“Karen” is the new label for a woman who acts “entitled” (whatever that means). A woman who is capable of creating discomfort in others, typically by losing her shit. Let me tell you, little ones, we all lose our shit and sometimes that causes us to become assholes. It’s OK because those moments in time, don’t define us. They are simply moments in time and those times happen because the world can be harsh and because we struggle and because our body reacts to those struggles.
Historically, women, who didn’t fit the mould, who made a choice to be honest, assertive or just openly pissed off instead of continuing the drive to be liked were labeled. Terms like hysterical, bitch, bossy, ball-buster, permanently on-the-rag etc… It all worked well to cage us.
I spoke to your dad with outrage about this fully swallowed term. I asked, “Couldn’t they see the sexism?”
Your dad answered, “Well, there is a Ken to the Karen.”
Oh… right… ok, so was the term sexist if there was a male counterpart? I still think it is, as I see many more “Karens” flagged up on social media than “Kens.” I am not an academic in this area, I haven’t researched it. It is just my experience of seeing many women shamed in our society, given a more contemporary version of the Scarlet Letter branding.
However, there is also the issue of shaming attached to the label Karen or Ken. It is the hot potato game, before we get burned we pass the potato on to burn someone else and then we are safe. Or, we push others down to feel a momentary lift. Or we just watch it and don’t speak up, maybe, for a moment, we fit in or we simply feel a sense of relief that, this time, it is them and not us. Since, Karen and Ken aren’t very welcoming, we can shame them without much kick back. I have done it and, girls, you will too. To shame another has a strong pull and is so much easier to do than to sit with compassion.
Shame, I suppose has a purpose, it keeps others in line, it pushes down what is bubbling up. It quiets voices that drags us from our comfort zone. And, sometimes, it just feels good to strike out and feel justified. But, what if we need discomfort? Discomfort take us off the treadmill and forces us to stop, breathe, and soak in the view?
For the shamed, those exiled emotions, thoughts and behaviours don’t die, they just become fertile land for self-shaming. That horrible stone at the bottom of your belly, that heavy cloud that pushes at the back of your neck and your shoulders, that self applied tattoo across your forehead that people stare at when you enter a room, that thought that curls your body up and pushes a quiet moaning out in the middle of the night. The amnesia that steals away your memory that your soul was born beautiful.
At that moment, we want to stop the pain and we do lots of awful things to stop the pain. I have seen this as a therapist but also experienced this as a girl and woman. Ironically, it is those times that “Karen” or “Ken” take form.
I have had many “Karen” moments as has everyone I know, but I was lucky to have most of those moments before the blessing and curse of social media. Now, a picture of one moment in time captured with a few words is left for interpretation with no thought to bias, context, or state of mental health. In reality it is just a moment in time, showing someone struggling to interact with the world. Where all the fucked up shit they contend with, burrowing into their body, momentarily escapes.
One memory, in particular, comes back to me. I was in a museum with your grandmother somewhere in Canada and after waiting in a very long line, a woman, who seemed to hate her job or hate me, sort of sighed, snarled, tilted head back and forth and asked me for money for a ticket. The price didn’t include the discount, I think it was the equivalent of 50 cents. I explained (with a long line behind me and Grandma next to me) why I was entitled to the discount. I pointed to the sign, but she didn’t care, refused my discount and just said that I was wrong. I started to get louder, explaining that I had a university degree, implying that she didn’t, and I could work out basic percentages and read the pricing categories on the tariff on the wall. She replied, “Well, good for you.” And the line grew and the snickers started, and I looked to my left and Grandma had joined the chorus. I started to demand my 50 cent discount! Berating the small town that the museum was located in (meaning that they must have nothing better to do than making tourist feel like shit etc..) She finally gave in, and I turned to walk away. People stared. Grandma gave me distance to lessen our association, and we made our way around the corner. I think that I bumped into a few walls at that time, as I was walking through a blur of tears. I pretended to look at some exhibitions, with my mother standing quietly next to me. I remembered whispering through broken breaths, “Why didn’t you help me?” “Why didn’t you stand by me?”
She asked, “Why?”
I replied, “Because you are my mother and that is what mother’s do.”
She simply said, “Well, it is done now.”
But it wasn’t done, I carried that snickering for ages, that shame. Had it been on social media, so that the pain could be continuously inflicted and shared, I can’t even imagine how I would have contended with that, as my world was a bit fragile at that time.
So, now for the back story, I was 21 years old on a 9,000 mile trek through Canada and the States, in a two person pop-up tent with no itinerary. I loved my mother very much but we struggled, only pretending to understand the very different languages we spoke. When she suggested this trip, I questioned intent but not to her.
The first few weeks of this road trip were filled with outbursts. She couldn’t escape me now. We were both formidable combatants. But we fell silent from the screams, temporarily, when overcome by star-filled skies, or breathing in cool mountain air from a cliff’s edge. She would take my arm to protect me and I would let her.
