You know when there’s a perfect term to describe something – a linguistic shortcut that can communicate a more complicated idea with efficiency and clarity? When you land on a term just like that to express something, but it makes you a bit uncomfortable – because you know it’s mean-spirited and you are trying to be a better person and, in these precarious times for women’s rights, trying to be the good feminist that you are … but you use it anyway? (This is very specific, I know.)
Last week, in a piece about random attacks in Vancouver, I used the K-word to refer to a past version of myself who would’ve complained about someone breaking a rule at a fast-food spot. “Call me Karen,” I wrote, “but old me – prefatal downtown knifing – would have at least asked the woman at the door not to smoke in the restaurant.”
The term “Karen” suggests an entitled woman who feels comfortable getting her nose up in everybody’s business – by calling the manager, or even the police. Specifically, a white, middle-aged (often blonde, with an asymmetrical bob) woman of privilege.
The origin of the name being used this way is unclear, but it is often traced back to a routine by U.S. comic Dane Cook about the friend nobody likes. “Every group has a Karen,” he jokes on his 2005 comedy album.
Others point to this line from 2004′s Mean Girls: “Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white.”
The pejorative use of “Karen” entered the Urban Dictionary in March, 2018, according to Business Insider.
The meaning has taken on racial undertones – especially after the notorious 2020 Central Park incident where a woman called police to complain about a Black man she claimed was threatening her, which turned out not to be true; he was birdwatching and had asked her to put her dog on a leash. The woman, Amy Cooper, became known as “Central Park Karen.”
After that happened, San Francisco passed the Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act – the CAREN Act – to criminalize people who call 911 with false, racially biased complaints.
The term “Karen” is sexist, ageist, and you could argue that it’s racist, in that it’s anti-white. It’s an easy, lazy label that borders on a slur. And I feel that way not just as a blonde, middle-aged white woman with my own privilege (and who, as an early Gen X-er, grew up with a lot of Karens), but as someone who believes women, of all people, should know better than to employ such casual sexism. We need to hold other women up, not kick our sisters in the metaphorical (perhaps orthodontically enhanced) teeth.
And yet, people use it all the time. I used it, even though it makes me feel icky. And I heard about it. One Karen wrote in: “The phrase ‘call me Karen’ is rude, offensive, and unnecessary.” Another Karen wrote to me, asking that I please not use the term. “It is an unhelpful shortcut to the silencing of all women, but especially older women.”
(A Karen I know feels differently about the term. “I’m not bothered by it; if I was, it would truly make me a Karen.” She’s funny, this Karen. “That said,” she added, “I think Sandras are long overdue for a meme.”)
There is no definitive male equivalent, although the internet tells me Brad, Chad, Terry and Jethro are contenders.
Maybe it’s a leap from joking about Karen calling the manager to a serious examination of the erosion of women’s rights in the powerhouse just south of us, but let’s go there.
A historically consequential election is just over a week away in the U.S. – historic not just because a Black woman could become the first female president (please God) but because the guy running against her, who could win, is a power-hungry, cognitively deficient, nasty, lowbrow liar and felon who speaks very poorly of women, and whose actions have already eroded reproductive rights.
Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance – who, given Mr. Trump’s advanced age and less-than-healthy lifestyle, could very well become president – has demeaned childless cat ladies and repeatedly expressed disdain for women choosing what he considers non-traditional paths. (Maybe we can get the term “John David” into general use as a short form for draconian sexism. “Can you please lift a finger and help around the house? Don’t be such a John David.”) He has even bemoaned women leaving violent marriages, saying that’s bad for the kids.
Then there’s Project 2025, a blueprint for conservative rule, which would create and cement further roadblocks to reproductive care.
This is Gilead-level terrifying. All of us – Karens, Kamalas, Sandras and the rest of us – should drop the name-calling and focus on a collective fight for women’s rights and lives.