The author describes how women are sometimes assigned negative labels. These labels are often used to control women by making them seem dangerous or threatening, something many tend to avoid. These labels can be used to limit women's opportunities and to keep them from achieving their full potential.

This book shares stories of women who have overcome these labels and achieved great things. She argues that by understanding these archetypes, women can learn to use their power in a positive way.

Author Jocelyn Davis shares insights into 12 types of women. She uses stories from literature and real-life women she's known to illustrate each archetype.
I did appreciate reading a positive approach for each woman. We have permission to be strong, opinionated, empathic, and tenacious.
Some of the stories were long-winded and unnecessary details and didn't quite make sense for the archetype, in my opinion. And most of the examples addressed work-related challenges. I want more examples for everyday life.
This book didn't inspire me and doesn't include information I will take with me. I don't think I connect with the author for some reason. However, it might encourage other readers and is woman-positive.

I've recently become very interested in self-help books, mostly because I think quite a few could actually be a long-form blog post rather than a book. They tend to repeat the same things over and over again but giving different circumstantial examples to try and fluff the book up. I don't think 'Insubordinate' falls into this trap, but it didn't quite reach me in the way I had hoped from reading the blurb.

Davis has a beautiful way of writing, and I found the book itself very easy to read. I enjoyed how she linked ancient myths to the modern day, and how the lessons Davis wanted the reader to pick up are quite clear by the time you've settled into each chapter. I thought the length of the chapters worked well, not too long but not too short either. I wasn't overly keen on the book opening with a quiz, and it might have been better coming after the opening chapter, as I wasn't entirely sure how the book would be set out from doing this quiz at the beginning.

I've rated this book 3 stars as it wasn't difficult to read and there were definitely underlying lessons that I could see as being valuable were I looking for this kind of support from a self-help book. It's a book I wouldn't necessarily buy but if borrowed from a friend or the library, I would feel better for having read it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an arc of this book.

I enjoyed reading about the new archetypes for women that Jocelyn David presented here. I generally don’t read leadership or management books but I’m a long time fan of Goddess in Everywoman by psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Boleyn and generally will devour anything on archetypes and how we can use them to help better understand ourselves.

There were beautiful illustrations and the 12 Archetypes were a good blend of cultural and literary influences. I’ve already shared the quiz at the start of the book with a few friends so that we could discuss our types together and see whether we agreed with them.

I think this book is a great intro archetypes, a stepping stone on your journey to Jung and beyond

Insubordinate: 12 New Archetypes for Women Who Lead by Jocelyn R. Davis
Publication date: 21 March 2023
⭐️⭐️ 2.5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Amplify Publishing for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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International leadership expert Jocelyn Davis presents twelve powerful archetypes - Empress, Amazon, Snow Queen, Mesmerist, Witch, and more - to show us women's full range of possibilities, providing a guide and inspiration for becoming our biggest, finest selves.
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This ARC was so badly formatted, it was nigh on impossible to read, with split paragraphs on separate pages and footnotes all over the place. This was harder work to read than it should have been.

I fancied reading and reviewing something a little different so this self-help/leadership book is a departure from my usual genres.

I enjoyed the myths and stories that were used as the backbones of the 12 archetypes (I would happily read more about them,) but the way they related to real-life examples of leadership felt a little forced and shoehorned in there. And although the myths and stories were multicultural, I thought the analysis lacked diversity and inclusion, and was not very subtle in its gendered stereotypes.
I think this may be useful to someone who is just starting on their leadership career, to help them discover their own style and how to interact with others, but I'm afraid that I got nothing out of it.

The illustrations were very pretty but I think this was my first, and probably last, foray in this genre.
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Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’ll start off with the fact that I generally don’t read business books or self help books. Frankly, I find most women’s leadership books to be unhelpful to me. I am a midlevel manager in the last decade of my career -who has no plans to be CEO.
However, this book had a completely new take on the topic of women in leadership. I really really enjoyed the stories as I don’t know much about classic literature. And I found the archetypes incredibly helpful for me thinking about the other women at work (and dealing with ) as well as what archetype I am. ( btw I work for a “snow queen”. ) I found it especially helpful to think about which one I can draw on depending on the situation. I tend to naturally be the “mama bear”, but at times I can go into Amazon mode - without allies- which gets me into trouble.
I actually went through and made myself a set of index cards based on the dues and don’ts of each type to keep on my desk that I can refer to during zoom meetings at work .
Highly recommend this book regardless of what point you’re at in your career. Also, a great book for book club discussions, because women lead regardless of whether not we work outside the home.

Have you ever read a book that you wished was another kind of book?

This was a frustrating read for me. Davis has a talent with the pen. She is clearly well-versed in myth and fable, within and beyond the Western context. I would love to read a fictional retelling of any one of the tales she's covered here.

