Phyllis Chesler

Personal life

Chesler was the eldest of three children raised in a working class Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. As a youth she joined the Socialist-Zionist, anti-religious youth movement, HaShomer Hatzair, and later the even more radical left-wing Zionist youth movement, Ein Harod. Despite her parents' disapproval, she continued to rebel against her religious upbringing.

She attended New Utrecht High School where she was the editor of the yearbook and of the literary magazine. She won a full scholarship to Bard College, where she met Ali, a Westernized Muslim man from Afghanistan, the son of devout Muslim parents. They married in a civil ceremony in 1961 in New York State and settled in Kabul, in the large, polygamous household of her father-in-law. She credits this experience with inspiring her to become an ardent feminist.

According to Chesler, her problems began on arrival in Afghanistan. The authorities forced her to surrender her U.S. passport, and she ended up a virtual prisoner in her in-laws' house. Chesler describes this as how foreign wives were treated. This phenomenon has been documented by others. She reports that the U.S. embassy refused to help her leave the country. After several months, she contracted hepatitis and became gravely ill. At that point, her father-in-law made it possible for her return to the U.S. on a temporary visa.

Upon her return, she completed her final semester and graduated from Bard, embarked on a doctoral program, worked in a brain research laboratory for Dr. E. Roy John, published studies in Science magazine and received a fellowship in neurophysiology at the New York Medical College at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital. Thereafter, in 1969, she earned a Ph.D. in psychology at the New School for Social Research and embarked on careers as a professor, author, and psychotherapist in private practice.

Chesler divorced her Muslim husband and remarried an Israeli, whom she also later divorced. She has one son. She describes their relationship, pregnancy, childbirth, and her first year as a newborn mother in With Child: A Diary of Motherhood. In the 1998 edition, her son wrote the Preface to the book.

Psychologist

In 1969, she cofounded the Association for Women in Psychology. In 1972, she published Women and Madness, whose thesis is "that double standards of mental health and illness exist and that women are often punitively labeled as a function of gender, race, class, or sexual preference". The book sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. The book received a front page New York Times review by Adrienne Rich, who described it as "intense, rapid, brilliant, controversial ... a pioneer contribution to the feminization of psychiatric thinking and practice".

Chesler has been consulted by lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists on diverse subjects including sex between patient and therapist, rape, incest, domestic violence, custody, honor killings, and the mistreatment of women in jails and in psychiatric institutions. In 1997, she taught a course in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College. In 1997, she was the sole expert witness in a class action lawsuit in Nebraska on behalf of female psychiatric patients who had been sexually, physically, medically, and psychologically abused. In 1998, she taught a course in Advanced Psychology and Women's Studies at Brandeis University. From 2008–2012, Chesler submitted courtroom affidavits in cases where girls and women have fled being honor killed and applied for asylum in America.

Feminism

Chesler is considered a radical feminist and a second wave feminist leader. Chesler believes that men can and should be feminists, and she wrote in her book Letters to a Young Feminist that she envisions her heirs as both women and men. Chesler has studied male psychology and published a book on the subject (About Men) which discussed the father-son, mother-son, and brother-brother relationships; the book also tried to understand male conformity, how and why men obeyed the orders of male tyrants, and what kind of men resisted doing so.

Chesler taught one of the first Women's Studies classes in the U.S. at Richmond College (which later merged with Staten Island Community College to form the College of Staten Island) in New York City during the 1969–1970 school year. She turned the women's studies course into a minor and then a major at the university. With Vivian Gornick, she created an early feminist salon. In 1975, she co-led one of the first feminist Passover seders and continued to do so for 18 years. During her time at Richmond College, she established many services for female students, including self-defense classes, a rape crisis center, and a child care center. She was also a leader in the class action lawsuit against CUNY on behalf of women which took 17 years to be resolved. In 1975, she became one of five cofounders of The National Women's Health Network, with Barbara Seaman, Alice Wolfson, Belita Cowan, and Mary Howell, and is a charter member of the Women's Forum and a founding member of the International Committee for Women of the Wall.

