The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast

Misogyny, Patriarchy, and the Pain of “Mean Girls”

• Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi • Season 5 • Episode 40

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Episode 40: Misogyny, Patriarchy, and the Pain of “Mean Girls”

In this episode of The Velvet Hammer™, Mo asks the question most men avoid: “What is misogyny?” Karen, Mo, and Mike take it further, unpacking how patriarchy shapes the legal world and how internalized misogyny plays out between women. They talk about the quiet digs, the “sweetie” moments in court, and why women still send big cases to men they see as the “better trial lawyers.”

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.

Produced by Mike Todd, Audio & Video Engineer, and Kassie Slugić, Executive Producer.

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Mo Hamoudi :

All right. Okay. I want to learn about misogyny.

Karen Koehler :

Why?

Mo Hamoudi :

Because I just I observe misogyny. I've been guilty of misogyny. And I've been open enough to let people tell me, like, Mo, you can't, that's misogynistic. You're, you know, you're this is there's gender dynamics at play. And so I really want to learn a woman's perspective about misogyny in the context of other women. I observe women interact with one another, and I don't think I truly appreciate how misogyny exists within the relationship of multiple women involved. And I don't think I can speak to it, so I want to talk to a woman about it. So first, what is your how do you define misogyny?

Karen Koehler :

How do you define misogyny?

Mo Hamoudi :

Um misogyny is just, I mean it's just bias, like a male bias towards female persons, like in any way, uh seeing them as not the same, or diminishing them, or not viewing each other as equals, trying to exercise power over a woman. Those are the types of things that I understand misogyny to be.

Karen Koehler :

Do you have a better definition?

Mike Todd:

I got an AI overview if you want to hear that. Misogyny is a deep-rooted prejudice, hatred, and hostility, specifically directed at women and girls, characterized by the desire to control, demean, and subordinate them to maintain male dominance and patriarchal systems. It manifests in various harmful behaviors and attitudes ranging from verbal harassment and threats of violence to more systemic issues such as gender-based violence, discrimination, and dispissable of women's concerns. Has roots in ancient Greek words and persists in culture today, often embedded in social norms, religious interpretations, and contemporary forms of online hate.

Karen Koehler :

And that's I I view so you'll often hear me talk about the patriarchy and the patriarchal society. And we are the and that is the more benign form that we live under. It's just that's the systemic part of it. Yeah. To me, misogyny is the more negative manifestation of it. It's it's more active. It's more it's intent. It's with intent. It's worse.

Mo Hamoudi :

It's worse. Okay.

Karen Koehler :

It's it's it's there's an element of um well, like the Andrew Tate situation, um, there's an element of uh forced male domination involved.

Mo Hamoudi :

Okay, okay. And then and then so some but and have you experienced that, you would say, your entire life.

Karen Koehler :

Have I experienced what?

Mo Hamoudi :

What you forced domination, like male domination, even structural, like has it been prevalent in your life since you remember you were, you know.

Karen Koehler :

So what I what I am more familiar with is just the paternalist paternalistic part of society, which has I've always fought against a thousand percent. The misogynistic part enters periodically. Okay. I've s I it comes in, it comes out, it comes in, it comes out.

Mike Todd:

You know, this person or well, you've pointed out some of situations like that in in past episodes for sure.

Karen Koehler :

Yeah.

Mike Todd:

Like lawyers, lawyers, lawyers who who said nasty things to you.

Karen Koehler :

Henry Brown misogynist. Yeah.

Mike Todd:

Okay.

Mo Hamoudi :

John Henry Brown misogynist.

Mike Todd:

Well, and there was that other guy who made a comment about your divorce.

Karen Koehler :

Peter Danello.

Mike Todd:

Yeah, yeah. Um I I'm sure there's tons. I'm I'm just mentioning the ones that I remember from our podcast.

Karen Koehler :

Yes. And it's also there's also those that have that do it in a less conf confrontational manner, but with the same type of insultive, uh, insultive type of context, which is like hey honey.

