6 ST THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020I am one of the many women who now find our
name used as an insult or shorthand for an obnox-
ious, entitled, occasionally racist creature who de-
mands to speak to the manager or calls the police
for no good reason. I know this is not the biggest
problem. But it really hurts me, especially since I
try not to exhibit the behaviors associated with the
insult. How should I respond when I hear some-
one being called “a Karen”? Ignore it, defend my-
self or change my name?
KAREN
You are in excellent company! I
have a flurry of letters from wom-
en named Karen whose feelings
are really hurt. I confess I’m
flummoxed by the depth of emo-
tion. Sure, your name has been
hijacked. But the insult isn’t
aimed at you specifically. Accord-
ing to census data, there are more
than a million Karens in the coun-
try!
It’s not personal at all, unlike
the recent misogynistic attack on
a congresswoman by a male
colleague, or the racist slurs and
dog whistles applied to Black
Lives Matter protesters. Those
are instances of direct abuse.
Now, I object to the sexism of
the meme. It’s no coincidence that
Karen’s male counterpart, Ken,
never really caught on. (An angry
white man is just a man.) And I
hate to think of you feeling bad.
So, the next time you hear the
insult, say: “I know it’s catchy,
but it hurts my feelings. Can’t you
call out the bad behavior without
using my name?” Keep in mind:
Memes fade fast. Remember
Becky?
Vacation? Now?
My elderly mother has cancer.
She went to the emergency room
after a fall and tested positive for
the coronavirus. My sister, who
was exposed to my mom while
she was positive, is isolating and
waiting for a negative test result
so she can go on a family vacation.
I told her she should skip her
vacation and stay with our mother
when she is released from the
hospital. She expects me to drive
eight hours to Mom’s house, then
quarantine away from my family
afterward. I told my sister she is
sacrificing my family for her
vacation. She disagrees. How can
I persuade her she is being self-
ish?
A.
You don’t seem measurably less
selfish than your sister, so I fear
you will not persuade her. Unless
the initial plan was to leave your
mother (with cancer and prone to
falls) alone during your sister’s
vacation, you were always going
to drive to her house to take care
of her. The only change is her
coronavirus diagnosis.
I doubt the hospital will release
a geriatric Covid-19 patient, espe-
cially one with cancer, while she
is sick with the virus. (She may
also need rehabilitation after her
fall.) If I’m wrong, please don’t
expose yourself to undue risk!
But your mother’s diagnosis
argues for fuller discussion with
her, your sister and the doctor; it
doesn’t take you off the hook for
shared responsibility for her care.Rent Relief, at a CostI have shared an apartment with
my roommate for three years. We
get along well. In December, she
went to China for three months.
So we invited a mutual friend to
stay in our guest room and help
with the rent. When my roommate
returned, the pandemic was on,
and it didn’t feel right to ask our
friend to leave. Also, my room-
mate is a yoga teacher, and her
income is reduced. She says she
can’t afford to pay her full share of
the rent now, so having our friend
here is helpful. The problem: I
can’t stand living with this friend
anymore! What should I do?
ROOMIEThe easiest solution (unfortu-
nately) requires your forbear-
ance: Ask your friend to stop
doing whatever it is that bugs
you. During this period of eco-
nomic turmoil, your friend allows
you and your roommate, with her
reduced income, to stay in place.
If that’s not feasible, talk to
your roommate about finding a
different person to rent the spare
room. Or set a reasonable dead-
line for your roommate to begin
paying half the rent again. De-
pending on your lease, this may
be the toughest route: You may
be jointly responsible for the
entire rent, and it may be hard for
your roommate to increase her
income now.Just FriendsOver the last year, I became close
friends with another man. Re-
cently, things shifted. He invited
me to spend the night with him
several times in the last month. I
did. Nothing sexual happened; we
just spooned all night. I took this
as a sign of romantic interest. But
two days ago, he announced he
has a boyfriend, whom he never
mentioned before. He claims he
often spoons with friends. Am I
wrong to feel blindsided and
used?
ANONYMOUSIt seems odd that a close friend
never mentioned his boyfriend.
But platonic spooning all night
seems odd to me, too, especially
in the midst of a pandemic. Next
time, use your words. If a situa-
tion feels weird, ask what’s going
on, OK?A Hijacked Handle
Social Q’s PHILIP GALANES
. ...................................................................
For help with your awkward situation,
send a question to SocialQ@nytimes
.com, to Philip Galanes on Facebook
or @SocialQPhilip on Twitter.
record the audio from his own
computer. Ms. Hill was relieved.
