Dr. Estés: Women Who Run with the Wolves

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is an American “Mestiza Latina (Native American/Mexica Spanish)” poet, author, psychoanalyst, post-trauma recovery specialist and spoken word performer. Estés was born to Mestiza parents and was given up for adoption as a small child to two Hungarian immigrants. Both cultural experiences aided her passion for oral traditions.

I was recommended her book, “Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” (WWRWTW), by my acting coach and just with the introduction, I instantly became aware of my tendencies, conscious and subconscious, that were impeding an authentic lifestyle and growth as a woman and spiritual being. In her book, Dr. Estés dissects the folktales she grew up hearing; stories passed down through the generations of both of her immigrant families. Dr. Estés theorizes that these fictional stories, specifically the woman characters in them, teach us how to get back to being “wild women”. In other words, the women in these stories guide the women heading them in relieving themselves of a suppressed way of being and into their natural, instinctual selves. Personally, this is a feminist work because it encourages women to reacquire who they were as spiritual beings before they were limited by a patriarchal society. “...although she understood that "none of us can entirely escape our history," she also understood that stories were a way to move toward healing” (encyclopedia.com).

The foundation of WWRWTW is that women have been conditioned to forget their innate instincts. They’re conditioned to keep themselves small, quiet, tamed, “they are silent when they are in fact on fire” (Estés, 8). This foundation, I believe, is also the foundation of feminsim. The feminist movement is our “way to move toward healing”. When I look back to the Kilbourne reading, Cutting Girls Down to Size, I can make an interesting correlation between Kilbourne’s argument that women are expected to fulfill contradicting paradigms, “innocent and seductive, virginal and experienced” (Kilbourne, 145) and Estés’ argument that there is a “duality” to women, one part practical, one part spiritual, that they must learn to nurture equally otherwise they will feel an imbalance. Although these arguments discuss completely different issues, I think it’s interesting to note that Estes encourages the complexity of being a woman, and even more so human, that often has negative correlations and seem to be contradicting on the surface. Perhaps even that one women can carry an array qualities that are perceived as contradicting because of their connotations, but are just the qualities of a complex human when they are isolated from culture-based labels. That one human can and should possess “masculine” qualities (based on hetero-normative, male dominated Western definitions) like logical thinking and “feminine” qualities like-emotion based action, and that a balance of both is ideal for every human.

Published in 1992, WWRWTW faced criticism by some feminists at the time because Estés refused to acknowledge a matriarchy in place of the patriarchy as the solution to women’s struggle. Instead, Estés encourages “a culture of decency that has regard for humans, regardless of gender and regardless of ethnic-ity—that is more the idea to move toward. Rather than an idea of gender” (Andrews, The Vancouver Sun).



https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/estes-clarissa-pinkola-1943-writer-psychologist
“Cutting Girls Down to Size” by Jean Kilbourne