About Phyllis
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., is an Emerita Professor of Psychology at City University of New York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist leader, and a retired academic and psychotherapist. She has lectured and organized political, legal, religious, and human rights campaigns in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, Central Asia, and the Far East.
In addition to books, Chesler currently writes for her Substack newsletter, which has nearly 5,000 followers and a monthly readership of more than 40,000. Her posts are routinely picked up by other publications. Coincidentally, at Dignity, an online academic journal, Chesler’s work has been downloaded 40,000 times by users from around the world. By sharing excerpts of her work on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, X.com, Instagram, etc.), Chesler has amassed a following of some 35,000 followers across various platforms. In addition, Dr. Chesler's work has been cited 7,000 times on ACADEMIA.EDU and Google Scholar, where it has been accessed by academics from 97 different countries, including Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, India, Brazil, Mexico, North America, and in Europe (Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, the UK, etc.)
She is the author of 20 books, has introduced or contributed to more than 50 anthologies, and has penned thousands of articles. Her books include the landmark feminist classics Women and Madness (1972), which sold three and a half million copies and remains in print; With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979); Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (1986), which she published a complete updated edition of in 2011; Sacred Bond: The Legacy of Baby M (1988); Letters to a Young Feminist (1998); Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman (2002), for which she's been interviewed on every continent; Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site (2002); The New Antisemitism (2003); An American Bride in Kabul (2013), which won a National Jewish Book Award; Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War Against Women (2017); A Politically Incorrect Feminist (2018); and Requiem for a Female Serial Killer (2020), which has attracted four different film companies to date but no film has materialized yet.
Dr. Chesler’s work has been translated into many European languages, including French, German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Polish, and Russian, and into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Farsi, and Arabic.
She has recently completed a memoir tentatively titled: Talking to the Dead: Growing up with Violent and Criminal Brothers and with the Mother Who Enabled Them. She is now working on editing her diaries from 1960-2025.
Some of her feminist activism includes the following:
In 1969, she delivered a speech at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, in which she demanded one million dollars in reparations on behalf of women who had been misdiagnosed, punitively medicated, poorly served in terms of what violence (rape, incest, sexual harassment, battering) does to a woman. This speech made world headlines and led to her writing Women and Madness.
In 1970, Dr. Chesler founded a Women's Studies course and then a program at City University of New York at the College of Staten Island (1969-1970). Back then, Second Wave radical feminists had a very different vision of what the curriculum should be.
In 1971, Dr. Chesler delivered the keynote speech at the first-ever Speakout on Rape in 1971 in NYC. She was also a co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969-present) and the National Women's Health Network (1974/75-2025); Dr. Chesler co-led the Feminist Passover rituals (1975-1990), also in NYC. She organized the first-ever Conference on Women Losing Custody of Children in 1986 in New York City. Dr. Chesler served as an activist against legal commercial surrogacy (1987-2018) in NYC, NY State, and in New Jersey, a subject about which she also published a book; Dr. Chesler has conducted four studies about honor killing (femicide), which allowed her to submit affidavits for women in flight who had applied for asylum from being honor murdered. Most recently, in 2021, she co-led a grassroots team that rescued 398 women from Afghanistan--and that work continues. Dr. Chesler has taken personal responsibility for one very excellent woman.
She has also taught and lectured in Canada, the UK, Italy, Sweden, Israel, and Japan, all over the United States and via zoom into Spain, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.
Since 9/11, Dr. Chesler has focused on the demonization of Israel and rising antisemitism/anti-Zionism; the rights of women, dissidents, and gays in the Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim communities; the rights of women in prison ; the nature of terrorism; forced veiling, forced marriage, polygamy, and tribal psychology. She also appeared regularly on NPR's "At the Opera" program and has published opera, film, and book reviews.
Dr. Chesler is a founding member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Clarity Coalition. She was a Senior Fellow at the Investigative Project on Terrorism and a Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a member of The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism.
She has been profiled in encyclopedias such as Feminists Who Have Changed America, Encyclopedia Judaica, Jewish Women in America, and at the Veteran Feminists of America’s website.
Dr. Chesler is the proud mother of a wonderful son, the mother-in-law to a daughter-in-law (the best mother in the world) and the grandmother of two granddaughters.
She has archived most of her articles at her website: https://www.phyllis-chesler.com/articles
- My Feminist Autobiography
- Academic CV (Forensic, General)
- Curriculum Vitae (Judaism/Jewish World)
- Feminists Who Changed America
- The Elizabeth Cady Stanton of Her Time
- Entry on Phyllis Chesler in Encyclopedia Judaica
- Entry on Phyllis Chesler in Jewish Women in America
- Phyllis Chesler's Facebook Page
- Jewish Women’s Archive