From the looks of it, getting old seems awful. From deteriorating eyesight and ever more debilitating hangovers to hip replacements and your friends’ funerals, it all sounds horrendous. But for women, I think there’s another side to ageing that’s less talked about, and it’s the double whammy of ageism and misogyny that quietens the voices of women who still have so much to say. This societal distaste for vocal older women was made more obvious revealed to me when I reflected on the stereotype of the ÔÇÿKaren,’ and why it is we’ve equated bossiness and entitlement with women over a certain age. 

Karen is characterised as a woman somewhere past thirty who is unreasonably demanding. Her favourite pastimes include terrorising people in customer service by asking for the manager and wearing her hair in an unfashionable manner. Much like ÔÇÿbitch’, ÔÇÿslut,’ and ÔÇÿhag’ this insult has no masculine equivalent. Apparently, it is only women, specifically unfashionable older women, who need a purpose built term to mock their behaviour in public.

However, the term ÔÇÿKaren’ hasn’t always been a thinly veiled excuse for misogyny. Originally, a Karen referred more specifically to a racist white woman who weaponised her vulnerability against black men. In May 2020, Amy Cooper was dubbed ÔÇÿCentral Park Karen’ after she called the police on Christian Cooper whilst he was birdwatching and falsely claimed that he was threatening her life. From this incident, the ÔÇÿKaren’ label began to be used as a way to fight back against this specific form of racism by white women.

Unfortunately, Karen has morphed into an umbrella term for any woman who someone feels should quieten down. The unquestioned argument-winning power of calling someone a ÔÇÿKaren’ has opened the floodgates for casual misogyny without consequence. 

Whilst young women are granted many of the freedoms pioneered by the last century of feminism, the expectations change once they begin to reach the menopause. Suddenly we want women firmly back in the domestic space, cooking us warm dinners and listening to our troubles without interjecting their own voices too gratingly into the conversation. In short, western culture’s acceptance of feminist ideas is yet to extend that courtesy to the older generation, awarding respect only to women we find attractive, young, and exciting. In a deadly mix of misogyny and ageism, women over forty have been left behind and forgotten in this new and supposedly progressive age.

Charlotte Harris