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).
[1][2] 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.
[18] 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".
[19] 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.
[21] 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.
Nearly 500 custodially embattled mothers and speakers attended, including Ti-Grace Atkinson, E.M. Broner, Paula Caplan, Toi Derricotte, Andrea Dworkin, and Kate Millett.
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".
[59] 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.
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.
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.
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.
"[72] 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.
[74] Publishers Weekly wrote: "She has penned a cross between a cri de 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.
"[75] 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."
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.
The "crimes" Chesler cites that have resulted in honor killing also include wanting to marry the "wrong" man in terms of caste, class, or religious sect, or leaving one's religion.
In recounting harsh truths about feminist leaders, whom she takes to task for promulgating herd thinking or abandoning their values for the sake of political expediency, she shows how even the most progressive social justice movements can sometimes betray their own best ideals.
Her memoir is a cautionary tale for today's social activists, who tend to be largely ignorant of the disappeared history of the woman's movement and are thus repeating some of its mistakes.
"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."
[95][96][97][98] 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.
[101] 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 who 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.
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."
However, she also notes that there is a connection between a range of physical and psychiatric illnesses associated with forced veiling; these include the visible subordination of women, as well as the obvious lack of sunlight.
[105] Muslim feminists and dissidents such as Ibn Warraq,[83] Amir Taheri and Farzana Hassan[106] have lauded Chesler's work in this area as ground-breaking and truthful.
"[83] In a separate article, Hassan praised Chesler's memoir An American Bride in Kabul as a "poignant and fascinating account has many lessons for women -- and men -- of all cultures.
[108] 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.
[112] 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.
[113][114] 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.