Toxic resilience and ways to overcome it

Abstract

Resilience is often considered as desirable characteristics of a system or an individual. However, when situations that are unfavourable are persistent against change, we can talk about dark sides of resilience. We combine concepts of resilience and toxic masculinity and introduce concept of toxic resilience that refers to persisting gendered inequalities and their underlying causes in rural areas. Toxic resilience works at the levels of norms and stereotypes, policy, and everyday practice and roles. We offer three proposals on how women-led innovation can link to dismantling and questioning toxic resilience.