White women try to "reclaim power" through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait.. I had power? When ? Where?? What did it look like??
Signed,
White woman

Compared to a similarly situated woman of color? Sure you did. I don't know your situation, but maybe it simply looked like not getting arrested if you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Could be a lot of things.

[Anonymous]

White men have been all too happy to shift the focus onto white women. Especially the older ones, because who likes them anyway amirite?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Hon, this definition of racism emerges from social theories (largely emerging from sociology) of SYSTEMIC power. This definition of racism was never intended, even by the sociologists who first articulated it, to be the only possible definition of racism. I feel such tremendous fremdschamen whenever I see people with BAs dropping this "knowledge" like it's hot.

I understand that these discussions about whiteness might make you uncomfortable. But, try sitting with your discomfort and learning from it rather than lashing out.

NP. I'm not white (a "brown person" in your parlance) and I don't subscribe to this definition of racism either. Of course white people can be subject to racism, and frankly, a lot of what I hear non-white people say in public discourse these days about white people would be an immediately cancellable offense if said about anyone else of any race. It's ridiculous. It makes me uncomfortable not because of my white privilege or fragility or whatever, but because making generalizations about a group of people or their motivations based on their race is.... racist.

I'm white and I wouldn't describe the way white people are denigrated right now as "racist", I guess because I do think I have white privilege and I can see a lot of those critical or denigrating comments as being an effort to attack my privilege, not me personally. Also, like a lot of stereotypes, there is often a grain of truth in some of these criticisms.

HOWEVER, I do think reports like this one from NPR, and especially Steffi Cao's essay, are just part of trend toward criticizing literally everything white women do. And look, if you want to criticize the way white women in certain states vote for Trump or MAGA idiots, I will come and stand next to you and hold a sign! But criticizing white women on this level for beauty choices and yelling "that's racist!" because a white woman wore beige, or posted about her skin care routine, or jokingly referred to herself as a #coastalgrandmother, I think you need to ask yourself what the goal is.

Is the goal to just make white women feel as bad as possible about themselves? Should white women simply stop engaging in fashion and beauty at all? If white women all stopped wearing makeup or doing their hair and just wore practical separates from LL Bean, would that accomplish something useful in society? Also, keep in mind that those Trump-voting white women who are ACTUALLY doing something harmful? They mostly aren't engaging in any of these trends, and they wouldn't listen to NPR anyway, and if they did, they'd dismiss it all as liberal drivel no matter what it said. So the target audience for this stuff actually are mostly white women who vote for progressive and liberal candidates. They are mostly people who would very much like to be allies in anti-racism. And I do think you risk losing them as potential allies in actually doing something about MAGA by making them feel somehow complicit in racism because they found a serum that makes their skin appear smoother than before.

Like reading some of this commentary, it makes me feel like a poster upthread who was just like "Maybe we should all just go back to where our families came from and de-colonize." She's was heading back to Czech Republic, I guess I'll try to find some roots in Germany. Will that fix it? Or do we maybe need to find ways to live together here? Seems like this stuff is pretty counterproductive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:White men have been all too happy to shift the focus onto white women. Especially the older ones, because who likes them anyway amirite?

Likewise, white women were happier when white men were being targeted as the Big Bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:White men have been all too happy to shift the focus onto white women. Especially the older ones, because who likes them anyway amirite?

This, it's this.

All I am asking is that when people decide to critique white women, as a group, for exploiting privilege or oppressing people of color, they consider, for a moment, that white women also face forms of oppression.

And I'm not even saying don't criticize white women. I'm suggesting that you not criticize white women IN WAYS THAT SUBJECT THEM TO MORE OPPRESSION.

That's the crux of it. Try to remember that the world is not actually just split into White people and everyone else, with all the white people having all the same amounts of power and all the non-white people all being oppressed in the exact same ways. Try to remember that gender and class play a HUGE role in white supremacy, and that ignoring these factors when criticizing white women can open these women up to other kinds of oppression. And that people in power will use ANY TOOL at their disposal to hold onto their power and disenfranchise others, including tools provided to them by other disempowered groups. I mean, isn't that a huge part of the criticism (justly) leveled at white women -- that we have equipped our husbands and fathers with tools to oppress people of color in the past, and need to stop? I agree with this wholeheartedly, which is why I am so confused as to why I sometimes see POC doing the exact same thing to white women.

