In case you were wondering who “Karen” is, she’s the internet phenomenon that represents the heated clash between the Baby Boomers & Millennials. Karen is the stereotype of a white woman who has three uncontrollable children & as many ex-husbands, drives the ugliest 7-seater car imaginable, wears knock-off designer shades, has a lopsided pixie-cut, & always demands to speak to the manager. Whenever someone complains about something completely ridiculous, let’s say how other people identify their own gender, they’re a Karen. Being at the tail end of the Millennial generation, it’s a pretty funny meme that isn’t usually meant maliciously. OK, Boomer?
The only problem with this meme is that disabled people often end up complaining about illegal parking & blocked access routes, only to be brushed off as inconsequential by someone who fails to recognise that we have places to be & things to do, & we are labelled a Karen.
In the space of a week I’ve had to deal with multiple instances of pavement parking where I’ve been told to calm down, be patient, or just scrape past without scratching their precious paintwork. I’ve had to argue with the pharmacy to provide a prescription that they were denying me access to because they decided it would be fun (I guess?), & then I’ve had to complain to shop staff about using the disabled toilet as a storage cabinet.
When you have to complain to people in public that frequently, you start to wonder if you really are becoming a Karen, & certainly my depression making me doubt myself doesn’t help. You start to wonder if you really are over-reacting by wanting to cross a road safely without spending extra time in a torrential downpour.
Fortunately, as someone who did a small stint in customer service, & being married to someone who worked in retail for many years, I have plenty to compare myself to. Nevertheless, it certainly drains your confidence & energy to be rebuffed so often, & after being so vocal people just stop listening.
What started out as a light-joke has been flogged to within an inch of it’s life, & completely unintentionally has become yet another barrier disabled people have to contend with. It’s got to the point where no one can publicly complain about something without being labelled a Karen & rebuked, & with inaccessibility issues often being labelled as whimsical & unimportant, disabled people are more often than not labelled as Karens.
The real problem is, of course, that inaccessibility simply isn’t taken seriously. When, a decade after the implementation of the Equality Act, blatant inaccessibility is still commonplace, you start to wonder if anyone will ever take it seriously. We’re always told to make do, go somewhere else & be grateful for how things have improved, yet without people vocally & publicly complaining to begin with, things would not have improved. My usual retort is to explain that by their logic, we should stop all further research into cancer as things have improved so much, but my smart mouth doesn’t solve the problem at hand; until accessibility is taken as seriously as it should always have been, every time a disabled person complains about their issues, we will be labelled as Karens.
