home Kaz. If your name is actually Karen then flash your ID. If you're a Karen by nature not name, come on down hun.
Oh that’s ok then. Although, things might not be working out exactly as the restaurant’s owners intended: according to a friend’s 15 year old, people are ruder in the corridors at school.
So what’s it all about? Well, after poking around on Google, I can confirm that using Karen as an insult originated in the States in a few different ways. Firstly, a bitter regular contributor on Reddit posted amusing invectives about his ex-wife (called Karen), inspiring hundreds of memes under the thread (subReddit) FuckYouKaren. That one has 1.5K followers now, EntitledKarens has 67.7K. Secondly a 2005 comedy sketch by an American comedian Dane Cook contained a riff called “The Friend Nobody Likes” which went: “There is one person in a group of friends that nobody likes. They basically keep them there to hate their guts. When that person is not around the rest of your little base camp, your hobby is cutting that person down.” As an “example” of this person, he describes a woman named Karen. Finally, it became a way to deride particularly nasty behaviour by 35+ year old women using their white privilege to get their own way. Remember the case of Amy Cooper, who threatened to wrongly tell police that an African American man was threatening her in Central Park in 2020? In actual fact, Christian Cooper (no relation), a black birdwatcher, had asked her to put her dog on a lead, as per park rules. Amy did not see why she should comply, so reverted to what she saw as her natural advantage, an act which was unquestionably unacceptable. A combination of all of this has resulted in a widely-used meme is of a blond-bobbed, 40 something white woman who ‘asks to speak to the manager’ and who is universally reviled.
“Welcome home Kaz. If your name is actually Karen then flash your ID. If you're a Karen by nature not name, come on down hun.”
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that satire is sometimes the only and most powerful weapon, especially when you feel oppressed. And it’s true that even here, there are many middle-class, middle-aged women behind oversized sunglasses in unnecessarily big cars who feel they’ve as a John Lewis account-holder, they’re entitled them to VIP treatment. I’ve encountered many a Landrover-driving lady in the Cotswolds who made me whisper ‘bitch’ under my breath as she tried to nudge my 1997 Fiat Dobro into the verge so as not to scratch her precious paintwork. And I actually remember one who drove her Discovery straight at me, laughing, about 25 years ago in Primrose Hill, when I was on my way to a yoga class. I put it down to too much coke (her not me). But despite all this, I thought that in the 21st Century we’d agreed that labels are no longer acceptable. Especially when they morph from their original meaning into a generic put-down term.
In the ‘90s we would have been persuaded that this Karen-business was funny and we should laugh it off, but in 2024 I worry that a term that originated specifically describe women who ‘complain unreasonably’, is limbo-ing under the outrage radar to apply to any older woman who has something to say – perhaps eventually of any colour, any age, any background and any haircut, inhibiting women’s already precarious confidence in self-expression. I mean, I’m afraid of being piled on just by sharing this blog. And my suspicions that it’s becoming a catch-all for older women were proved correct after a friend’s 27 year old boyfriend from Cardiff told me that Karen is used freely among his generation to refer to middle-aged women (he finds it totally misogynistic). While many of my peers round here (Wiltshire) haven’t actually heard the term, the young generation definitely have and are using it as liberally as vegan parmesan on a gluten-free sourdough pizza.
So why is it ok I wonder? And why are women my age not speaking up about it? We no longer use negative terms about other groups in society, in public at least, and everyone knows that most labels and stereotypes are designed to keep people in a box, to define and confine them and use as handy shortcuts to make mouths close. When I was at school in the ‘70s and ‘80s we heard (and some of us used) all sorts of derogatory monikers for people, and by people, I mean women, people with non-white skin (even if they were British-born), people with white skin but who weren’t British, like Germans or The French (although Americans looked good in baseball caps, and so as gods, were exempt), people with disabilities, people who weren’t sexually straight. And we had Sharons (young women who wore white stilettos and talked in an estuary accent. I feel terrible we used that now, although Sharon Stone escaped the association, probably because when she flashed her fanny on Basic Instinct everyone pretty much forgot anything she said).
Feminist icon Betty Friedan
Millenials and Gen Zs might be flabbergasted at our lack of protest about these terms, and I’ll admit it now seems unimaginable that there weren’t more of us who spoke up; we left that to the original ‘60s and ‘70s feminist icons like Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer, although we were told by the mainstream media they were just dungaree-wearing misfits whom no-one wanted to marry. And of course that’s what every woman wants. But when I think about why we were so passive, I’ve come to the conclusion that we were almost brainwashed into submission. We accepted the world order from an early age (white men in charge) and even if we didn’t agree, we by and large resolved ourselves to the fact that we couldn’t change it. We absorbed all the controlling slur words used daily by all the (real and closeted) heterosexual white men on TV and on the radio, and as we got older, read them in the papers without really questioning the power of language. One positive thing about the internet and social media, however, is that it has enabled ideological change: for better or worse, ideas can be shared and minds changed without having to physically gather, reaching a world-wide audience. So there’s been a movement by many different sectors in society to change how they are talked about. Except middle-aged women. We’re the last to make a fuss, contrary to popular belief.
And we had Sharons (young women who wore white stilettos and talked in an estuary accent. I feel terrible we used that now)
So don’t let Karen become a dirty word (especially as it originates from the Danish for Catherine, my name, which actually means ‘pure’ in Greek). Learn to love it and liberate your friends of the same name. Remember (speaking to my ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s-born sisters here) it’s just as important for middle-aged women to question how we’re described as anyone else in society. And to speak up. Of course, we shouldn’t be moaning and undermining and being unkind just because. But we also shouldn’t be afraid of saying what we feel and think as we age. It’s pretty much impossible to stuff down what’s on our mind anyway, because once our usefulness as baby-making machines and pretty bits of arm candy wanes, we find it biologically harder to stay silent, thanks to the menopause party pretty much making us feel like we’re the subject of a Poor Things- type experiment; where our personalities and bodies are forever altered. We become that literal monster that wants what it wants and says what it needs. And actually, the end result feels good, it feels empowering; because our bodies are ours again. We can start telling everyone else what we really think because this time is ours now, and if you really can’t be bothered to pay £3.50 for a thimbleful of cold coffee laced with chai spice mix from Sainsbury’s slopped on the table by a moody teenager, you’re going to say so. And actually, while we’re on the subject, can I speak to the manager please?
Nice/Famous women who give Karen a good name
My friend who inspired this column
My friend at work
Karen Elson, supermodel
Karen Carpenter, singer
Karen O, singer
Karen Brady, TV star and businesswoman
What I’ve been up to since I last wrote this Substack
I went full-time at work (for the concert hall)
I became a lodger
I still petsit, although not as often
I’m still super in-debt
I’m still single although I have looked at dating apps
I’ve made some great friends
My dad published his book and sold some copies. He’s started a Substack
Thank you for reading! Please Buy Me A Coffee if you would like to encourage me to write more and more often.