Publishers Weekly
03/18/2024
There is a growing knowledge gap “between what we need to achieve resilient outcomes and what we are culturally told we need,” according to this ambitious study from feminist and free speech activist Chemaly (Rage Becomes Her). Using a feminist and anticapitalistic framework to interrogate notions of resilience, the author posits that traditionally “male” values of rigid self-sufficiency can serve to isolate. As an alternative, she touts the use of “social connections, collaborative care, and shared resources” to adapt to challenges. (For example, she cites the pandemic-era refusal of masks and vaccines as proof of the sometimes “maladaptive” values of individualistic strength, with the disease disproportionately affecting the older white men who were most likely to reject preventive measures.) Elsewhere, she claims that corporate America’s “grind culture” impairs resilience; that expectations to “bounce back” after crises impede long-term healing; and that feeling “safe” in one’s body is key to facing the “uncertainty of anxiety-provoking life changes.” While those seeking actionable guidance might become frustrated with Chemaly’s tendency to think in broad strokes, readers who welcome a more conceptual take will appreciate her rigorous efforts to set forth an expansive view of resilience as adaptation. This is sure to spark conversation. (May)
From the Publisher
Thoughtful and well-argued, this book offers a humane vision of the ways people must adapt their ideas of what it means to thrive to a radically changing world. . . . Provocative, necessary reading.”
—Kirkus
“Ambitious. . . using a feminist and anticapitalistic framework to interrogate notions of resilience. . . this is sure to spark conversation.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Resilience is an ideology—comprising elements of individualism, bootstraps, and even victim-blaming. With characteristically brilliant arguments and meticulous research, Chemaly demolishes this ideology in The Resilience Myth and shows us how to build something so much better for everyone facing adversity. A must-read book for our age.”
—Kate Manne, author of Down Girl
“A vital, life-saving must-read for anyone who has been force-fed the word ‘resilient’ when they feel anything but. The book I wish I'd had when I was neck-deep in trauma.”
—Nora McInerny, author of Bad Vibes Only and the host of It’s Going To Be OK
“A tender, sensitive meditation on the supposed virtue of resilience in the face of trauma and adversity. Through counterintuitive insights and observations, Soraya Chemaly reminds us that it is in fact far healthier to be human.”
—Angela Saini, award-winning journalist and author of The Patriarchs and Superior
“Chemaly has once again written the book we desperately need. In The Resilience Myth, Chemaly skillfully weaves science, anthropology, and history with poignant personal stories teaching us not only what real resilience looks like, but also why a new definition is more urgent than ever.”
—Dr. Pooja Lakshmin MD, psychiatrist and bestselling author of Real Self-Care
“Soraya Chemaly has written a searing indictment of one of the most pernicious fictions in America: that self-reliance can save us. With her signature clarity and penetrating mind, she subverts the ideologies of isolation that keep us divided and dissociated from ourselves and other people. Deeply informative and inspiring, The Resilience Myth is an urgent corrective to the mind/body and self/other ruptures at the heart of our collective crises. It’s a groundbreaking road map to true strength: shared struggle.”
—Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger
“Getting back on one's horse after a personal catastrophe feels evermore challenging—and Chemaly has, with clarity, patience, and rigor— illustrated why it's not just you, when all of us are asking, ‘Is it just me?’ She makes sense of what exists in our culture that isolates us from one another during times when we need each other most, providing a guiding light toward strength and interdependence, and ultimately, love.”
—Soraya Nadia McDonald, award-winning cultural critic and journalist