Mike Todd:

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Or or um Sweetie. Yeah. And and so with women, the women are women in our world grew up within a patriarchal society. We still have it. It's still around.

Mike Todd:

Well, every religious doctrine is a patriarchal system. And and pretty much our I mean, our educational system. It's all of our systems are based on a patriarchal background.

Karen Koehler :

Yeah. I mean, you have times in society when the women ruled because their husbands died, or you know, it was a little different, like in China, there was some, you know, but those are usually the exceptions to those rules. And and this is true. The only other time that you really see it is in like the movies Wonder Woman. One could only wish. Um so it is so deeply inbred. And people some people have an awareness about it, and other people have an awareness, but choose not to have that awareness, and other people just have no awareness. There's so many different degrees of people's understanding of it.

Mo Hamoudi :

So, more recently, what I learned was that um some of my behavior qualities, not related to misogyny, uh, but uh just general behavioral qualities, are a consequence of how I've experienced relationships my entire life. And, you know, specifically like overly trusting people. And that's because of my experiences. That that logic, if you're like growing up in a paternalistic system, patriarchal system, not paternal, patriarchal system over long periods of time, and you're just absorbing it, even if you're not, even if you're fighting against it, even if you're trying to stand above it, how does that impact a woman?

Karen Koehler :

So for me, I have a little bit of a like different life experience because my household was not patriarchal. Okay. My mother was a dominant presence. Okay. And my mother was a female chauvinist pig. She preached that females were better than men. I was raised with that. My dad, of course, intellectually on par with my mother, but not as not as vehement and not as loud of a focus in my life. He's the, you know, calmer, more gentle parent who often had to go hide downstairs when a mother was throwing shoes at him and stuff. So my mom a complete dominant force of all of us growing up. So we weren't raised to believe that women were inferior, which many women are. So that's one of the issues that people have when they deal with me, which they, you know, because I present in a in a in a way that confuses many people. I I look like a female, I have a high voice, I have a softer presentation, but and I'm more emotionally focused. However, I don't view you as superior to me as a man because I wasn't raised that way. I mean, that wasn't my life experience. And it chafes me when I'm in systems that are patriarchal because I don't understand, you know, I don't, I don't accept it, I don't like it, it doesn't feel good to me, I feel stifled by it, I don't, I don't like anything about it. And I have spent my career being in those systems until I got to the point when I was, you know, around late 50s, early 60s, where I said, I'm done. I don't want to be in those clubs anymore. I don't want to be in those organizations anymore. I don't, I don't want to do that anymore.

Mo Hamoudi :

How now I want to focus on how women treat each other.

Karen Koehler :

Sure. Um talk to me about how women treat each other within this system that is So this the the the issues with women is that most women grew up in a patriarchal society without a parent-like mind.

Mo Hamoudi :

Okay, so you you're okay.

Karen Koehler :

So that I mean And so and but but there are some. I mean, there's a minority of people like me that did not grow up in a more traditional type of, you know, yeah, and I'd say that that's happening even more now.

Mike Todd:

It is now you know, in the last 20 years. Yeah, because a lot of people that I know who have been raising kids have more of that approach.

Karen Koehler :

Correct. But still look at our organizations. I mean, there's still they it we aren't at that tipping point yet, but you're right. So what I experience, especially from women my age or that are not 20 years or under, especially other professional women, um is no different than what I get back from the men. And sometimes it's sometimes it's even more more well, it's more hurtful when it comes from another woman.

Mo Hamoudi :

Why is it more hurtful when it comes from another woman?

Karen Koehler :

Because there's there's still very few women at the top of the plane of bar profession in terms of they lead their they lead a an office that's bigger than one or two people. You know, they lead a big office, um, they lead a lead a very successful law firm.

Mike Todd:

There's they're or they lead a city attorney's office and they're the first woman to hold that position.