What if we joined forces? Think what we could do.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Hon, this definition of racism emerges from social theories (largely emerging from sociology) of SYSTEMIC power. This definition of racism was never intended, even by the sociologists who first articulated it, to be the only possible definition of racism. I feel such tremendous fremdschamen whenever I see people with BAs dropping this "knowledge" like it's hot.

I understand that these discussions about whiteness might make you uncomfortable. But, try sitting with your discomfort and learning from it rather than lashing out.

NP. I'm not white (a "brown person" in your parlance) and I don't subscribe to this definition of racism either. Of course white people can be subject to racism, and frankly, a lot of what I hear non-white people say in public discourse these days about white people would be an immediately cancellable offense if said about anyone else of any race. It's ridiculous. It makes me uncomfortable not because of my white privilege or fragility or whatever, but because making generalizations about a group of people or their motivations based on their race is.... racist.

I'm white and I wouldn't describe the way white people are denigrated right now as "racist", I guess because I do think I have white privilege and I can see a lot of those critical or denigrating comments as being an effort to attack my privilege, not me personally. Also, like a lot of stereotypes, there is often a grain of truth in some of these criticisms.

HOWEVER, I do think reports like this one from NPR, and especially Steffi Cao's essay, are just part of trend toward criticizing literally everything white women do. And look, if you want to criticize the way white women in certain states vote for Trump or MAGA idiots, I will come and stand next to you and hold a sign! But criticizing white women on this level for beauty choices and yelling "that's racist!" because a white woman wore beige, or posted about her skin care routine, or jokingly referred to herself as a #coastalgrandmother, I think you need to ask yourself what the goal is.

Is the goal to just make white women feel as bad as possible about themselves? Should white women simply stop engaging in fashion and beauty at all? If white women all stopped wearing makeup or doing their hair and just wore practical separates from LL Bean, would that accomplish something useful in society? Also, keep in mind that those Trump-voting white women who are ACTUALLY doing something harmful? They mostly aren't engaging in any of these trends, and they wouldn't listen to NPR anyway, and if they did, they'd dismiss it all as liberal drivel no matter what it said. So the target audience for this stuff actually are mostly white women who vote for progressive and liberal candidates. They are mostly people who would very much like to be allies in anti-racism. And I do think you risk losing them as potential allies in actually doing something about MAGA by making them feel somehow complicit in racism because they found a serum that makes their skin appear smoother than before.

Like reading some of this commentary, it makes me feel like a poster upthread who was just like "Maybe we should all just go back to where our families came from and de-colonize." She's was heading back to Czech Republic, I guess I'll try to find some roots in Germany. Will that fix it? Or do we maybe need to find ways to live together here? Seems like this stuff is pretty counterproductive.

I agree with all of this, most especially the point of it all just being a strange and juvenile form of meanness. That’s it. That’s the goal. There is no point in being disingenuous and searching far and wide for the utility of the argument in the essay. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Hon, this definition of racism emerges from social theories (largely emerging from sociology) of SYSTEMIC power. This definition of racism was never intended, even by the sociologists who first articulated it, to be the only possible definition of racism. I feel such tremendous fremdschamen whenever I see people with BAs dropping this "knowledge" like it's hot.

I understand that these discussions about whiteness might make you uncomfortable. But, try sitting with your discomfort and learning from it rather than lashing out.

POC can absolutely be racist against whites on an individual basis. And we don't have to "sit" with statements that are offensive and ridiculous.

So many of us have been "sitting" with these uncomfortable conversations for several years now, participating in diversity efforts, reading and listening. But recently there has been a wave of anti-white-woman sentiment that is, frankly, swinging the pendulum to a place that isn't reality and isn't fair. Take the statements being leveled at "white women" and insert other groups ("black women", "native-american women" etc) and you would be furious for the generalizations and crying racism. White women are heterogeneous, just like any other group you come up with. If we want to move toward a just and equitable society, you can't do this to any group. And we could go on about what power it is you think white women have. Advantages in some circumstance, yes. Power? Different thing.

You can't punish all white women for the sins of individuals. You can't keep telling white women that they can't have opinions or express opinions. You cannot keep ascribing a woman's choice to wear mascara or not to plots to perpetuate white supremacy. That is just bonkers.

White men have been excoriated for similar sentiments about sexism as well as racism for a long time now. Remember how some men's objections to broad-brushed #MeToo sentiments were dismissed and ridiculed as #NotAllMen? Same dynamic.

