What does it mean to be a wolf? Term is used for independent woman – 04/01/2024 – Balance

Calling a woman a wolf today, on the internet, is like exalting her and saying that she has everything. The term is not new, on the contrary, it has been infiltrating the world of music and literature for years, but it is gaining more and more space in the language of the networks. That’s what they call, for example, Fernanda, a participant who was eliminated from BBB24 this Sunday (31).

There is no exact definition for the term. It is used to designate the woman who left domestication and socially imposed boxes. It would be the woman who follows her own wild nature. This is what Marília Lopes says, a communicator with more than 33 thousand followers on Instagram who claims to be a mentor to women and who has a community called Las Lobas.

The term gained popularity with the book “Mulheres que Correm com os Lobos”, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, published in the United States in 1993 and released a year later in Brazil. In 2018, it got a new version that made it pop — with women walking up and down with the more than 500-page book in their purse — and always appearing on the bestseller list. It can be said that he formed generations of feminists.

The author is also a Jungian psychologist, a branch that works for the individual to reconnect with their essence. Pinkola Estés believes that women and wolves have instinctive archetypes that relate to each other. Both the nature of the wolf and that of the woman would be gregarious, which tends to unite people, the family around them, making them faithful and instinctive.

It was after reading this book, between 2012 and 2013, that Lopes began to delve deeper into the study of female relationships. She then created conversation circles to discuss the work and listen to other women. At the time, she created a blog and has been managing the Ser Selvagem community for four years. Finally, she created Las Lobas mentoring.

During these years, she states that she came to the conclusion that there is a domestication of women. Lopes contrasts the attitude of a wolf with that of a domesticated poodle, which wags its tail in exchange for a little affection. “Meanwhile the wolf is there, free in the wild, following her instinct, hunting and choosing her paths,” she says.

The women who take part in her mentorship, according to her, feel like they lack a direction in life. They study, they get married, they have children, but they reach a moment when they realize that there is nothing built for them. “After reading, we look at ourselves. That’s the most important thing,” she says.

But it is not only in literature and in conversation circles that the term appears. He’s in music too. One of the greatest voices in samba, Alcione became a wolf in 1997, when she released the song “A Loba”. “I’m sweet, bashful, polite, faithful as a dog”, say the lyrics of the song.

Recently, Alcione was once again hailed as a wolf when she went viral on social media with a video in which she was irritated by her nail polish. “Am I a French woman?” The singer doesn’t like light colors on her nails, what she really likes is a very flashy red. “Being a wolf means being an empowered woman and also a woman who takes her place at the right time”, said the artist on the Samba Coração program, last year.

Shakira, in 2009, released the album “She Wolf”, translated as Loba. At the time, she explained the meaning of the name given to the album. “She IS the woman of our time. The woman who knows what she wants and who is free from prejudices and preconceived ideas. She defends her deepest desires, with teeth and claws, like a wild animal.”

In the song that bears the name of the album, she sings about “A wolf in the closet wants to come out, wants to come out”. She would be the woman in search of her wild awakening. In 2023, she returns to referring to herself with the term in the song that talks about her relationship with Piqué. “A wolf like me is not for the likes of you,” she sings.

The term seems to gain new contours over the years and become more and more widespread. Magazines in the early 2000s featured women who reached the “she-wolf age”, such as Christiane Torloni and Maitê Proença. “The wolf’s age was around 40 years old, when we enter that pre-menopause phase when women are already returning home”, says Lopes. “It’s women who make a career transition, who take ownership of their own bodies, their own pleasure.”

Would Loba then be the oldest woman? Not necessarily, but the wolf probably has more experience and experience. For Marília Lopes, there is no right age. “I notice a huge change in these younger generations who have already felt the call and don’t want to follow the script,” she says.

On TikTok, a network taken over by young people from generation Z, journalism student Flávia Soares, 19, went viral with a video in which she talks about her project of becoming a wolf in 2024.

Soares, who started making videos for the internet in 2020 during the pandemic, says he was inspired after seeing the discussion on X (formerly Twitter). It was about being a wolf or being in poor land — that is, always feeling sorry for yourself and being a victim.

In the video she puts on a leopard top, big earrings, ties her hair up and hangs a bag on her shoulder while she says that she went to get to know the biggest wolf of all: the character Marilda, by Andréa Beltrão, in “A Grande Família”. “She is an elegant, vain woman, with a strong personality. She is someone who imposes herself and is a good friend”, says Soares.

Despite containing a certain irony and humor in the video, for her being a wolf means “recognizing yourself, starting to impose yourself, a moment of self-knowledge. Knowing that you don’t need to depend on a man and that you have a voice.” She, however, recognizes that at 19 years old she is just at the beginning of the path.

In X, like Soares, internet users started looking at characters from entertainment and cinema and recognizing them as wolves. BBB24 participant Fernanda, for example, is called that by fans, who make videos of her parading around the reality show’s parties.

For Marília Lopes, from Las Lobas, memes and the use of this term at all costs can end up trivializing it. “If we start using this ‘wolf’ as a symbol of a sensual woman, an extravagant woman, we can create a label around this term that could be inspiration for us to return to our wild nature as a free woman”, she says .

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