Karen Koehler :

There you go. Or or they, you know, great trial lawyers, what whatever. They're still that's a hard that's a not a well integrated still profession is a plaintiff bar. So you want those fewer women to be connected, to have a sisterhood, to have a support, to support each other. Yeah. Um because the guys sure do. The guys have all their little clubs and they support each other so well. So you would think like, well, they you know, women are gonna support women. No.

Mo Hamoudi :

Do you think that women internalize misogyny?

Karen Koehler :

I I don't know about misogyny, but they certainly internalize the paternalistic part. And here's some examples. I get most of my referrals from men.

Mo Hamoudi :

So women don't refer you as much cases as well.

Karen Koehler :

So women want to refer a lot of their cases to men.

Mike Todd:

Why do you think that? Why is that?

Karen Koehler :

Because they see them as being the better trial lawyers. The bigger, more aggressive, more male. And if you were to say that to them, I think they would think, oh, that sucks. No, we don't.

Mike Todd:

They'd say I was a misogynist.

Karen Koehler :

But I've never had problems getting referrals from male attorneys. I mean, I'm thinking Simona Farice, uh plaintiff down in California. She's but she's like me. She's been an advocate for women her entire career. She is not, she is, she is not bad cowed or bowed, she will not be cowed or nor bowed to any anybody, let alone just a boys' club. So there are women like that. And there's women's networks that refer to other women. That's become more prevalent now with this practice. But for someone like me that's as old as I am, that's practiced for 40 years, my experience, especially when I needed referrals when I was, you know, 20 years ago. I needed more referrals when I started the office 21 years ago. All guys.

Mo Hamoudi :

Um, and then I mean, is it that part part of what I'm hearing you say is that you're experiencing this now. You're still experiencing this. I mean, you're at the top of your game right now. You're you're successful, you've you've done well, and still you experience uh women uh not treating you well.

Karen Koehler :

Well, we're talking behind your back, yeah. Um making generalizations.

Mo Hamoudi :

What does that feel like, having accomplished what you've accomplished professionally and lifting the gender up? Because your accomplishments lift lift your your the the gender up. How do you feel that you're still being demonized?

Karen Koehler :

You know, I don't care if it's people I don't really know.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Because that just happens. People are gonna talk about you if you're an accomplished person. Gives them something to do.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

What what it bothers me is when there are people I do know and they're doing it behind my back.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Then I and it bothers me in a way that I have to guard against being back.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

I need to let it I just need to let it go. I will process it, I will be upset maybe for a couple days, maybe longer. It'll irritate me, but more likely it'll just kind of be a little like a little wound in me. Like, oh, I thought this person was my friend. But no, they're not. And the way that I'm geared, we've talked about this before. I trust, I trust everybody until I don't we both suffer from that. I don't I don't mind it. You know, and you have to like why else live, you know, be in this world if you can't give people the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. But what I what I know, unfortunately, is that people are complex. Yeah, people um are often unsatisfied with their own lives and look to try feel better by taking other people down.

Mo Hamoudi :

Okay.

Karen Koehler :

Um I feel like that. And I think that women do that to other women more than you would ever believe.

Mo Hamoudi :

I bet you that some of our listeners are women who are like you, who are stepping into their power, growing, and defying the institutions. And they're suffering from some of this what I would call mean meanness and cruelness. It's mean girl. Yeah, I was gonna say it's mean girls. It's mean girls. What is it what do you mean by mean girls?

Karen Koehler :

And you might and people have this idea that mean girls are like the most popular girls in high school, and they all like have a big social click and they're super powerful because they're so popular, and everybody thinks that their lives are perfect. But no, mean girls come in all forms.

Mo Hamoudi :

Okay. What advice do you have for young people who are being subjected to this? Young women in particular.

