Slutsky and Bitchin' | Terms like 'Such a Karen' call out women weaponizing white privilege like Amy Cooper
Slutsky: When Amy Cooper decided to play the white 'damsel-in-distress' by calling 911 and lying about being threatened by an African-American man, she was angry. She was angry because she was inconvenienced when she was told to follow the rules.
Currently, there are lots of white women who are angry because they are being inconvenienced -- from being forced to wear a mask at their local grocery store to not being able to go to salons and restaurants and have access to "the help", like manicurists and waitresses -- mostly women of color -- while under lockdown. It is a toxic sense of entitlement.
Bitchin': You could call them the ideological daughters of Carolyn Bryant, whose lie led to the lynching of 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till because she felt inconvenienced by his behavior at that grocery store. They are the ideological daughters of the white suffragettes who fought for white women's right to vote at the cost of the black civil rights movement and the rights of other women of color.
Historically, feminism has overrepresented the struggles of white, heterosexual, middle-class women and focussed on their rights and freedoms, while throwing women of color, queer women, and transwomen under the bus and minimizing their perspectives, voices, and struggles. There is a long and painful history of white women putting race affiliations over gender affiliations.
It is something that Apple TV's 'The Morning Show' actually depicted quite well when it showed how Jennifer Aniston's character, who is in a position of power, was oblivious to the harassment faced by the women of color in her workplace.
Slutsky: And yet, change is so slow. We still have an Amy Cooper in 2020, who thought she could weaponize her privilege. And I find the battle against this sense of entitlement exhausting.
Bitchin': Aah, but this is where pop culture comes to the rescue. When the "she is such a Karen" memes first came about, it pinpointed specific forms of behavior enacted by the angry inconvenienced white women -- all the Amy Coopers of the world. From "asking to see the manager", to throwing a tantrum when denied the use of service or product, to being the pushy spokesperson or leader, drowning out other voices and perspectives while doing so, were all identified as "Karen behavior".
"Being a Karen" is about the worst thing you can be if you are a woman. It is a shorthand for that exhausting entitlement you are talking about and instead of spending hours trying to explain to some angry white woman why her behavior is obnoxious, calling her "a Karen" will do the job. The epithet is a stand-in phrase for the history of toxic white feminism and as a bonus, it is the humorous equivalent of a bucket of cold water. It engenders immediate self-reflection that hours of talking might not achieve.
Slutsky: Wow, I hadn't thought it that way. It was the same for terms like 'mansplaining', 'whitesplaining' and 'Ok Boomer'. These pop culture words and phrases became a quick shorthand for patterns of toxic behavior embedded in different kinds of privilege. As soon as you say the word or phrase, people know exactly what cluster of toxic behavior patterns you are referring to. It is the one way that someone who is "othered" by the dominant culture can speak and be heard.
These pop culture terms also serve the purpose of shaming a person's toxic behavior. So in a way, it reciprocates the way words, like the n-word or "slut", were and are still being used to shame a person for the color of their skin or their sexual choices.
Bitchin': Exactly. And I think it is better than trying to 'repurpose' terms like "slut", which already has a history of being used to shame women. Instead, we should actively try to come up with new terms and phrases to counter-shame. That's the beauty of language. The possibilities are endless!
Slutsky & Bitchin’ is a column that examines the highs and lows of pop culture and media from a feminist POV.