One valuable concept I've seen from the social justice advocates is that of intersectionality. An individual's experience is made up of a lot of intersecting variables. But it's not just race, sex, and gender. It's a whole ocean of variables - geography, class, height, accent, medical profile, parents parenting style .... could be a million things. Which, of course, takes us back to assessing a person based on their individual actions.

What's interesting to note is that white men or men in general did not collectively self-blame and rush to buy books on how to be an anti-sexist and sit and reflect about their privilege and all the harm they have done intentionally or unintentionally. But of course women being women, we took the blame and sat in our corner with the Karen hat, feeling bad about ourselves for our inadequacy.

Yup, we read multiple books, we marched, and we sat with it all.

I realize none of this means we deserve a gold star, or even a pat on the back.

But I’m not going to sit with nonsense like this, where we can’t appropriate POC choices (I agree) but we also can’t make our own choices about things as trivial as clothing or mascara. It really does reek of somebody who thinks white women are all alike and hates them so much that she’s not satisfied with making them afraid to speak up about poor service, now she wants to follow them into Chico’s and tell them what to wear.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Hon, this definition of racism emerges from social theories (largely emerging from sociology) of SYSTEMIC power. This definition of racism was never intended, even by the sociologists who first articulated it, to be the only possible definition of racism. I feel such tremendous fremdschamen whenever I see people with BAs dropping this "knowledge" like it's hot.

I understand that these discussions about whiteness might make you uncomfortable. But, try sitting with your discomfort and learning from it rather than lashing out.

NP. I'm not white (a "brown person" in your parlance) and I don't subscribe to this definition of racism either. Of course white people can be subject to racism, and frankly, a lot of what I hear non-white people say in public discourse these days about white people would be an immediately cancellable offense if said about anyone else of any race. It's ridiculous. It makes me uncomfortable not because of my white privilege or fragility or whatever, but because making generalizations about a group of people or their motivations based on their race is.... racist.

I'm white and I wouldn't describe the way white people are denigrated right now as "racist", I guess because I do think I have white privilege and I can see a lot of those critical or denigrating comments as being an effort to attack my privilege, not me personally. Also, like a lot of stereotypes, there is often a grain of truth in some of these criticisms.

HOWEVER, I do think reports like this one from NPR, and especially Steffi Cao's essay, are just part of trend toward criticizing literally everything white women do. And look, if you want to criticize the way white women in certain states vote for Trump or MAGA idiots, I will come and stand next to you and hold a sign! But criticizing white women on this level for beauty choices and yelling "that's racist!" because a white woman wore beige, or posted about her skin care routine, or jokingly referred to herself as a #coastalgrandmother, I think you need to ask yourself what the goal is.

Is the goal to just make white women feel as bad as possible about themselves? Should white women simply stop engaging in fashion and beauty at all? If white women all stopped wearing makeup or doing their hair and just wore practical separates from LL Bean, would that accomplish something useful in society? Also, keep in mind that those Trump-voting white women who are ACTUALLY doing something harmful? They mostly aren't engaging in any of these trends, and they wouldn't listen to NPR anyway, and if they did, they'd dismiss it all as liberal drivel no matter what it said. So the target audience for this stuff actually are mostly white women who vote for progressive and liberal candidates. They are mostly people who would very much like to be allies in anti-racism. And I do think you risk losing them as potential allies in actually doing something about MAGA by making them feel somehow complicit in racism because they found a serum that makes their skin appear smoother than before.

Like reading some of this commentary, it makes me feel like a poster upthread who was just like "Maybe we should all just go back to where our families came from and de-colonize." She's was heading back to Czech Republic, I guess I'll try to find some roots in Germany. Will that fix it? Or do we maybe need to find ways to live together here? Seems like this stuff is pretty counterproductive.

I agree with all of this, most especially the point of it all just being a strange and juvenile form of meanness. That’s it. That’s the goal. There is no point in being disingenuous and searching far and wide for the utility of the argument in the essay. It is what it is.

+2. I agree, criticizing mascara choices is pure meanness. It makes you wonder about the underlying motives, because this sure isn’t going to attract or retain allies in the fight against actual white supremacy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

Doesn't the fact that there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men clue you in to how pervasive misogyny is? Easier to pick on the girls than the boys.

Chad is a white man.

For a frat boy type, fine. No one is referring to 50 or 60 to business executives as Chad. It's not at all comparable to Karen.

