Phyllis Chesler

Phyllis Chesler (born October 1 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emeritus of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is known as a feminist psychologist, and is the author of thirteen books, including the best-seller Women and Madness, and the recent publications The Death of Feminism and The New Anti-Semitism.

She has organized political, legal, religious, and human rights campaigns in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East.

Personal life

Chesler was born in New York State to Jewish immigrants. In the early 1960s she was briefly married to an Afghan fellow student and lived in Afghanistan. She credits her Afghan experience as inspiring her towards feminism. According to Chesler, her problems began when she and her new husband arrived in Afghanistan. She was forced to give up her U.S. passport upon arrival, losing her American citizenship in the process. With it, she gave up all rights, and ended up a virtual prisoner in her in-laws' house, the target of cruelty and abuse by several members of the household, who felt she was soft, and ill-treatment by her new husband, from which she had no legal recourse. After a few months of this, her father-in-law helped her, sick with untreated hepatitis, get back to the U.S., on a tourist visa. She currently lives in Manhattan, New York City.

Feminism

Chesler taught one of the first women's studies classes at Richmond College in New York during the 1969-1970 school year. During the same year, she co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology. During her time at Richmond College, she established many services for her female students. Because of her, self-defense classes, a rape crisis center, and a child center were developed. She is co-founder of The National Women's Health Network, and is a charter member of the Women's Forum. She was an editor-at-large and columnist for On The Issues magazine.

New anti-Semitism

Chesler has recently become known for her campaign against New anti-Semitism, which she has written about in her book The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (2003).

Chesler's book was strongly criticized by Norman G. Finkelstein in Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Finkelstein writes that Chesler "barely disguises that alleging a new anti-Semitism is simply the pretext for defending Israel", noting that she devotes eight pages to "A Brief History of Arab Attacks against Israel, 1908-1970s" but says nothing concerning Israel's actions against Arabs.

Finkelstein also lists errors and apparent errors in Chesler's book, including her reference to "Arab lands such as ... India" and her description of Buddhist Aung San Suu Kyi as a Muslim intellectual.

Books

• Women and Madness (1972)
• Women, Money and Power (1976)
• About Men (1979)
• With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979)
• Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (1986)
• Sacred Bond: The Legacy of Baby M (1988)
• Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness (1994)
• Feminist Foremothers in Women's Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health (1995)
• Letters to a Young Feminist (1997)
• Woman's Inhumanity to Woman (2002)
• Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site (2002)
• The New Anti-Semitism. The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (2005)
• The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle For Women's Freedom (2005) ISBN 1-4039-6898-5

References

• Finkelstein, Norman G. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 0-520-24598-9

External Links

Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution from the Jewish Women's Archive

Further reading

• Chesler's website
• Feminista! v1n12 - Letters to a Young Feminist: An Interview with Phyllis Chesler
• "Women and Badness; Phyllis Chesler: prominent second-wave feminist—and neocon", by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Village Voice