Sunni and Lisa are joined once again by Amy Bauer, the creator of www.karensdaughter.com
She is back to update us on her journey and much more!
This is from her website - Hi, my name is Amy and I’m a Karen. My truth is rooting in growing up in a white, patriarchal society that taught me the white male is.
If you’re reading this and do not think this is true, then I encourage you to ask yourself how have you benefited from a white patriarchal society. When I was 15, I was offered a job filing papers in the Accounting Department at the local Glass Bottling Manufacturing Plant. I had this job through high school and partially through college. This meant that I didn’t have to work fast food, retail, or in a bar/restaurant
because I had office experience.
Amy’s career has been eclectic. Starting in her teens working at a glass bottling manufacturing plant, to post college corporate public relations, to a decade building community in the music industry, to finally landing in the Bay Area start-up world. During the time of President Trump and a global pandemic, the world watched George Floyd murdered. Amy realized that in order to help others, she would first need to get her own house in order. With the help of a coaching program, a complete catatonic meltdown, having difficult conversations with her family about political, racial, and social issues, and working through the book, The Artist’s Way, the idea of Karen’s Daughter arose.
As a daughter of Republican parents (and ironically someone named Karen) Amy asked herself whether there are others out there like her: progressive white women with Republican families? Did they want to show up better in this world for those in marginalized communities
but lack the knowledge, resources, and skills to make an impact?
As a way to process her own journey as Karen’s daughter, Amy created KarensDaughter.com, to help remove the layers of unconscious bias and to show up as the person she was born as, not the person her family taught her to be. Amy’s hope is to build a supportive community of sacred spaces for white womxn who are willing to have these difficult conversations with family and continue to show up for marginalized
communities and work toward equality for all.
Are you Karen’s Daughter?
If your parents have different values than the modern world you want to live in, then you, too, are Karen’s Daughter. My intention in starting this journey is to show up and put in the hard work as a white woman to make a better world for the generations that follow. I hope that by telling my story, I’ll encourage more people like myself to have these hard conversations and build a community that comes together to support each other.
Who is “Karen”?
We all associate “Karen” with a privileged “Speak to the Manager” white woman but Karen can come in many different varieties. There is not a “one size fits all” Karen. Throughout this journey we’ll expand on Karen, as a person and a concept.
In the case of Karen’s Daughter, she represents my humble mother who would be too embarrassed to ask for the manager but may still have strong opinions about how things should be. She’s an honest woman who loves her family, but may have some fears and prefers the comforts of home.
My father is similar in a lot of ways. He is Karen’s Husband who we will call “Kevin”** on this journey. I also have an older sister, who we’ll call Jennifer,** the most popular girl’s name from 1970 - 1984. And that leaves me, the youngest in a family of 4. You can call me Katie**. Bonus points for those who figured out why I chose that name.
This is the story of Karen, Kevin, Jennifer and Katie. Welcome to our white middle-class family.