Bad news, Jessicas... you are Gen Z's version of 'Karen'

Coining a derogatory term for a certain type of woman is a generational thing. Helen Coffey investigates how names get chosen, unpacks the stereotype and asks: will it ever stop?

- Helen Coffey

Way back in 2020, the question was first floated on Reddit: if “Karen” was the derogatory name given to baby boomers and older Gen X women - usually white - who apparently stuck their noses into other people's business and demanded to “see the manager” at the slightest provocation, what was the millennial equivalent?

Discourse rose and subsided online at various points over the intervening five years, with a spread of contenders mercilessly thrown to the wolves. Those whose names were in the firing line did their best to provide alternatives, but despite impassioned pleas for Ashley, Jennifer and even Lisa, one name has now emerged victorious. The modern “Karen” is officially – according to certain corners of the internet, at any rate – Jessica.

My heart goes out to anyone cursed with that moniker, including my own beloved niece. No amount of fame or money can shield against the unwelcome (and sexist) connotations, as Alba, Biel and Simpson will soon discover. Just as Karens everywhere found that their name had gone from unremarkable to wildly insulting almost overnight, so my generation is having its own unfair moment of reckoning.

And it is unfair. While finding a derogatory term for the kind of Caucasian woman who would call the police on a Black man innocently birdwatching is understandable, the term “Karen” swiftly devolved into something far more misogynistic. It wasn’t long before the barb was being used to shame middle-aged women for having the temerity to complain, be “demanding” or speak up and exercise their agency, rather than remaining quietly submissive people-pleasers. And shaming women into silence is, whichever way you slice it, extremely problematic.

In fact, the judge presiding over an employment tribunal in June last year said that calling someone a “Karen” is “borderline racist, sexist and ageist”. Back in 2021, meanwhile, comedian Shaparak Khorsandi dubbed it “a sexist, ageist term” in a piece for