The assertion was "there is a widely recognized word for white women but not white men." I think I'd agree with your more nuanced statement here. There isn't a widely recognized word for 50 or 60 year old white male business executives.

I've never heard of anyone except for like incels on reddit or 4chan use the term "chad" to refer to a white guy. And I could be wrong, but isn't it used as a sort of compliment? Like doesn't it just mean an alpha male, someone who is successful with women and also professionaly (or at least has money)? I know it's also criticizing these guys but it also seems to be admiring in a jealous way. Like incels hate Chads, but not because they are oppressed by them -- because they want to be them or have what they have.

Compare that to use of the term Karen, which has been used by journalists and culture commentators to describe a white woma exploiting her white privilege to endanger black people. I think at first the targets were actually white women doing scary things that did in fact endanger black people (I first became aware of it to describe that woman who called the cops on the black people having a barbecue). And then the Central Park birding incident really pushed it mainstream and I remember all these pieces in like Slate and the Washington Post and on cable news about it.

But then something happened, where it was no longer being used to describe a white woman's behavior, it came to describe her appearance, her hair cut, her age, her attractiveness, her job, etc. Karens were ALWAYS middle aged according to the cultural zeitgeist, even though the original definition absolutely wouldn't have been limited to older women (Carolyn Bryant, the woman whose accusation got Emmett Till murdered, was 21 at the time). Karens were also unattractive, and the implication was that the reason they were so unpleasant was out of some jealousy our anger attached to this lack of attractiveness. This is inherent in Steffi Cao's essay as well, which implies that white women are mad that they are no longer seen as desirable and are using TikTok trends to reclaim that.

And even the definition of Karen behavior got expanded to encompass essentially any behavior in which a white woman over 35 complained or asked for an accommodation. This might mean a white woman complaining about service at a restaurant (whether the complaint was valid or not -- the idea was that a Karen was entitled and it applied even if the thing she was entitled to was like basic service or edible food), but it could also mean a white woman asking her elementary school to accommodate her child with special needs, or a white woman advocating for better healthcare coverage from her employer, or a white woman upset about gun violence.

Eventually a Karen was just a woman over the age of 35 who opened her mouth to express anything other than gratitude or apologies. And the people leveling accusations of Karen-hood stopped being restricted to POC and or people in the service industry who'd been treated poorly. Suddenly, men in their 20s and 30s were using Karen as an epithet to describe any older woman who annoyed them, who spoke too loudly, or who dared to have an unflattering haircut or to lack of body they desired.

I remember the day an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s who is a corporate lawyer, a father, and theoretically a progressive and feminist (he voted for Obama AND Hilary), posted a photo of Kate Gosselin (look her up if you are too young to remember) with something like "When are we going to talk about the the Original Karen and her Original Karen haircut???" Now, I don't have positive associations with Kate Gosselin, who was a reality star I never paid much attention to. But that was when I realized that privileged white men had decided Karen just meant "middle aged white woman I don't want to have sex with." It's just another way to tell women that their only purpose in our culture is to look hot and be quiet and convenient.

So no, Karen and Chad are not equivalent stereotypes, sorry.

I agree that Karen and Chad aren't equivalent, so you don't need to apologize.

But maybe part of the reason for this is that white men and white women don't necessarily act in equivalent ways. And I don't think "Karen" is solely used to describe a white woman speaking up. It's not pure misogyny, though there is surely some of that mixed in with the term. There's an element of class and privilege tied into the term as well. "Karen" isn't a poor or a lower class woman. She's at least middle or upper class. There is a whole vibe that took off because it accurately captured something in the zeitgeist. Often enough the term is thrown around unfairly, but it's capturing something real.

And maybe middle and upper class men simply don't act out in ways that are as off-putting in the same way. Which is not to say they are above scorn - white men are routinely trashed as creeps and bros; privileged, lame, and uncool. But they haven't been "named" yet.

So because Karen is middle class she’s not allowed to speak up about the cold latte? I’m not following you.

She's obnoxious in a way that's different from how white men, poor women, and people of color are obnoxious. That's it. That's why the meme took off.

Please explain how by simply being a white woman, she is more obnoxious than other people.

This is racist. And typically ageist. It is unacceptable. Stop trying to defend hatred against white middle-aged women.

White women are the real victims of racism.

The cure to racism is not more racism.

You’re talking about bigotry, not racism. Racism can only be perpetrated against those with less power. White people are at the top of the power structure in this country.