Three years prior, after a night of partying, I woke, head in hand, dry throat, to a knocking at the door. There was a phone call for me (the time before mobiles). I took a sip of water from the glass at the bedside table and walked to the payphone in the middle of the hall. "Yes," I said. It was my mother, she had called to tell me that my father died, and just like that, my world was gone.
The rest of that day, week and month were a daze. Auntie Sue and Uncle Steve came home soon after. We all seemed to exist in parallel universes, wandering about the house but not acknowledging each other. I set the kitchen table for dinner, 4 places, instead of 5, but no one came. We went from being a loud busy family with a revolving door, to a busy for distraction family who functioned silently and then slowly disappeared. I just kept sitting at the kitchen table watching the empty seats. I did return to university. I came home often to check on my mother and my dog. I worked two jobs to relieve my financial burden.
My mother didn’t seem to notice me anymore. I became a repulsive force, like the wrong side of a magnet. I couldn’t catch her eyes anymore. She has beautiful eyes. She had lost her father at a young age, which corrupted her world overnight, and now it was happening again. I remember her whispering to the window, while cleaning dishes, “This was not suppose to happen. I did everything right.” I watched her from an open door of her bedroom as she stare at his closet as if in a trance. She felt cursed, continually experiencing retribution. What had she done? She had tried to find redemption all her life, rescuing those in need, volunteering, fighting for the underdog and still this…. I moved in to console her but she moved away.
Three months later we moved my great-uncle into my bed and I moved to the den. He was a larger than life man, standing at 6’4”, blue eyes, and of few words. A father figure to my mother and she loved him. Soon the cancer left him to hardly make an imprint under my floral sheets. I struggled. I started to have panic attacks when crossing bridges, silence felt threatening and then I couldn’t sleep. I fell out with friends and struggled to gain closeness with new friends and felt incredibly alone. The world grew terrifying.
My uncle wanted to die in my home, in my room, in my bed, Instead, I accompanied him to the hospital. I couldn’t face his next step. For two days, I stayed away and when I finally did arrive, someone else lay in his bed. The nurse explained, they had just finished changing the bed sheets and had not had a chance to call me. I turned to leave and the elevators opened, it was his brother and sister, I explained that they were also too late. He had died alone. I explained that to my mother, who walked away and closed the door behind her. I called my brother and sister who came home and quietly cried. We never seemed to figure out how to share our sadness only our distance.
My insomnia worsened as did my panic attacks, but I disguised it well. I started to do much better at school, create a bigger social circle, make amends with old friends but the world still remained threatening. I was always just making it. However, I learned how to survive feeling not good enough. I became the rescuer like my mother, staying up to talk to the friend in need, doing that extra favour, joining with a cause.
I became more and more self-sufficient, relying on nobody. Dealing with university bureaucracy, landlord issues, car troubles, health issues, insurance, angry neighbours etc… And in those few years, I endured a few more deaths of people I loved. I qualified my life as G-ds bad practical joke. I stopped reaching out for support as accepting it felt uncomfortable and, instead, found some solace, in giving others support. I learned how to cope as I went and with each experience, I became more self-assured not of my abilities but that the world was capable of extreme cruelty, that I too was cursed in some way, that I deserved these hardships, bad things happened to me because maybe, at my core, I was bad. That is why no one protected me, that is why people left me, not just my father in death, but my mother in life. I was in this fight alone, and as I fought feral, I would usually win, but each win reinforced that I wasn’t ok.
That trip, rehashed all of it. How dare she suggest this trip. How dare she want to play mother and daughter now. I don’t need her now! She left me overwhelmed, afraid and in pain for three years! She often had caught sight of my fear and to her it was a famiiar fear and still nothing? How dare she want a relationship now! And why now? Was any of this real? Was I being used? I felt used. These and more comments spit from my mouth reverberating within our car, parked outside the museum. There was no response, so this time I walked away from her and slammed the door behind me. A few steps away I stopped to slow my breath, to unclench my sweaty fists. I wanted to scream, to run away into the mountains behind the building. But my damaged body that had moved through three years of insomnia and panic attacks, instead, entered the building and stood in a line.
I felt my mother behind me, and I seethed. Looking forward at the sloth-like cashier in front of me and her look of disdain at her life, at her job, at me. I put my cash on the counter, looked up to see her slight smile as she enjoyed telling me that I had gotten it wrong. I hadn’t got it wrong. I deserved that fucking discount as I deserved many other things. At that moment my rage, my shame, my incredible sadness took shape and Karen stepped in to be my voice and she was a fucking wonderful friend. She told me that I was entitled to love, entitled to kindness, entitled to protection, entitled to be present in this world, entitled to have been a child for a little bit longer and then she turned to the cashier, her dead stare conveyed that damage creates fierce warriors. I collected my 50 cents, and Karen held my hand leading me away from the crowd to a quiet place where she stood by me as I felt my pain.
