Karen

スタンフォード大学が、差別的表現を排除するためのガイダンスを発行したそうです。

ガイダンスでは、人種、性的マイノリティ、障害者などに対して差別的に響く用語、表現の具体例が取り上げられ、同大学内での使用を禁じると共に、適切な言い換えが示されているそうです。

Stanford University published an index of "harmful language" it plans to eliminate from the school’s websites and computer code, offering terms to be used as replacements.

The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, which was revealed in May, is a "multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford," according to the guide.

The guide says its goal is to eliminate "many forms of harmful language," including "racist, violent, and biased (e.g., disability bias, ethnic bias, ethnic slurs, gender bias, implicit bias, sexual bias) language" in Stanford websites and code. It added that it strives to educate people on the impact of words.

(Landon Mion. Stanford releases guide to eliminate 'harmful language,' cautions against calling US citizens 'American'. Fox News. December 20, 2022.)

例えば、アメリカ合衆国民を指すのに"American"というのはNGで、"US citizens"が正しい、といったものだそうです。

その他の例も挙げられているのですが、その中で、"Karen"はNG、というのに目が留まりました。

Other terms deemed harmful in this section include "abort," which offers the replacement of "cancel" or "end," because of moral concerns about abortion; "child prostitute" is replaced with a "child who has been trafficked," so the person is not defined by just one characteristic; and "Karen" is replaced with "demanding or entitled White woman."

(ibid.)

言うまでもなく"Karen"は女性名で、"Catherine"というファーストネームの愛称ですが、これが白人女性を揶揄するのに使われるとは知りませんでした。

どうやら、"Karen"は中流階級の女性で、自身の権利や要求事項を声高に主張する白人女性の典型（！？）として、一般名詞化した俗語表現のようです。

2年前の記事ですが、そのような意味合いで使われている"Karen"を取り上げているものがありました。

Earlier this week Domino's Pizza had to issue an apology over a promotion it ran in Australia and New Zealand, offering free pizza to "nice Karens".

The company didn't pick out the name Karen at random. "Karen" has, in recent years, become a widespread meme referencing a specific type of middle-class white woman, who exhibits behaviours that stem from privilege.

To give some examples, "Karen" is associated with the kind of person who demands to "speak to the manager" in order to belittle service industry workers, is anti-vaccination, and carries out racist micro-aggressions, such as asking to touch black people's hair.

(Ashita Nagesh. What exactly is a 'Karen' and where did the meme come from? BBC News. July 30, 2020.)

このような"Karen"の意味合いがどのような経緯で生まれたかについては、テレビドラマや映画、SNSなどが関係しているとされ、やはりと思わされます。

ところで、同じロジックで行くと、"lazy Susan"や"plain Jane"、"Negative Nancy"も言い換えが必要のように思いますがどうなんでしょう!?