When Aaron Rodgers (NFL quarterback who has been in the news for various disputes and controversies) was called “Karen Rodgers”, it had nothing to do with gender. There was no implication that he was acting like a woman. It was understood that he was accused of being self-important and seeking conflict to get what he wanted.
I do think that it’s a term that can be used as a gendered insult, and we already have a moratorium on misogyny. So if it’s used that way I don’t have any issue with moderation. But I don’t think it’s automatic, and since this forum doesn’t have a “banned words” list, I don’t see why we need to start now.
While I don’t think it should be banned, I think it’s played out. It’s lost whatever effectiveness it once possessed. It’s cliché, and at this point it’s unoriginal.
Less than more. I deny the term is used only against women as stated, and the first thread makes this clear. It is not highly denigrating against women nor tribes sharing the same name if they are behaving reasonably. In my opinion, the proposed comparison is wrong. Nor is the comparative offered a banned word nor unlawful.
I’m not going to contribute further to this thread. It just is not personally important to me. I will follow the rules if a large group of people agree with this contention, which seems to me weak.
I am troubled the suggestion “Florida Man” is also sexist, and furthermore may fail to accommodate gender diversity, may show geographic insensitivity, may perpetuate stereotypes of a specific subset of behaviour despite most men from Florida being innocent of such behaviour, and on a subconscious level may trigger readers thinking of “America’s Wang” when no such association was authorized.
Short version: I categorically reject all aspects of the OP’s misguided ideas.
Long version:
What arrant garbage.
It’s meant to be hurtful. It’s aimed at jerks and serves to call those jerks jerks. Because we all know that one meaning of the word “Karen” is that sort of jerk. No insult is applied to any other use of the term Karen, whether that’s the ethnic group or women or girls given that name. It also doesn’t apply to hurricanes named “Karen” which occur every few years.
I don’t see how it’s bigoted since it can be, and is, applied to every possible ethnic group under the Sun. Unless what you mean is we should all be welcoming to self-entitled jerks. You know, Karens.
Karen might, maybe, be sexist. But there are plenty of male Karens out there. Who are routinely called out for their Karenic behavior. About whom there is less agreement what their unofficial sterotypical type-name is. Several equivalent names are in use including, in some lexicons, “male Karen”. In no sense is it meant to say anything about sex/gender, etc. It’s a reference to jerkishness. Period.
At least around here it is in no sense replacing “bitch”. It is not a general pejorative about women nor is it applied exclusively to women. Your assertions are not factual.
I see nothing here but manufactured outrage in pursuit of I’m not sure what.
I was going to say “Hey!”, since I have a thread in Great Debates that starts with that word. But since it’s just me bullshitting…I second your proposal.
And words shouldn’t be banned.
At the very least, in the Pit you should still be able to call somebody a ‘ren.
Aw, it’s such a great descriptor for a certain type of egotistical top-billing, center-of-the-universe, entitled personality. How about if we agree to use the male equivalent term primo uomo too?
No it’s not. The fact that some people turned it into a gendered insult doesn’t mean everyone did.
As I said, if and when it’s used in such a manner, we already have a rule against misogyny, and the moderators can judge if that usage goes against the rule.
Oh, it wasn’t clear that you meant the board only. Well, I can’t read their minds, but I do know that out in the public it very much has a gendered meaning, and if you’re able to separate that from what you see on the board that’s great for you.
Note that the premise of this thread is that all usage of “Karen” as a pejorative is an insult against women, and should be treated as such. Showing usage of the term as a non-gendered insult invalidates that claim. I don’t think anyone disputes that it can and has been used as a gendered insult, and hopefully nobody objects to moderation when it is used that way here.
What the hell does “ease drop” mean, I wonder. And where do they spell the word as “taddletale?” I guess the Urban Dictionary allows anyone who wants to to post completely unedited. Maybe not the best source for a cite.
What if we reformulated that? Along the lines of: All use of ‘Karen’ in this sense we’ve been discussing is pejorative. On-purpose pejorative, that’s the intention behind the term. It happens to be a name associated with female people. It was the idea of a woman who behaved a certain way. That’s not the same as saying the purpose behind ever use of “Karen” is to insult women. But you see how it’s history and origins are as a gendered term?
We’re not talking about a term that has existed for many years as a form of oppression; it’s a neologism. It’s a fairly new meme that’s evolving. That’s why defining it is difficult.
I don’t think its “history and origins” are at all relevant here. It hasn’t really had time for that to matter. What should matter is its usage.