Karen Koehler :

I think I really have advice, just it's not even advice. I feel like the reason I can weather it pretty well is because I ultimately always end up, maybe it's just a logical part of my mind, but I end up feeling sorry for the people that are engaged in that behavior because I look at it kind of dispassionately and I say, You have nothing better to do than to talk about me and to let me fill your thoughts uh at random times because you're you're you're you're gonna attribute something, something, you're gonna think that I would think some way, or you're gonna or I said something, or I triggered you in some way, or you're hoping I'm gonna fail. You're not gonna, you know, you're just hoping for my demise. You're because I irritate you so much. And then you're gonna go tell someone else, who's gonna tell someone else who doesn't even know me. They don't even know me, but their lives are also kind of paltry and unfulfilled, and so they're gonna be really interested because wow, they thought that I was a really successful lawyer, but clearly I'm bad at doing this, this, or that, and it just spreads and becomes this pestilence, and I can't do anything about it. And so the part of me that's self-preservation, Karen, is like people are gonna talk about you, and you just you can't control that. Yeah, let them talk about you. It's unfortunate for them because negative energy is a bad fuel. I don't want that fuel, I want positive energy to be my fuel.

Mo Hamoudi :

What about the part of Karen that earlier said get a little hurt?

Karen Koehler :

Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi :

What suggestion do you have for the person that gets a little hurt by it?

Karen Koehler :

Well, be like me and compartmentalize.

Mo Hamoudi :

Well, not everybody can compartmentalize.

Karen Koehler :

I am a compartmentalizer, so I can be hurt and I will let but I what I've learned to do is I've learned to let it let myself feel it. Like I used to not feel it. Like I used to just like not let myself feel it and go into attack mode. Now I'll let myself feel it and I go, oh yeah, that feels suck. That feel that is sucky. And then I just put it up and put it away, and I don't think about it again. I mean, until I'm triggered by something again. Someone says something or someone said that they heard someone say something. Um and then maybe I'll pull it out again. But I really it doesn't affect my life.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

And that's the thing is like it's hard to say you not to give people power over you, you know, or the negative stuff. But life is beautiful and short. And I choose, I choose just not to live in it. I choose not to live in that. Let them go live in it.

Mo Hamoudi :

That's I love that mindset because you know, like um, I I affirm that mindset of life is short and life is beautiful. And every morning I wake up, no matter how hard a day I had the day before. Well, you've had a lot of people say bad stuff about you. Yes, I have a lot of people say a lot of bad stuff about me. But I get up in the morning and I'm just like Mike, have you had people say bad stuff about you? Oh, yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Yeah, yeah, all of us do. Like we're human beings. Everybody says bad stuff about you. Why do people need to say such bad stuff about other people? Well, why do people need to gossip?

Mike Todd:

It's just want to make us feel bad so they can theoretically feel good, but that, like you said, I don't think that that actually works ever.

Karen Koehler :

I mean, but who cares? I think it just perpetuates. If you don't know someone, then why do you want to know about something that someone said about them that was I mean, and what even was it? Like, oh, well, that's become the case, so she's like, that's become today.

Mike Todd:

Like social media feeds people to do that.

Karen Koehler :

Yeah.

Mike Todd:

Our 24-hour nude cycle feeds people to react to that.

Karen Koehler :

It's like corrupting the good out of our brains and making us focus on this negative energy. And and I just feel when we see how fast our clients have to go through an adjustment of a catastrophic injury or losing someone at a blink of an eye. Yeah, I don't want to be worrying about someone else and whether they, you know, I don't even know what the bad stuff is, but you know, who cares? They're not in my orbit.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

So that's how I feel about it. I wish it wasn't like that. It's you know, it's embarrassing. Yeah. Um, it's embarrassing that we are often held down by stuff like that as a as a race.

Mike Todd:

Well, it's embarrassing to me as a male that I I mean, like I I won't say that I've never been misogynist, but I feel it's more like stuff that I've done is more like mansplaining and things like that.

Karen Koehler :

I mean, Mo still does that. Yeah, I mean that's the thing.

