I’m just going to really condense the following article quickly so I can address the misogyny of the whole situation and the aftermath (you can read it yourself to get a more detailed picture). https://nypost.com/2023/05/18/nyc-hospital-karen-paid-for-citi-bike-at-center-of-fight-with-black-man/

Following a 12 hour shift, the visibly pregnant woman paid for a citi bike before being approached by 5 black young men who started filming her (she was already seated on the bike at the start of the video and one guy was in her space, and on her other side, the other guy was seated on the bike next to her’s texting and laughing, the third guy was in front of her bike doing the filming) and saying she was stealing the bike that was already paid for. After some altercation where she was yelling for help (nobody came to her aid), another hospital worker passing by in the background intervened. She calmed down and rented another bike to get home. Her lawyer confirmed she had receipts for two transactions minutes apart for the citi bikes.

Now here’s what followed this incident. Just watch the way the media video decided to follow up on the viral social media video. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/bellevue-hospital-worker-in-citi-bike-confrontation-on-leave-pending-review/4338516/

The news station participated in shoddy “journalism” in order to get their viral news segment of “racism endangering the lives of five young black men.” While racism is a serious issue in the US, journalists do have a responsibility, and this is only going to make the situation worse when they present speculation as facts. The video clip shows the journalist knocking on her apartment door and telling her apartment building neighbours she was stealing a bike from a black teen and getting their reactions.

Aside from the misogyny of the alleged teenagers (five of them surrounding the pregnant woman—easy target), the way society handled this was misogynistic too.

Of course there were misogynistic comments of her “weaponizing her tears.” 1, 2, 3 . The biological response of a pregnant woman being more sensitive to emotional triggers was used against her. She was put on leave from her job too. (Edit: and news outlets are calling her a Karen.) (edit 2: and media outlets painting her as a racist who harms black patients.) (Edit 3: twitter thread (archive) collecting examples of the harassment, violence, and doxing aimed at her online.)

I’m not going to judge how she handled this. Women are penalized for not behaving like perfect victims in stressful situations. She’s tired from both the 12 hour shift and the toll of pregnancy and then she was surrounded by five men and her flight or fight instincts kicked in. It’s unfortunate the fight response kicked in for her to try to defend a citi bike. (Edit: maybe her flight response was overridden because there were FIVE of them.)

What is the likelihood a pregnant woman with a stable job is going to approach 5 young men (in New York) who are larger than her to steal a citi bike from them? (And she’ll choose do it while wearing recognizable hospital scrubs and her ID badge?) And to have managed to ninja her way to be already sitting on it when the recording had already started? This is something that should have crossed a journalist’s mind. It should have been really easy to confirm by looking at receipts from the young man, but the journalists didn’t even bother to check before jumping to fabricate a sensational racist news story and defaming her to her neighbours.

Here’s how the right wingers are reacting to this (just see Tim Pool’s video comments). They’re saying that because she’s a hospital worker, she most likely voted Democrat and that she’s getting what she voted for. Furthermore, they’re demonizing her for calling her baby a fetus. She’s heard in the video saying “you’re hurting my fetus.” Never mind that she’s a physician’s aid and it’s been drilled into her to call all unborn babies a fetus. Because, you right wingers, the word fetus gives you more info than baby. It tells you that the baby is still in the womb and is at risk to complications because you’re assaulting a pregnant woman. It literally means unborn baby. It’s taken from Latin. It’s not a dehumanizing term.

Tell me again how safe the world is to pregnant women. Both the left and the right hate women.

…..

Edit: another article (archive) that describes events of that day more succinctly.

Edit: also, there were calls online (X —sorry can’t archive video, but the comments refer to the guy as “reset Ken”) to doxx the man who helped her. They really want to cut pregnant women off from any help by teaching the public that they will punish anyone who steps in to de escalate a volatile situation.