“OK,” she said into the mic.
“Welcome to the first edition of
‘Naked Politics With Katie Hill.’ ”
“You are the ultimate insider,”
she told her guest, “and can tell us
the scoop on how politics is dis-
gusting, right?”
Depending on your views, Ms.
Hill may be the perfect case study
for that premise. Or you may think
she has contributed to it.
Once considered a rising Demo-
cratic star (a favorite of the House
speaker, Nancy Pelosi, whose
daughter gave her Archie), Ms.
Hill made headlines in 2018 when
she flipped a Republican district
blue. Vice said she had run the
“most millennial campaign ever,”
part of a surging wave of female
candidates. She was one of very
few openly bisexual elected offi-
cials.
But her term ended almost as
quickly as it started, after photos
of her naked — holding a bong;
brushing a woman’s hair — were
published by the conservative
website RedState.
Ms. Hill believes the photos
were leaked by her estranged hus-
band, Kenny Heslep, who she said
had threatened to “ruin her” if she
left him, which she had, five
months before the leak. Through a
lawyer, Erin McKinley, Mr. Heslep
declined to comment for this arti-
cle. He has denied releasing the
photos, saying his computer was
hacked.
The pictures revealed that the
couple had been having a relation-
ship with a young member of Ms.
Hill’s campaign staff, a subordi-
nate. This did not violate House
rules, because it happened during
the campaign, not after Ms. Hill
was elected. But RedState re-
ported that Ms. Hill had also had
an affair with her legislative direc-
tor, which would have. (Both she
and the legislative director have
denied this.) An ethics investiga-tion was opened into her conduct.
That investigation was never
completed, though, because Ms.
Hill stepped down, even as Ms.
Pelosi and others encouraged her
not to. In a resignation speech, de-
livered in a bright red suit (she
has called it her “battle uniform”)
and lipstick (“war paint”) she
apologized for her conduct but
said that she was resigning, at
least in part, “because of a double
standard.”
“We have men who have been
credibly accused of intentional
acts of sexual violence and remain
in boardrooms, on the Supreme
Court, in this very body and, worst
of all, in the Oval Office,” she said.
Eight months later, Ms. Hill is
still grappling with her capitu-
lation. “I still have a lot of unrecon-
ciled feelings about my decision,”
she said. “But I’m here and I’m go-
ing to make the best of it, I guess.”
She was sitting on a small suede
couch in her apartment, a sparse
one-bedroom that is the first placeshe has ever lived alone. Recently,
she has been sorting through her
closet, organizing her old congres-
sional suits into piles for charity.
“My mom bought all of these for
my campaign,” she said. “These
ones” — she pointed to a small
section of reds and blues — “are
likely to have some usefulness at
some point outside of Congress.”
Ms. Hill remains embroiled in a
messy divorce with Mr. Heslep.
She also plans to file a civil suit re-
lated to the unlawful distribution
of the images as early as the fall.
That they remain on the internet,
and probably always will, is a re-
ality Ms. Hill is getting used to. “I
guess at a certain point you just
kind of have to accept it,” she said.
“People who want to see me in
very, you know, uncomfortable,
awkward, nonflattering, naked
positions can. And they’re not
even good photos! Like, that’s
what I keep going back to. I’m like,
‘God.’ ”Shocking Loss
It is often thought that the best
way to bury your most horrifying
internet result is to do somethingnew. Ms. Hill is trying.
Using leftover money from her
re-election fund, she recently
started a political action commit-
tee, HerTime. She plans to intro-
duce the podcast on Anchor later
this month. And on Tuesday, she
will publish a book, “She Will
Rise,” a memoir-meets-manifesto
that will be released, along with
seemingly every other female-
centric title, in time for the centen-
nial of the ratification of the 19th
Amendment.
The book begins in the days af-
ter the photo leak, which was tech-
nically late 2019, when, as she
writes, she spent days “curled up
in my bed with my mind in the
darkest places it’s ever been.” She
contemplated suicide.
Back home in California, some-
one had sent a suspicious powder
to her former office, forcing an
evacuation. In her hometown,
Santa Clarita, there were posters
of her Photoshopped in a Nazi uni-
form with the hashtag
#WifenSwappenSS — a reference
to an iron cross tattoo on her lower
groin that some thought resem-
bled a Nazi symbol. Her father, a
police captain, went through townDon’t Fence In Katie Hill
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Katie Hill, right, in early 2019 with her DemT5H8PZ0