Hot Take: Untamed

By Tashi Sharma, BA hons Philosophy, 1st year

Edited and Designed by Anshika Singh, BA hons English, 1st year.

Saying that Untamed is "just another self-help book" is a convenient way of dismissing what it is actually about.

Glennon Doyle's words have already been reduced to hashtags, printed on clothing and accessories, endlessly quoted on Instagram. Untamed is a bestseller, but bestsellers can suffer from being underrated. The book is cited, but rarely followed through on; its argument against the cult of the "good woman" is rarely taken seriously.

Untamed is not a call for women to embrace themselves gently.

It is a demand to be troublesome.

Women should expect to be praised for not disappointing anyone, to be forthright but not off-putting, to be self-sufficient without upsetting anyone by stating their needs, to have desires as long as they are not a nuisance.

Untamed is a provocation. And the most surprising thing about it is that Glennon Doyle does not ask women to be confident. Confidence is a virtue that requires no argument in favor of it; everyone has reason to doubt it, however, since it rarely helps in the long run.

"The braver I am, the luckier I get."

That is not a turn of phrase, but a credo. The whole book is a meditation on how often women are taught to believe that they deserve better circumstances, a better partner, a better job, once they achieve a certain level of self-confidence.

Doyle argues that the real source of ladylike demeanor is the willingness to accept the disappointment of others as a sign of one's own inadequacy.

The book recalls the story of a cheetah that has been domesticated and trained. It ceases to react to stimuli that require an instinctive response, and moves around in a circular motion for as long as it is tied to the ring. When the loop is opened, the cheetah believes it is still circling the ring, but in reality, it is circling itself.

Women are often held back by the same invisible loop. They are told, explicitly or implicitly, not to be too demanding. They compare themselves to other women, noticing which ones are labeled lovable and which ones are condemned as selfish. They internalize the idea that a self-confident woman is rude, so that they can control themselves and not impose their will on others without being asked. They shrink to the size of their surroundings without realizing it.

That is why it is so important to take Doyle's remark that "discontent is the nagging of the imagination" to heart. We are often taught to associate our dissatisfaction with ingratitude, to be satisfied with our lot in life and not be too demanding. If our external circumstances are favorable, we should consider our inner world to be satisfactory as well.

In Untamed , restlessness is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be the voice of our truest selves, which has been suppressed and ignored for too long. It can be the voice that reminds us of who we used to be, before society taught us to adjust our expectations and act in accordance with the demands of others. A discontented woman can be a dangerous woman, because she refuses to put her desires on hold and wait for the right time and place to express them.

Some people have criticized Untamed for being unnecessarily dramatic or repetitive, for focusing too much on Doyle's life.

I do not think that repetition is necessarily a problem in a book that calls women to action. Every day, women are told to put up, let go, move on, think of others, put their own needs aside. One book that tells them to put their own needs first is hardly enough. And the rest can wait.

It is also worth considering what we actually mean when we accuse women of being selfish. Women are often labeled selfish when they stop putting their own emotional and physical needs on hold to accommodate others' needs. When men set aside time for themselves, they are seen as being selfish with their time. When women do the same, they are labeled heartless. By choosing to leave an unhappy relationship, men seek happiness; by doing the same, women destroy their families.

Untamed is not so much a manifesto for female selfishness as it is an indictment of the way female selflessness has been used to oppress women. It exposes the hypocrisy of those who demand women's unconditional love and devotion while holding their own behavior to a lower standard.

Perhaps Untamed is underrated because people have dismissed it as just another self-help book. But maybe it is underrated because its message has been oversimplified and dismissed. Untamed is not really about confidence building or achieving success, but about recognizing the difference between goodness and obedience.

Goodness without truth is simply self-deception, while goodness with honesty is the ability to withstand the expectations of others and to carve out a space for oneself. It is not about getting love from everyone, but about finding a path that is right for one's own soul.

So much writing asks us to change the world around us when we look in the mirror. Untamed asks who taught us to dislike the face that looks back at us.

Untamed is not an overrated book. On the contrary, it has suffered from critical acclaim without critical acceptance. Its most important messages have been co-opted into feel-good slogans and diluted into meaningless platitudes. The book's anger has been softened, its edge dulled by years of being presented as a self-help guide rather than the revolutionary tract that it is.

Untamed does not ask women to rebel. It reminds them that they have never been tamed in the first place.