Hon, this definition of racism emerges from social theories (largely emerging from sociology) of SYSTEMIC power. This definition of racism was never intended, even by the sociologists who first articulated it, to be the only possible definition of racism. I feel such tremendous fremdschamen whenever I see people with BAs dropping this "knowledge" like it's hot.

I understand that these discussions about whiteness might make you uncomfortable. But, try sitting with your discomfort and learning from it rather than lashing out.

NP. I'm not white (a "brown person" in your parlance) and I don't subscribe to this definition of racism either. Of course white people can be subject to racism, and frankly, a lot of what I hear non-white people say in public discourse these days about white people would be an immediately cancellable offense if said about anyone else of any race. It's ridiculous. It makes me uncomfortable not because of my white privilege or fragility or whatever, but because making generalizations about a group of people or their motivations based on their race is.... racist.

I'm white and I wouldn't describe the way white people are denigrated right now as "racist", I guess because I do think I have white privilege and I can see a lot of those critical or denigrating comments as being an effort to attack my privilege, not me personally. Also, like a lot of stereotypes, there is often a grain of truth in some of these criticisms.

HOWEVER, I do think reports like this one from NPR, and especially Steffi Cao's essay, are just part of trend toward criticizing literally everything white women do. And look, if you want to criticize the way white women in certain states vote for Trump or MAGA idiots, I will come and stand next to you and hold a sign! But criticizing white women on this level for beauty choices and yelling "that's racist!" because a white woman wore beige, or posted about her skin care routine, or jokingly referred to herself as a #coastalgrandmother, I think you need to ask yourself what the goal is.

Is the goal to just make white women feel as bad as possible about themselves? Should white women simply stop engaging in fashion and beauty at all? If white women all stopped wearing makeup or doing their hair and just wore practical separates from LL Bean, would that accomplish something useful in society? Also, keep in mind that those Trump-voting white women who are ACTUALLY doing something harmful? They mostly aren't engaging in any of these trends, and they wouldn't listen to NPR anyway, and if they did, they'd dismiss it all as liberal drivel no matter what it said. So the target audience for this stuff actually are mostly white women who vote for progressive and liberal candidates. They are mostly people who would very much like to be allies in anti-racism. And I do think you risk losing them as potential allies in actually doing something about MAGA by making them feel somehow complicit in racism because they found a serum that makes their skin appear smoother than before.

Like reading some of this commentary, it makes me feel like a poster upthread who was just like "Maybe we should all just go back to where our families came from and de-colonize." She's was heading back to Czech Republic, I guess I'll try to find some roots in Germany. Will that fix it? Or do we maybe need to find ways to live together here? Seems like this stuff is pretty counterproductive.

I agree with all of this, most especially the point of it all just being a strange and juvenile form of meanness. That’s it. That’s the goal. There is no point in being disingenuous and searching far and wide for the utility of the argument in the essay. It is what it is.

+2. I agree, criticizing mascara choices is pure meanness. It makes you wonder about the underlying motives, because this sure isn’t going to attract or retain allies in the fight against actual white supremacy.

Of course, non of these people actually do things to help marginalized communities.

The purpose is to gain status among like minded peers by virtue signaling.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

Oh for God’s sake. The ultimate critique all of this coverage drives at is of how white women, when we have our interest in whiteness catered to in this way, ultimately do at the ballot box. We are unreliable allies at best—and that is absolutely generalizable across differential levels of “real power and authority” among white women.

Agree that some white women vote along race and class lines, and I'm with you in feeling disgusted about that. But contrary to what you say, the MAGA women weren't allies in the first place.

But how on earth do makeup, clothing, and manicure choices "cater to whiteness"? Women of every race and color are following trends that work for them in terms of comfort etc. It's just math that some racial groups are a larger share of the population so they get more exposure on TicToc. Your statement that certain beauty trends should be abhorred because they "cater to whiteness" is as dumb as a lot of the associations in the article itself.

white college educated women are overwhelmingly liberal/democratic.

DP. 59% of college-educated white women voters went for Biden. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly liberal."

A lot of posters are taking these commentaries super personally without looking at their peers. Yes, not all white women behave any particular way, but you have to see that concerns from POC can arise because of the actions of a large enough minority.

Because we wear minimal makeup and oval nails, we aren’t MAGA, and we simply can’t understand how these make us avatars of white racism. Please explain.

