Rob Henderson in the Times:

In recent years, casual contempt for white women has come mostly from the left. On May 25, 2020, the same day that George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, a white woman called the police on a black man who was birdwatching in Central Park. Derek Chauvin went to prison for murdering Floyd, and Amy Cooper was given an insulting nickname for her supposedly racist reaction.

She was dubbed “the Central Park Karen”.

Since then, many conservatives have complained about the left’s attack on white people and the “values” of white supremacy, which apparently include perfectionism, urgency, individualism and objectivity. All of this helped fuel a political backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the second term of President Trump.

Henderson blunts his point by failing to point out that there is no male equivalent of “Karen”. Part of the venom of the pejorative “Karen” is that this despicable person is female. Yuck. Yet there is no Bob or Dave or Steve. Why’s that then? It can’t possibly be because there’s something disgusting or contemptible about just being female, can it?

After a federal ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old white woman in Minneapolis, on January 7, Republican officials and conservative commentators characterised her as “very violent”, a “deranged lunatic woman” and a “domestic terrorist”. They also tarnished her with an insult long used in certain corners of social media but which is new to the general public: Awful.

The term, which first appeared on Wiktionary as AWFL, stands for “Affluent White Female Urban Liberal”, and it’s how the conservative commentator Erik Erickson described the killing of Good on X. “An AWFUL,” he wrote, “is dead after running her car into an ICE agent who opened fire on her. Progressive whites are turning violent. ICE agents have the right to defend themselves.”

And yet there’s no AWMUL. Why’s that? Because it’s much worse when women do it?

Because long before Awfuls existed, the progressive left had been demonising Karens. Take The Root, a left-wing outlet that covers race in America, rounded up “20 real-life Karens who ruined someone’s day” over the past few years. The piece noted that: “You can’t even board a plane or even feed the homeless without one of them spawning into a racist or ignorant tantrum. Luckily, some of them end up facing the law when their tirades escalate into acts of violence or other harmful behaviour.”

But no such rants about George or Mike or Jim.

Funny how that works.