Someone decided to start using the name “Karen” as a derogatory term for women who are caught on video acting annoying, such as complaining about a customer to management at a business, and once the public started making that association, the left started lumping in conservative women with the moniker. Now, anything a conservative woman says or does in taking a political position is at risk of being dismissed as Karen behavior. Stand up and publicly speak out against Critical Race Theory being taught to your children? You’re no longer a hero, you’re a Karen. Get in a political debate with a leftist on social media? No longer are you engaging in the purest form of speech, political speech, instead your behavior is frowned on as trolling because you’re a Karen. It’s an easy way to squelch free speech, because a lot of women don’t want to be thought of as annoying or rude.
The left is very clever about hyping up videos of women who were rude in their interactions with a minority in particular, because it fits their stereotype that conservatives are racist. Who doesn’t know about the woman who called the police on a man for writing “Black Lives Matter” in chalk on his own property, or the woman who called the police on a black man in Central Park who was bird watching? This is dishonest, because the vast majority of conservatives aren’t racist; it’s not hard to make a case that the left has more racists on their side.
Of course, the Karen moniker is hypocritical, because even though the left no longer champions free speech, they champion feminism, which stands for women speaking up. This is very typical of the left; since they have no principles (other than acting like Santa Claus and handing out free things to everyone using other people’s money, if you can call that a principle), their beliefs, which are based on treating people as groups, not as equal individuals, are inevitably going to clash.
It’s part of the left incrementally going after everyone who disagrees with them. It started with white males, who were an easy target, since they don’t fit into any of the left’s special interest groups that they try to buy with money (of course this theory conveniently ignores white males who are disadvantaged, such as being handicapped, chronically ill, etc.). White women have become the next easiest target, since the left has successfully placed such a stigma on being white. Never mind that their most hardcore activists, Antifa, are almost all pasty white, and the people calling conservative women Karens are usually white males themselves.
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Studies have been done showing that liberal women tend to be more prickly than conservative women, yet the false stereotype is gaining traction. Liberal women are the ones trying to cancel people, marching in Antifa, reporting people for alleged COVID-19 violations and distorting the #MeToo movement into attacking men for things that don’t rise to the level of sexual harassment. CSPI scholar Zack Goldberg looked into the data behind a Pew survey and found that white liberals are far more likely than other ideological or racial subgroups to report being diagnosed with a mental health condition. I’ve believed for years that when people on the left take out their anger in hateful ways in politics; they are manifesting their personal problems in a way that is considered more socially acceptable. Instead of screaming at family members, punching holes in the wall or abusing substances, they target random strangers on the right with abusive behavior. They think they are hiding their personal problems. It’s far overdue to call them out and make the public aware.
The left’s incremental attacks are now turning on their own. Not satisfied with just going after white men, conservative minorities, and now white women, they’re going after moderate Democrats who buck the line. Rod Dreher at The American Conservative talks about how the mob mentality online is driving some to commit suicide. He writes, “If you say the wrong thing, and somebody puts it on social media, they can take your job and destroy your life in a single day — and they will — and nobody and nothing can protect you.”
Notice the left has been rather quiet lately in condemning Christians for being judgmental? It’s because they’ve become so mercilessly vicious they forgot about it. Christians also believe in forgiveness, treating others well and compassion. The left gloats and brags wearing face masks that say “Be kind” as they destroy the lives and careers of women they’ve convinced people to believe are behaving like Karens. Meanwhile, people on the right are treating the victims with compassion. I wrote an article about a woman who was targeted a few years ago in hopes of saving her job.
Three women named Karen appeared on "This Morning," a British talk show, to talk about how irritating it is to have their name used this way. One is going to legally change her name and another has started a petition to have people stop using the name this way. Predictably, they were slammed as behaving like Karens merely for disliking what had happened to their name.
The moniker probably originated in reference to liberal women. The petition says there was a meme on Black Twitter which described white women who tattle on black children’s lemonade stands. The right is known for defending these; the Institute for Justice has been fighting legal battles on behalf of little kids in this area for years.
Instead of letting the left get away with it, laughing along and being glad your name isn’t Karen, conservatives should call them out on this nasty tactic. Just like women stand up for men when they’re under attack by the left, men need to stand up for women here.
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