If the emotional impact of your minimum makeup and oval nails weren’t linked to anything more, you wouldn’t be going nuts demanding explanations of other people’s views of those things. You’d just do them and be comfortable with it. Clearly that’s not what is happening here. See above.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

Oh for God’s sake. The ultimate critique all of this coverage drives at is of how white women, when we have our interest in whiteness catered to in this way, ultimately do at the ballot box. We are unreliable allies at best—and that is absolutely generalizable across differential levels of “real power and authority” among white women.

Agree that some white women vote along race and class lines, and I'm with you in feeling disgusted about that. But contrary to what you say, the MAGA women weren't allies in the first place.

But how on earth do makeup, clothing, and manicure choices "cater to whiteness"? Women of every race and color are following trends that work for them in terms of comfort etc. It's just math that some racial groups are a larger share of the population so they get more exposure on TicToc. Your statement that certain beauty trends should be abhorred because they "cater to whiteness" is as dumb as a lot of the associations in the article itself.

white college educated women are overwhelmingly liberal/democratic.

DP. 59% of college-educated white women voters went for Biden. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly liberal."

A lot of posters are taking these commentaries super personally without looking at their peers. Yes, not all white women behave any particular way, but you have to see that concerns from POC can arise because of the actions of a large enough minority.

Because we wear minimal makeup and oval nails, we aren’t MAGA, and we simply can’t understand how these make us avatars of white racism. Please explain.

If the emotional impact of your minimum makeup and oval nails weren’t linked to anything more, you wouldn’t be going nuts demanding explanations of other people’s views of those things. You’d just do them and be comfortable with it. Clearly that’s not what is happening here. See above.

The "link" is bogus. A wild accusation. The "going nuts" is because we won't stand for this nonsense.

You can denounce us, but that doesn't mean we have to fall into line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

Oh for God’s sake. The ultimate critique all of this coverage drives at is of how white women, when we have our interest in whiteness catered to in this way, ultimately do at the ballot box. We are unreliable allies at best—and that is absolutely generalizable across differential levels of “real power and authority” among white women.

Agree that some white women vote along race and class lines, and I'm with you in feeling disgusted about that. But contrary to what you say, the MAGA women weren't allies in the first place.

But how on earth do makeup, clothing, and manicure choices "cater to whiteness"? Women of every race and color are following trends that work for them in terms of comfort etc. It's just math that some racial groups are a larger share of the population so they get more exposure on TicToc. Your statement that certain beauty trends should be abhorred because they "cater to whiteness" is as dumb as a lot of the associations in the article itself.

white college educated women are overwhelmingly liberal/democratic.

DP. 59% of college-educated white women voters went for Biden. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly liberal."

A lot of posters are taking these commentaries super personally without looking at their peers. Yes, not all white women behave any particular way, but you have to see that concerns from POC can arise because of the actions of a large enough minority.

Because we wear minimal makeup and oval nails, we aren’t MAGA, and we simply can’t understand how these make us avatars of white racism. Please explain.

If the emotional impact of your minimum makeup and oval nails weren’t linked to anything more, you wouldn’t be going nuts demanding explanations of other people’s views of those things. You’d just do them and be comfortable with it. Clearly that’s not what is happening here. See above.

Good lord, do you kiss your kids with those lying, ballet pink glossed lips?

When ‘cultural think pieces’ are predicated by the idea that the white women who wear the same mani shade as Asian Steffi wear are oppressing Steffi and Kamala and are the secret pillars of a global move towards fascisms, the white women who are being pilloried for what’s in their Ulta carts are allowed to…notice. Try again - this time, engage your brain. Maybe do some light Pilates stretches first, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

Oh for God’s sake. The ultimate critique all of this coverage drives at is of how white women, when we have our interest in whiteness catered to in this way, ultimately do at the ballot box. We are unreliable allies at best—and that is absolutely generalizable across differential levels of “real power and authority” among white women.

Agree that some white women vote along race and class lines, and I'm with you in feeling disgusted about that. But contrary to what you say, the MAGA women weren't allies in the first place.

But how on earth do makeup, clothing, and manicure choices "cater to whiteness"? Women of every race and color are following trends that work for them in terms of comfort etc. It's just math that some racial groups are a larger share of the population so they get more exposure on TicToc. Your statement that certain beauty trends should be abhorred because they "cater to whiteness" is as dumb as a lot of the associations in the article itself.

white college educated women are overwhelmingly liberal/democratic.

