Wolf in sheep’s clothing

By Jamie Cho, Ph.D.

From Aesop’s fable of the wolf who dressed himself in wool to blend in among the flock, we’ve inherited a warning: beware those who hide behind softness. The “wolf in sheep’s clothing” isn’t just a story about deception; it’s about how easily harm can walk among us disguised as civility and reason.

If only it were just a fable.

Today, we meet wolves all the time, some dressed in suits, some behind screens, some standing in courtrooms. They claim to protect justice, or innovation, or progress, while quietly feeding on those who stand in their way.

The wolves who bare their teeth

We can easily point to the billionaires who manipulate democracy for their own gain. Elon Musk once wrapped himself in the fleece of environmental progress, but he has long since shed the disguise. His technology changed the car industry, yes, but his alignment with Trump, his donations for political influence, and his public bigotry have exposed his true values.

What is harder to understand is how many people, especially in progressive places like Seattle, still line up to buy Teslas. When we continue to enrich someone whose words and actions degrade humanity, are we not also complicit? If we put aside our morals for convenience or image, do we too wear the sheep’s wool?

The wolf in the courtroom

The fable repeats itself in the legal system, where wolves cloak themselves in politeness and procedure.

In an ongoing anti-harassment case, a white woman has repeatedly targeted her Asian American immigrant neighbor, using lawsuits, police reports, and complaints to intimidate and exhaust her. On one day at the end of October, two hearings were held: one for the harasser’s frivolous civil case in King County Superior Court, another for a protection order filed in King County District Court by the victim’s Asian American pro bono attorney after the harasser submitted 251 pages of retaliatory filings to the Washington State Bar Association.

The harasser’s attorney, a white man hired in the eleventh hour, entered the case sounding reasonable. He addressed the Asian American pro bono attorney with a gender-neutral salutation, Mx., as though to suggest progressive values. He emailed about “de-escalation,” suggesting compromise and a peaceful resolution. But when his words did not achieve immediate compliance, when his authority was not quietly accepted, he removed his sheep costume, and revealed his true aggressive approach by submitting motion after motion: requests to move the hearing to a higher court, requests for dismissal, and requests that the Court award him $15,000 in fees, essentially used to intimidate. In court, he then argued that “this has nothing to do with race or gender.” Born with privilege, he assumed he could make declarations about experiences he has never lived. He consistently mansplained, exaggerated his expertise, and dismissed the pro bono attorney’s account of how the harassment and bar complaints disrupted her work and life.

When the system wears the fleece

But it is not only individuals who wear the costume. The system itself, the courts, law enforcement, and the institutions that claim to protect us, often act as wolves in disguise.

Over years of hearings and interactions with police, the pattern is clear. We have seen visible irritation from judges and staff when we have asked for interpretation to be recorded for accuracy. We have watched law enforcement officers dismiss harassment as “neighbor disputes.” We have heard victims told to “just stay away” from their harassers, as though victims hold equal responsibility for being harassed. We have been tone-policed to talk quieter, talk less, and reprimanded when perceived to be too pushy, too loud, or too interruptive. We have endured snide remarks, rude looks, and microaggressions, forced to appear reasonable, accommodating, and professional, only to go home and cry or talk it through with someone who understands, because we cannot complain without risking further punishment.

For Asian American women who have been advocating against these injustices for years, three years formally in this aspect of anti-harassment work (over 15 court hearings, which is just the tip of the iceberg), the toll is immense. Harm is not always physical. It creeps into the body and spirit. It shows up as lost time with our families, sleepless nights, health concerns that multiply under chronic stress. It takes a mental and emotional toll; it drains the energy we could spend simply living, laughing, breathing freely. We spend countless hours agonizing over small decisions: how to ask for what we deserve, whether to push back, what to wear in court, how our tone or even our clothing might be perceived through the lens of racialized misogyny. The fight for dignity costs us pieces of ourselves, even as we refuse to stop advocating.

When the flock stops running

Asian American women are constantly expected to be the sheep, compliant, quiet, and endlessly patient. The systems we move through rely on that expectation. They count on our politeness, our labor to the point of exhaustion, our fear of being labeled difficult or ungrateful. These expectations are like wool, soft on the surface but suffocating underneath.

But here is where we can reinvent the Aesop’s fable and give the story a new moral. The wolf is not the main character. The sheep are.

Let us recognize the wolves in the people we surround ourselves with, and within the systems that continue to uphold oppressive realities. Maybe the wolf did wear the sheep’s clothing. Maybe the wolf did blend in with the sheep. But maybe the sheep collectively took action, refused to scatter, and did not allow the wolf to continue their pretense.

We, the sheep, have each other. We have courage. We have strength. We are smart.
And when we confront and hold accountable the wolf standing among us, that’s when the story worth telling begins.