The Karen meme has been around for a few years now and I think that most understand the description.
What we understand to be a Karen is typically a white woman with an large attitude problem combined with an over subscribed entitlement who is the bogey man of customer service representatives, stores and restaurants. She can elicit fear in someone a hundred paces away.
I do not have a Karen in my life, but have seen the type and the aftermath that they can create. I have even given a poor coffee shop worker a hug after they experienced what I can only describe as a tsunami of rage, over a drink not being hot enough (after I add that she had been sitting with the thing, not drinking it for 20 minutes).
They exist and they walk among us.
Karen videos, memes and shared experiences of Karens are all over the internet, but lately, in the past few months, the use of the word Karen and the meaning behind it has changed and been extended, by some, to encompass any woman who dares to have a voice or an opinion.
There is a veiled threat now, be "nice" or be a Karen.
The meme has grown to such an extent that the context in which it is used has metamorphosed into an element of control.
Express an opinion, OK Karen. Disagree with a point, OK Karen. Raise an issue, OK Karen. Stick up for yourself, OK Karen. It is being used to silence. To dismiss, demean and shut down. Case in point:
As you can see above, even someone who you would think had a moderate degree of intelligence as both a doctor and PHD thinks that it is acceptable to (try) shut down a woman in this way. That intelligence disappears into misogyny when faced with an intelligent woman with a counter argument it seems.
This where the need by some to control women comes out and they show you who they really are. I know many intelligent men who are not intimated or incensed by a woman with an opinion. They want an intelligent discussion, not a mindless doll.
While I usually see men using the term, the woke women have been known to use it too. That saddens me even more.
How do you respond to the slur then? Any attempt to fight your corner would be labelled as argumentative, too confident, too self important. To those using that term against us, they would take anything other than immediate submission as proof of our "Kareness".
In the same way as OK Boomer is being used as a tool to waive away anything that the older generation says as irrelevant and outdated nonsense, OK Karen is now being used as an attempt to silence our voices and ridicule our thoughts and opinions.
Heaven forbid that a woman has an opinion.
Well this woman is not shutting up. You can call me Karen if you think it will silence me, but it will not. Any more than it will shut up women like J K Rowling.
I have news for you, the more you try to silence us, the louder we will shout.