Mike Todd:

By the way, I actively try to not do that, but uh it's still you slip into it sometimes. But like that description of misogynist. I don't I don't hate women. I don't think that women are any stuff are worse than anything that I am do.

Karen Koehler :

That's a good definition.

Mo Hamoudi :

I said I've I've been misogynistic, but like not not like that.

Karen Koehler :

No.

Mo Hamoudi :

What I've done is I mansplain. I think like I know better.

Karen Koehler :

But I think misogy the word misogyny has been neutered by it's so commonly used, but it is bad. It's like like I said, it's an Andrew Tate. Like that isn't it.

Mo Hamoudi :

I'm not like that, but my concern is is that you know, I see women being torn down, like women of prominence, yeah. Women who have lifted women up, torn down by their own. Yeah. And to me, that that is like to me, that's unfortunate. Because you're already fighting a fight, an uphill battle.

Karen Koehler :

Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi :

And then now you gotta fight your own. Like it's it's uh it's it's to me just it's counterintuitive. You know, women who have daughters or younger or mentoring younger women.

Karen Koehler :

When I was a younger lawyer, when I was a younger lawyer, not because I was a younger person, but just because society was 30 years ago, 44. I started trying cases right at law school. I realized quickly that I needed to get as many women off the jury as possible and have as many men on it because the women often would not like me. Yeah. And then then I then I mutated and I was like, okay, I can figure out, I can, and I do feel like I don't have a problem with women now on the jury, but I went through this whole thing of studying it. Like, what is this thing that I'm sensing? What is going on with the women? And the and it was a Hillary Clinton thing. They wanted to see more Michelle Obama, not so much Hillary Clinton.

Mike Todd:

They you know, so well, and it's uh, you know, I I hate to pull it in, but somebody might say that they consider you the B word in those situations.

Karen Koehler :

Correct.

Mike Todd:

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Like I've had them get mad at me for for for killing a witness in cross-examination.

Mike Todd:

For doing your job.

Karen Koehler :

Oh yeah. For doing it like a man would for doing it the way that it should be done. I cannot do what a man does.

Mike Todd:

Of course not.

Karen Koehler :

I mean, I I I used to teach trial advocacy first at the UW for seven years, but I taught an email trial advocacy class for six years just for women. And I had to tell them, like, yeah, you can't do it like the guys do it.

Mo Hamoudi :

No.

Karen Koehler :

We have there's so much prejudice between not just the men, but the women, actually, the women more than the men. And so you have to navigate it, which That's part of the game. It's part of the game.

Mo Hamoudi :

Part of the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for answering that. Well, in a perfect society, right?

Karen Koehler :

In a perfect society, people wouldn't do stuff like that. Yeah. Um, but we don't live in a perfect society, and it has gotten harsher.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

And people do feel more entitled to be bad. Um, it's a Trump effect, it's come out of the woodwork. Um before you you would people would say, well, this is a racist community, and everyone would say, No, it's not. We don't say we don't we don't say anything. Um, you know, we're we're and it's people would say that about it in Seattle. Like, um, well, Seattle, there's a there's some prejudice in Seattle, and other people would say, no, no, there's no prejudice, but there is, yeah, but it was all below the surface. Yeah, now it's just like not below the surface. I personally liked it when it was below the surface because it's so ugly, such an ugly element. And I think that when you are emboldened to speak it out, it emboldens you to behave. I believe that activity follows words, and that by emboldening emboldening people to actively act out prejudice, that then leads to escalation more, more, more.

Mike Todd:

I mean, but don't you think that some of that stuff has to happen for change to happen? If you just stick with what you were talking about as the previous thing, nothing changes and everybody just keeps it hidden.

Karen Koehler :

I'd rather keep it hidden. I mean, right now, there's they're talking about making, oh, I saw in the news somewhere about a community that's whites only.

Mike Todd:

Oh, yeah, they're trying to do that. But they've been trying to do that forever. I mean, that's not that's not a 2025 thing. That's something that's been going on since the beginnings of the white supremacist party.