In 1969, Chesler, together with others, co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology. With Dr. Dorothy Riddle, Chesler presented a series of demands at the 1969 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, demands which an Association for Women in Psychology group had worked on together. Chesler prepared a statement on the APA's obligations to women and demanded one million dollars in reparation for the damage psychology had perpetrated against allegedly mentally ill and traumatized women.

In her early work, although Chesler argued for integration, she also stated in 1972 that "feminists" and feminist values must gradually and ultimately dominate public social institutions—in order to insure that they are not used against women", and argued that there has always been "a war between the sexes". In 1977, Chesler became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. Chesler worked for the United Nations (1979–1980) and coordinated an international feminist conference that took place in Oslo, just prior to the 1980 UN conference on women.

In 1986, Chesler co-organized a speakout about mothers losing custody of children at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Nearly 500 custodially embattled mothers and speakers attended, including Ti-Grace Atkinson, E.M. Broner, Paula Caplan, Toi Derricotte, Andrea Dworkin, and Kate Millett. New York State and national legislators and feminist leaders participated. Also in 1986, Chesler co-organized a congressional press briefing in Washington, D.C. on mothers and child custody. It was sponsored by then-Representatives Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Some of the mothers she interviewed for her 1986 book Mothers on Trial spoke at the briefing.

In 1987, Chesler worked with Mary Beth Whitehead's lawyer Harold Cassidy in the landmark Baby M case, in which the New Jersey Supreme Court declared that surrogacy contracts violated New Jersey law. Chesler organized demonstrations outside the courthouse, wrote articles, created an alliance of diverse groups, and ultimately documented this struggle and the issues raised by a surrogacy contract custody battle in Sacred Bond: The Legacy of Baby M. In 1989, Chesler began publishing in On the Issues magazine and also functioned as its Editor-at-Large. She did so for fifteen years until the magazine became an online edition.

In 1990–1991, Chesler organized expert witnesses in the case of Aileen Wuornos, a female serial killer. Chesler's stated goal was to educate the jury and the country about the lives of women in prostitution and the dangerous conditions they routinely face. The public defender did not call any of these witnesses, which became one of the grounds of the appeal that Wuornos' lawyers launched in the Florida Supreme Court. Chesler wrote about the legal and psychiatric issues raised by the case in the New York Times and St. John's Law Review and the Criminal Practice Law Report.

Views of women and Judaism

In 1976, the first women-only Passover seder was held in Esther M. Broner's New York City apartment and led by Broner, with 13 women attending, including Chesler. Chesler also created and participated in Jewish feminist life cycle rituals.

In 1988 Chesler was among the women who prayed with a Torah for the first time in an all-female, multi-denominational, non-minyan group at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In 1989, Chesler co-founded the International Committee for Women of the Wall to promote the religious rights of Jewish women in Jerusalem; she became one of the name plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state of Israel on this issue. In 2002, she and co-author Rivka Haut both edited and contributed to an anthology on this subject. In 1989, Chesler began to study Torah. She published her first dvar Torah (Bible interpretation) in 2000. She has since published and/or delivered additional Torah commentaries.

Activist against racism and antisemitism

In the 1960s, Chesler was active in the Northern Student Movement. Chesler has written about the participation of African-American women in the American civil rights movement in the 1960s and was interviewed on camera in a documentary about Viola Liuzzo, a white female civil rights activist who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members. In 1973, Chesler co-organized the first press conference about feminism and antisemitism, and in 1974–1975 she co-organized the first Jewish feminist speakout in New York City. In 1981, Chesler organized the first-ever panel on racism, anti-semitism, and feminism for the National Women's Studies Association in Storrs, Connecticut.

