Phyllis Chesler

In a 2021 article for Tablet Magazine titled "The Progressive Erasure of Feminism," Chesler wrote that the Equality Act would "dangerously privilege a minority over the majority by endangering women's sex-based rights in terms of sports, and women-only safe spaces in prisons, DV and homeless shelters, and in the military."

From 2021-2022, Dr. Chesler was privileged to co-lead an international team which rescued 400 women from Afghanistan. She wrote 25 articles about this, which helped to raise funds for this mission.

In A Politically Incorrect Feminist (2018), Chesler discusses the women who fought for women's rights and inspired others to do so.

At the same time, Chesler has received accolades from Islamic feminist organizations. In 2018, she received a "True Honor" award from the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO) at a ceremony in London. The same year, she selected, edited, and newly introduced her volume A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killing (April 2018). It was translated into German by Henryk M. Broder's group and posted at his blog Die Achse des Guten.

Her work on these topics has sparked backlash. In April, 2017 Chesler's keynote address to a conference on honor-based violence at the University of Arkansas Law School was cancelled. The controversy was written about widely on social media, and Dr. Chesler was almost immediately invited by a group of grassroots activists at University College London to address a conference at that institution in November 2017.

Also in 2017, Taylor & Francis declined to publish her two volumes in this area, New English Review Press immediately agreed to do so. In the fall of 2017, they published Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War Against Women with a new introduction. The original introduction appeared at Tablet, Middle East Forum, and Mosaic.

In 2013, Chesler was appointed a Fellow of the Middle East Forum.

In addition, from 2012 to 2020 Chesler submitted courtroom affidavits to support asylum applications for girls and women at risk of honor-based violence in their countries of origin.

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.

In 2010, Chesler published an essay in Middle East Quarterly calling for the burqa to be banned in western countries. She argued in defense of this position that despite the Qur'an's command to both men and women to dress "modestly", several Muslim-majority countries have, in the past, banned the full burqa or niqab. She argued that the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries do not require that women wear a face veil and noted that the burqa can function as a "sensory deprivation and isolation chamber."

Chesler published four studies about honor killings in the American journal Middle East Quarterly in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2015. 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 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."

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.

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'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 a range of reviewers including former Prisoner of Zion and author Natan Sharansky, British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, novelist Erica Jong and lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Jay Lefkowitz. Sharansky praised the book as "authoritative" and "sensitive", and added "anyone who wants to understand the connection between anti-Semitism, Islamic terrorism, the role of propaganda and appeasement must read this book." Sacks added "I admire the courage of this vision and the power of the writing."

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 book is composed of a number of articles which Chesler wrote during the period 2003–2016. Some concern specific issues while other have their roots in speeches at conferences or government events. The main theme is Islamic gender segregation.

By 2003, Chesler had started to write about honor killings based on newspaper accounts, sources available online, interviews and memoirs and later produced a number of academic studies on honor killings in the West, the Middle East and South Asia. The studies along with more than 90 articles are collected in the book.

Chesler obtained an annulment from her first husband and married an Israeli-American, whom she also later divorced. She has one son. She describes their relationship, pregnancy, childbirth, and her first year as a mother in With Child: A Diary of Motherhood. In the 1998 edition, her son wrote the preface to the book.

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 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.

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.

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. For many years she maintained a small psychotherapy practice and in 1997 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 to 2012, Chesler submitted courtroom affidavits in cases where girls and women have fled being honor killed and applied for asylum in America.

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.

In recent years, Chesler has sparked controversy, both for her work on honor-based violence, including honor killing, and for her outspoken criticism of anti-Jewish racism. Beginning in the 1990s Chesler has authored six books about the failures of Western feminism, anti-Semitism, Islamic gender and religious apartheid and honor killing and has criticized Western feminists for failing to defend women in non-Western societies.

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.

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 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.

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."

In 1976, the first feminist Passover seder in North America was held in Chesler'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 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.

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".

Upon her return, she completed her final semester and graduated from Bard College, embarked on a doctoral program, worked in a brain research laboratory for 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. She later earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1969 at the New School for Social Research and embarked on a career as a professor, author, and psychotherapist in private practice.

In 1969, Chesler 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 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.

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 visited in Kabul, in the large, polygamous household of her father-in-law. She credits this experience with inspiring her to become an ardent feminist.

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.

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 anti-Semitism, 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.

Chesler began writing about rape, incest, sexual harassment, and domestic violence during the late 1960s. Her focus has mainly been on Western countries, but with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, and gender apartheid, and the Islamist persecution of women and infidels, Chesler began to explore similar themes in Muslim-majority countries. She has 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".

Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the author of 18 books, including the best-sellers Women and Madness (1972), With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979), and An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013). Chesler has written extensively about topics such as gender, mental illness, divorce and child custody, surrogacy, second-wave feminism, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence against women.