But that's not what this book is about. What we have is myth and legend reworked (*cough* from scratch, in some cases) into "female archetypes" for the modern woman. What we have is glorious re-renderings of fables from multiple cultures grafted onto a bland, basic "what kind of person am I?" meme machine. There's literally a multiple choice questionnaire at the beginning, reminiscent of the one your middle school bestie sent you in the aughts over MySpace, or maybe that longer one in Teen Beat. For each archetype, we're given a "real' case study, either from the author's lived experiences or other people that she knows. Well, not really in a one-to-one fashion. Archetypes are liberally (re)applied to these anecdotes of company life. Sometimes the author changes her mind later on and retcons what the archetype means. It's all good. This is meant as table decoration, ideally loafing beside a copy of Harvard Review (apparently the author's favourite publication).

I think this is a good case of stretching too far. The author is clearly educated on matters of myth. No surprise that she has a degree on the topic. She has a storied career in certain industries. She also identifies as a feminist. What could go wrong? Well, it felt like crunching down on nuts and bolts in my cereal, milk and soy sauce, the semblance of a spork but with grooves too shallow to be anything but a superficial cue to something truly useful.

About the feminism: This author is very much a product of her generation and cultural backdrop. She also likes to have her cake and eat it too. She frequently involves feminism and the patriarchy, only to drop in faint praise and rig up false hierarchies. She relies on footnotes to address future criticism. She recognizes trans people and gender fluidity, but can't comment on it here, for some reason. She can't say "whether because of nature or nurture" but women are definitely x, y, and z. A lot of her ideas reek of biological essentialism or at the very least learned helplessness. She leans heavily on generalizations, mostly to "prove" her anecdotes right. And so many of these are straight-up nasty stereotypes. "The Medusa Trap is women's tendency to squander our natural insubordination on petty displays of spite directed at our enemies, real or perceived; some call it 'toxic femininity.'" Are you kidding me here? Honestly not sure whether I want to hurl chunks or an f-bomb. Probably both. Meanwhile, the "Empress" is "masculine in her ambition and drive." Does she not realize that she's simply reifying the status quo? I get the feeling that she really feels that there are only "men" and "women" who have essential, generalizable qualities that can't be helped, but those pesky new-age feminists became like gnats, buzzing around her ears, so she had to hedge her claims, or at least preclude the expected in a footnote. But since she feels that "[b]reaking stereotypes just for the sake of it is a false triumph," I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. She even bemoans how women have lost "some of their traditional force" due to modern feminist movement. She oddly positions the "Claimant" or "righteous demand" archetype as an example of a lost "wife-mother box" power. Huh? How does immobility, steadfastness, and recognition of a right to decide relate to the traditional trappings of being a wife and/or mother? This feels very uncomfortably like a move to embody sexist traditionalism in more palpable trappings, which are trappings nonetheless.

Here's another early quote that captures most of my criticism all in one: "Some feminist thinkers believe men would be better off if they, too, cultivated a wider range. I agree that many men would benefit from greater fluidity in behavior and presentation (and I hope my male readers pick up some tips), but I see no need for men to abandon their linear focus, which humanity needs, too. Think of the words of Todd Beamer on 9/11 as as he prepared to charge up the aisle of United Airlines Flight 93: 'Let's roll.'" Lordy! "Some feminists," hm? "Abandon" a "linear focus"? Flight 93?!?! Apparently, all men are the same, being "male" and/or a man means you have a "linear focus," i.e., you're a stock character with only one function in this world ... oh, and it's super appropriate to invoke the Blockbuster-esque quote of a modern hero who in the situation referenced lost his life and can't defend his characterization here.

Here's another one: Her characterization of other feminists' reactions to her warning her daughter not to get "blind" (nice ableist language there) drunk at parties as "oppressive nonsense." Receipts, please! This is good advice for everyone. Also, you don't get it. No one is denying reality; we're advocating for a better one.

No surprise that she draws on Sheryl Sandberg's "lean in" approach and recommends finding "the right balance of nagging and nice." Okay, this might be necessary at times. But look at what words she's used. A mouldy surface is peaking through the cracks in the casings of these archetypes.

I'll go over one more "oops," let's call it: "Worst of all: 'Barbarian.' He might as well have called her the n-word." This is where it all came together for me. Even though the author draws from myth and weaves a truly wonderful cross-cultural tapestry into her archetypes idea, she is still a white American feminist of a certain generation and class. Comparing the case of Medea being called a barbarian by Jason to (I presume) the case of a Black person (maybe specifically a woman) being called "the n-word" is simply revolting. By the way, Jason also calls Medea a "slut," "insane," and other nasty words. Please explain how "barbarian" is worse, and how it is in any way equivalent to a word representing a known history of slavery and genocide.

I'll give her props for recognizing that Avalokiteshvara is "of fluid gender" (but notice how she uses "s/he" ... apparently, fluid gender still boils down to the binary of men/male/masculine and female/woman/feminine) and that the "Empath" "is the only one of the archetypes who receives the full approval of the patriarchy." Sure.

I also want to give enormous kudous to the illustrator, Inbar Fried. Wonderful, ephemeral imagery from front to back. If I'd buy this book, it'd be the for the artwork alone.

I was hoping for so much more with this one. Alas, I find myself leaving a rather insubordinate review. I'd like to recommend that the author give up on writing such shoddy, pseudo-feminist mythical extrapolations for Harvard Review-trotting women of a certain cast and try her hand at rewriting and re-imaging the lore she is clearly an expert on.