Women and Madness (1972)

Women and Madness is now considered a classic work. The poet and essayist Adrienne Rich's front page review in The New York Times (cited above) was a first of its kind for a feminist work. When it first appeared, at least one critic viewed the work as "radical" and "overstated". Other reviews were more positive. The Saturday Review opined that "this is an extremely important book, a signal that the women's liberation movement is coming of age ... she writes with high passion and compassion". The Los Angeles Times described it as a "stunning book ... fascinating and important to every woman"; The Boston Phoenix viewed the book as "an extensively researched and deeply intuitive exploration of woman's psychic experience ... invaluable". When the book was translated into European languages, many reviews appeared. In his review for Le Monde, Roland Jaccard wrote that "like any important book, Women and Madness has the immense merit of 'troubling the world's sleep.'"

Women, Money and Power (co-authored with Emily Jane Goodman) (1976)

The book is an in-depth study of gender-based economic disparities in America in the 1970s. Congresswoman Bella Abzug hailed the book as "powerful ... a realistic analysis of women's economic and political condition". Florynce Kennedy wrote that the book "is the antidote for the poison of women's powerlessness". The New York Times gave it a mixed review but described it as "useful not only for its theoretical insights but for its presentation of a number of practical items". Kirkus called it "caustic and abrasive" but also "impressively researched ... one of the more challenging works to come out of the women's movement".

About Men (1978)

About Men describes the relationships between brothers, sons and fathers, and sons and mothers. When it was published in 1978, the book was described as "psychologically voluptuous, it plunges through the bloody underbrush of male-male relationships ... insisting that we look at men with fresh and fearless eyes". Robert Seidenberg, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY, wrote that Chesler defined manhood "with a brilliance and erudition equal to the task", describing Chesler as men's "Tocqueville". John Leonard of the New York Times wrote that Chesler "has written a brave, sad, disorderly, sometimes self-indulgent, often infuriating, always provocative book."

With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979)

Chesler was one of only a small number of second-wave feminists to focus on motherhood. In With Child: A Diary of Motherhood, Chesler explored the experience of pregnancy, childbirth, and the first year of "newborn" motherhood in psychological, spiritual, and mythic terms. The book was endorsed by both men (Alan Alda, Gerold Frank) and women (Judy Collins, Tillie Olsen, Marilyn French). It was also reviewed in the mainstream media. Caroline Seebohm of the New York Times noted that this book stood out because it was written by a radical feminist, and describes the it as "a nice mixture of romantic charm and intellectual insight." In 1998, Chesler's eighteen-year-old son wrote a new introduction to the book.

Sacred Bond: The Legacy of Baby M (1988)

Sacred Bond discussed the issues raised by the high-profile Baby M case, in which surrogacy was ultimately declared illegal in the state of New Jersey. Despite liberal feminist opposition, Chesler defended the rights of the birth mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, who wanted to keep her child even though the genetic father and his wife were a more educated and higher income couple.

The New York Times described this book as "a powerful critique of the way many of us were inclined to think". A Los Angeles Times reviewer wrote that Sacred Bond is "a powerful, provocative book ... illustrating social problems sure to remain controversial". The book and its views were also condemned by pro-surrogacy lobbies, pro-adoption lobbies, and by feminists who were concerned with maximizing their options in case of infertility. This issue remains timely and is frequently in the news.

Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness (1994)

This volume consists of several articles written by Chesler on topics such as the Aileen Wuornos, Baby M, child abuse, treatment of women in mental health institutions, and patriarchy. It also includes a critique of Naomi Wolf’s book Fire with Fire.

Letters to a Young Feminist (1998)

In 1998, Chesler wrote a "legacy" letter. She wanted to share the history of her generation of feminists with coming generations and to point to work still left undone. The work was lauded by feminists of her era and mocked or minimized by daughter-generation feminists who did not want to keep standing on the shoulders of a previous generation with whom they disagreed and with whom they were in competition.

The Chicago Tribune described this as "a frank assessment of the past and a radical recipe for the future". The New York Times felt much of the advice was unnecessary since "Feminism's daughters have outgrown their bunk beds". The reviewer found the book "strident" and fails to reach younger feminists but concedes that "Chesler does an admirable job. She writes poignantly of the way in which her generation was eerily silent about woman-hating among women, including among feminists. She implores readers to adopt a more global perspective on women's rights." Salon noted that "the book mostly seemed to piss off its intended audience."

