{"id":2786,"date":"2025-06-05T12:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T16:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2786"},"modified":"2025-06-30T17:33:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T21:33:39","slug":"the-karen-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2786","title":{"rendered":"The Karen Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am a white woman named Karen. That means that I routinely see my name used as a shorthand for privileged white women<\/a> asking to see the manager. And, because “karens” are portrayed as complainers, I find myself sucking it up. After all, complaining would just prove that I am a “karen.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In August 2020, Helen Lewis<\/a> wrote in The Atlantic<\/em>, “Karen<\/em> has become synonymous with woman<\/em> among those who consider woman<\/em> an insult. There is now a market, measured in attention and approbation, for anyone who can sniff out a Karen.”[3]<\/a><\/sup> Lewis also noted what she called the “finger trap<\/a>” of the term, saying “What is more Karen than complaining about being called ‘Karen’? There is a strong incentive to be cool about other women being Karened, lest you be Karened yourself.”[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karen. (2025, May 26). In Wikipedia<\/em>. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Karen_(slang)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Today, I decided to push back a bit. I recently joined a welcoming community of women. This morning’s email used the karen slur twice, once in the email subject line and then in the message itself. I replied to let them know that this did not make me feel welcome. I received a lovely apology and an offer to cancel my account, but I plan to remain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do have a sniggle of guilt for speaking up probably from growing up in the “if you can’t say something nice” era. Plus, I hate to make another human being feel badly about themselves. But, a slur is a slur, and if your stated goal is to be welcoming, language must be a priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a white woman named Karen. That means that I routinely see my name used as a shorthand for privileged white women asking to see the manager. And, because “karens” are portrayed as complainers, I find myself sucking it up. After all, complaining would just prove that I am a “karen.” In August 2020, Helen … Continue reading The Karen Conundrum<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[567,31],"tags":[751,750],"class_list":["post-2786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-thinking-out-loud","tag-karen","tag-welcoming"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-IW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}