The Myth of Resilience (Soraya Chemaly)

May 30, 2024

Soraya Chemaly challenges the notion of resilience, advocating for collective care over individual triumph. The discussion explores gender dynamics, trauma, societal expectations, and redefining strength and resilience. Embracing body changes, challenging stereotypes, and engaging men in conversations about women's experiences are also highlighted.

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Introduction

00:00 • 4min

Redefining Resilience: A Collective Approach

04:13 • 13min

Exploring Growth, Trauma, and Learning from Experts

17:26 • 3min

Complexities of Trauma, Resilience, and Gender Dynamics

20:48 • 11min

Exploring the Concept of Strength and Resilience Through an Ultra-Marathoner's Journey

31:34 • 5min

Embracing Body Changes and Challenging Stereotypes

36:16 • 10min

Challenges of Engaging Men in Conversations About Women's Experiences

46:15 • 3min

Reimagining Relationship Dynamics

48:57 • 11min

Emphasizing Human Connection and Philanthropy

59:43 • 3min

“This is the richness of the traditional wife explosion, right? There's this simple idea that you get to choose. Now you're choosing to emulate a situation that's a fiction in that those women didn't choose anything. They had to dress like that. They had to live like that. They had to be nice to the men like that, because they had no bank accounts. They had no cars. They had no licenses. They had no income. They had no security. So, don't equate these two things because you're just kind of living a dignified version of something that was pretty egregiously harmful, you know. And it's the difference, I think, in knowing that you have an option.”

So says Soraya Chemaly, an award-winning writer, journalist and activist whose work has been at the center of mine. Her now-classic, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger lit me on fire—not only for the deftness of her arguments but also because she is a meticulous researcher. What she gave air to in the pages of that book blew me away. She figures prominently in the endnotes of On Our Best Behavior.

Her new book, The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma, follows a similar path. Soraya takes something we’ve been served as an ideal—develop resilience—and flips it on its head, both widening and undermining this definition. She challenges our cultural myths about this concept and urges us all to shift and expand our perspective on the trait, moving from prioritizing the role of the individual to overcome and conquer to focusing on what’s really at work, which is collective care and connections with our communities. As she proves in these pages, resilience is always relational.