Nevertheless, reviews from feminists of her own generation were more positive. For example, Susan Brownmiller wrote, "The sweet, clear voice of these Letters should reach across the generation gap like Joshua's trumpet. This is Phyllis Chesler writing at the top of her form." Gloria Steinem endorsed the book and found it a "warm, personal, political, irresistible guide for young feminists, women and men."

Woman's Inhumanity to Woman (2002)

This pioneering book addressed the subject of female indirect aggression, both in the family and the workplace, both in childhood and adulthood, and covered woman's capacity for cruelty, competition, envy, and ostracism; the ways in which women, like men, have internalized sexist beliefs; and the importance of acknowledging the "shadow side" of female-female relationships, especially because such relationships are so important to women. The book was reviewed in many publications, and the author was interviewed widely in South America, North America (including in The New York Times), Europe, and Asia. It received a front page review in the Washington Post Book World written by Deborah Tannen. Tannen wrote: "Chesler seems to have read everything and thought deeply about it....Along with social commentary and psychological insight, Chesler offers astute literary criticism....many of Chesler's richest scenarios are drawn from the more than 500 interviews she conducted ... many of Chesler's examples have an unmistakable and heartbreaking ring of familiarity. The time has come to stop idealizing or demonizing either sex. Seeing women, like men, as capable of both courage and jealousy, of providing care, and causing pain, is no more nor less than acknowledging women as fully human."

In addition, the book was reviewed in Salon, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews.

The New Anti-Semitism (2003)

Chesler's The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It was issued in 2003. The book received positive notices from Erica Jong and Alan Dershowitz. Natan Sharansky described the book as "sensitive", "authoritative", and "essential reading".

Some reviews were more critical. A 2003 review in Publishers Weekly argued that the book "too often undercuts itself when its author intends to be provocative", citing lines such as "African-Americans (not Jews) are the Jews in America but Jews are the world's niggers." The review piece concluded that "Chesler's tone and lack of intellectual rigor will not help her ideas to be heard by those who do not already agree with her."

The Death of Feminism (2005)

In The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom, Chesler documented how western academic and activist feminists came to abandon their former concepts of universal human rights for everyone and became multicultural relativists. She claims that their desire to avoid being labeled "racists" or "Islamophobes" eventually trumped their concern with women's and human rights in the Third World. The Death of Feminism was excerpted in Playboy magazine, but she was also interviewed by the Washington Times, and positively reviewed in the pages of The Weekly Standard and The National Review.

Kirkus called it a "loud wake up call ... a fierce polemic, filled with vigorous arguments and distressing human stories". Publishers Weekly wrote: "She has penned a cross between a cri di coeur and a deeply rhetorical polemic that makes scores of provocative points.... As in her last book, The New Anti-Semitism Chesler raised important issues, but her style will alienate the very people she means to reach." However, leading Second Wave feminist Kate Millett, who wrote Sexual Politics, Flying, and Going to Iran, praised The Death of Feminism: "In telling her story she is sounding a warning to the West that it ignores to its peril." Liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz called the work "a tour de force ... a must read".

She was also interviewed about the book in the Chicago Tribune. and London Guardian. In 2006, Chesler participated at the First Muslim Dissident Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, which she covered for the Times of London.

Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (2011)

In 2011, Chicago Review Press published a 25th anniversary edition of Chesler's 1986 book Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody, in which she argues that the American legal system is biased and overworked and continues to fail the needs of mothers and children, especially those whose husbands and fathers are violent and vindictive. She discusses topics such as prolonged litigation, joint custody, court enabled incest, brainwashing, kidnapping, gay and lesbian custody, fathers' rights groups, and international child custody laws. The new edition includes a new introduction and eight new chapters. The new edition received favorable notices from the Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews.