Karen Koehler :

I think that I think that there is, after our last episode against civility, I do appreciate that it it's it's it's like what goes beyond inside your mind. Do you share all that? No, no, especially a dude. I know what goes on in dudes' minds, and a lot of it does not need to be spoken, right? Look at you guys all looking like that. Because, right? That but now, if that's all out there, how is that making things better?

Mike Todd:

It's not yeah, but it has to come out there a little bit for stuff to change, is my point.

Karen Koehler :

Well, I don't think it needs to come out there a little bit.

Mike Todd:

Yeah, we disagree on that one.

Karen Koehler :

I'm taking the fifth.

Mo Hamoudi :

I'm a neanderthog.

Mike Todd:

I'm the I'm a Neanderthal. It's already been established that I'm in a Neanderthal. I hear what you're saying, Karen. I don't think exactly what you're saying.

Karen Koehler :

I don't know the answer.

Mike Todd:

I I understand what you're saying, but I personally think that some, I mean, I think that what's happening right now is uh is a effect of years and years and years of political discourse that we're playing the game that you were talking about. And it has to come to a a more passionate type of discourse. And some people have to say what they're actually thinking for other people to realize that people like me saying that those people are actually thinking that isn't true.

Karen Koehler :

And I agree with that. For example, how do I know people talk about me? Well, I discover it. Some of them tell you someone tells me I see something, I hear something, I learn something, and then you know, like, oh, that person was not my friend, you know, but and if I if I hadn't found that out, I'd be thinking that that person was my friend.

Mike Todd:

And not everybody is like that. No. Right? I mean, that's the these are what I wouldn't call it the exceptions to the rules, but they're not. I think most people are good. I think most people don't want what's going on right now to happen.

Karen Koehler :

But I also think I don't want to say that they're bad people. I mean, I don't think that people are inherently bad. I still believe people are good, but people have behaviors that that are that that are fueled by positive energy or negative energy, and this is very negative. Gossip is a negative destructive energy.

Mo Hamoudi :

It is it is, it is, it is.

Mike Todd:

But I think that I mean, at least uh with what's going on in society today, I think that it's a it's a combination of some people actively from the position that you were just talking about coming from, wanting things to not be as nasty, not see the darkness. But I think that there's a lot of people who in because of that react to it by just going, okay, I want to be blissfully ignorant and and not participate in the process at all, which is more damaging. Agreed. And that's what I think saying that you want it to be the status quo perpetuates the ability for people to not make any change.

Karen Koehler :

Mike, you have won this discussion. Well said. I agree.

Mike Todd:

Thank you.

Karen Koehler :

So the turds can come out.

Mike Todd:

And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be misogynist because I can force my ideas on you.

Karen Koehler :

Look at that one of it. Very good.

Mike Todd:

That was great, Mike.

Karen Koehler :

I totally agree with you, Mike.

Mike Todd:

I agree with Mike. I agree with you.

Karen Koehler :

It's more comfortable not to know, but it's more important to know.

Mike Todd:

And right now, trust me, I'm with you. It's so nasty right now.

Karen Koehler :

Oh God.

Mike Todd:

Like anytime I go and look at the news or anything, it's all negative. There's very little positive. Even when people are trying to make things positive, it turns out negative.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Mike Todd:

And now everyone's weaponizing that. Just like what was done with our podcast. Everybody's taking everything that everybody says, documenting it, transcribing it, and then trying to use it back against you. And and that's what's happening all accourse, all across the political spectrum right now. That's no one is trying to work from a position of civility. They are all attacking each other all the time.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Mike Todd:

So yeah, I think I think that there's got to be a little bit of that for we got to go through nasty times before we're gonna be better again.

Karen Koehler :

Well, I can't think of anything better to say than that.

Mike Todd:

Yeah. Well, thanks for answering the question.

Mo Hamoudi :

Yeah.

Karen Koehler :

Bye. Bye.

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Karen Koehler

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Mo Hamoudi

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