DP. 59% of college-educated white women voters went for Biden. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly liberal."

A lot of posters are taking these commentaries super personally without looking at their peers. Yes, not all white women behave any particular way, but you have to see that concerns from POC can arise because of the actions of a large enough minority.

Because we wear minimal makeup and oval nails, we aren’t MAGA, and we simply can’t understand how these make us avatars of white racism. Please explain.

If the emotional impact of your minimum makeup and oval nails weren’t linked to anything more, you wouldn’t be going nuts demanding explanations of other people’s views of those things. You’d just do them and be comfortable with it. Clearly that’s not what is happening here. See above.

Once more with feeling: please explain the “emotional impact” of my mascara and manicure choices, or of a coastal grandma, on POC. While you’re at it, please explain why POC can’t adopt these same trends.

This is a forum dedicated to middle-aged women. Your surprise at the pushback seems a little naive. But yeah, I’m tired of being Karened and I’m not going to let you tell me what to wear.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do not think the ideas in this interview are racism. I do think they are wrongheaded and a massive rhetorical stretch. I also think it's part of a broader trend of blaming white women, and especially white women with the least amount of actual power (young women trying to make a buck on Instagram, middle aged moms) instead of the white women who have actually ascended to positions of real power and authority. Easier to complain about the soft power of some Instagram influencer than to talk about how some of the white women at high levels in the media or corporate world perpetuate white supremacy. Always easiest to criticize someone who will never, ever be able to offer you a job.

Also, if you've listened to the interview but haven't read Steffi Cao's essay that prompted NPR to invite her on, I recommend reading it. The tone of the interview makes her argument seem gentler than it is. Her essay is vitriolic in a way that really bothered me. Just the absolute disdain she has for her subject. I've read plenty of smart and valid criticisms of white women that have made me think and examine my own role in white supremacy. This wasn't one of them.

Oh for God’s sake. The ultimate critique all of this coverage drives at is of how white women, when we have our interest in whiteness catered to in this way, ultimately do at the ballot box. We are unreliable allies at best—and that is absolutely generalizable across differential levels of “real power and authority” among white women.

Agree that some white women vote along race and class lines, and I'm with you in feeling disgusted about that. But contrary to what you say, the MAGA women weren't allies in the first place.

But how on earth do makeup, clothing, and manicure choices "cater to whiteness"? Women of every race and color are following trends that work for them in terms of comfort etc. It's just math that some racial groups are a larger share of the population so they get more exposure on TicToc. Your statement that certain beauty trends should be abhorred because they "cater to whiteness" is as dumb as a lot of the associations in the article itself.

white college educated women are overwhelmingly liberal/democratic.

DP. 59% of college-educated white women voters went for Biden. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly liberal."

A lot of posters are taking these commentaries super personally without looking at their peers. Yes, not all white women behave any particular way, but you have to see that concerns from POC can arise because of the actions of a large enough minority.

Because we wear minimal makeup and oval nails, we aren’t MAGA, and we simply can’t understand how these make us avatars of white racism. Please explain.

If the emotional impact of your minimum makeup and oval nails weren’t linked to anything more, you wouldn’t be going nuts demanding explanations of other people’s views of those things. You’d just do them and be comfortable with it. Clearly that’s not what is happening here. See above.

Thank you so much for educating me that my lack of makeup and fancy manicure is contributing to the oppression of marginalized people of color. Surely, spending my limited financial resources on completely unnecessary beauty products which are made by white male-owned beauty conglomerates will help to eradicate white racism. Thank you for the hard work that you are doing to bring about change and economic empowerment to marginalized communities.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:White men have been all too happy to shift the focus onto white women. Especially the older ones, because who likes them anyway amirite?

Likewise, white women were happier when white men were being targeted as the Big Bad.

I do not know anyone who was "happier". What is wrong with all of you people who feel "happy" about *any* group being targeted? All this finger pointing at entire groups based on skin color is not productive. That is the F-ing point.

The whole point is for each person to educate themselves, learn about the experiences of other people, learn about structures in place in our society that are harmful for marginalized groups, and look for ways they can change their personal behavior and those structures to move toward a better society. The whole point is what someone else said about intersectionality. Talking about societal structures that harm certain groups is productive, not just for POC but also for the LGBTQ+ communities and the disabled communities etc. Saying "white men" this or "white women" that or "insert any racial group here" blah blah blah is not helpful.