An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013)

An account of her 1961 marriage to an Afghan man, her brief married life in a harem in Afghanistan, and the lifelong lessons she learned. The book uses material from diaries, letters, and interviews spanning a fifty-year period to describe this ill-fated relationship and the experiences that Chesler believes forged her feminism. American Bride in Kabul won a National Jewish Book Award for 2013.

Statements and writing on Islam

On December 14, 2005, Chesler delivered a presentation before a United States Senate committee entitled, "Gender Apartheid in Iran and the Muslim World". She called for the U.S. government to oppose what she described as "Islamic gender apartheid" and to support the rights of women living in fundamentalist Islamic regimes. "If we do not oppose and defeat Islamic gender apartheid, democracy and freedom cannot flourish in the Arab and Islamic world," she said. "If we do not join forces with Muslim dissident and feminist groups; and, above all, if we do not have one universal standard of human rights for all—then we will fail our own Judeo-Christian and secular Western ideals." She also told the committee that her experience in Afghanistan taught her "the necessity of applying a single standard of human rights, not one tailored to each culture".

Chesler made statements critical of Islam in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 2007 interview with the Jewish Press. She was quoted as saying, "It's easy to say, yes, the Muslims are against everyone who is not a Muslim. And it's true. That's part of what jihad is about, that's part of the history of Islam. [...] Here's the thing. The West, and that means Jews and Israelis, would like to lead sweet and peaceful lives. We're up against an enemy now that is dying to kill us, that lives to kill, and that at best merely wishes to impose on the rest of us its laws and strictures."

Chesler published three essays about honor killings in the American journal Middle East Quarterly in 2009, 2010, and 2012. In one such essay, she wrote that 91% of the total worldwide cases of honour killings (as reported in English-language media) were Muslim-on-Muslim crimes, including those committed in North America and Europe. Based on these sources, Chesler concluded that "there are at least two types of honor killings and two victim populations." She identified the first group as consisting of daughters with an average age of seventeen who were killed by their families, and the second group as consisting of women with an average age of thirty-six. In her most recent essay, Chesler asserts that both Hindus and Muslims commit honor killings, but that only Muslims do so worldwide.

Chesler argues that honor killings differ qualitatively from Western domestic femicide. She has acknowledged that "many honorable feminists" disagree with this position, writing that "understandably, such feminists fear singling out one group for behavior that may be common to all groups." Chesler's position is that perpetrators of domestically violent femicide are regarded as criminals in the west but that the same stigma does not attach to honor killings in all other societies.

In an address before the New York County Supreme Court, Chesler reported that she has submitted affidavits on behalf of Muslim women and converts from Islam whom she contends believed themselves to be in danger of being the victims of honor killing, and who sought asylum and citizenship in the United States.

In 2010, Chesler wrote a further essay in Middle East Quarterly calling for the burqa to be banned in western countries. She argued in defense of this position that the Qur'an commands both men and women to dress "modestly"; that several Muslim-majority countries have, in the past, banned the full burqa or niqab, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries do not require that women wear a face veil; that the burqa can function as a "sensory deprivation and isolation chamber"; and that physical and psychiatric illnesses are associated with lack of sunlight. She wrote that she was not opposed to the headscarf (hijab), on the grounds that it does not obscure a woman's facial identity.

Chesler has been writing about rape, incest, sexual harassment, and domestic violence since the late 1960s. Her focus has mainly been in the West. With the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, and gender apartheid, and the Islamist persecution of women, Chesler began to explore similar themes in Muslim-majority countries. Chesler found that sexual abuse is widespread in Muslim communities worldwide, and that such abuse "leads to paranoid, highly traumatized and revenge-seeking adults". She has further argued, in a paraphrase of Nancy Kobrin, that some suicide bombers may be unconsciously acting out their hatred of women in committing violent acts. A 2006 review in the Toronto Star described Chesler's views on this subject as "compelling, if strident". Muslim feminists and dissidents such as Ibn Warraq and Amir Taheri have lauded Chesler's work in this area as ground-breaking and truthful. In 2013, Chesler was appointed a Fellow of the Middle East Forum.

Books