Books

This psychological crime thriller takes us inside the mind of a unique female serial killer, a prostitute who murdered seven adult men—a case with which the author was involved. The issues raised by this high-profile criminal case remain unresolved to this day. Women, even prostitutes, have the right to self-defense in theory, but in practice, the story is more complicated. This book will challenge everything you ever thought about prostitutes, serial killers, and justice in America.

“One of the triumphs of this haunting work is that Chesler, all these years later, has finally accomplished (her) aim of educating the public about the brutal reality of prostitution. I cannot imagine any civilized reader of Requiem ever again viewing a life in prostitution as anything other than a cruel and miserable fate.” —Bruce Bawer

This is feminist icon Chesler's landmark work--more than 3 million copies sold--revised, updated, with a new Introduction. Combining patient interviews with an analysis of women's roles in history, society, and myth, Chesler documents the dangerous double standard by which women are judged psychologically and psychiatrically. In this new edition, she addresses many of the most relevant issues for women. Women and Madness remains as important today as it was when first published.

“Intense, rapid, brilliant. A pioneer contribution to the feminization of psychiatric thinking and practice." – Adrienne Rich

Since no one prepares daughters to become mothers, the transformation is often lonely, the new identity elusive. In diary form, Chesler re-creates the days of her pregnancy and the first year of her son’s life. This is an extraordinary account of pregnancy and new-born motherhood. Joy, fear, anger, guilt—all explored in a poetic voice that is both intense and magical. Her son introduced this work when he turned eighteen. (1979, 2009).

This volume is a collection of breaking news reports from the front lines of the propaganda war against Israel, the Jews, and the infidel West. Dr. Chesler tracks the slow motion Holocaust that began in Israel in 2000, a holocaust that remained invisible to most of the world, and that foreshadowed the global expansion of Islamic Jihad. Dr. Chesler documents how educated Westerners and the mainstream media distort the war against the Jews by presenting Jewish self-defense as criminal aggression and by burying or misnaming the facts. This book is a must-read addition to your library in these most frightening and challenging of times.

"This is a warm, personal, political, irresistible guide for young feminists, women and men." – Gloria Steinem

Phyllis Chesler recalls her pioneer days as a Second Wave Radical Feminist and memorializes the incredible women who came together between 1963-1979… It’s all here, it’s as if you were there. Come, join us.

“I find this book fascinating, compelling…This is a serious record of feminist movement showing us links between the personal and the political.” – bell hooks

An honor killing is the cold-blooded murder of girls and women simply because they are female. Being born female in a shame-and-honor culture is, potentially, a capital crime; every girl has to keep proving that she is not dishonoring her family; even so, an innocent girl can be falsely accused and killed on the spot.

Dr. Phyllis Chesler has been studying the nature of honor killings for the last fifteen years. During that time she has published four studies at Middle East Quarterly and is working on a fifth. While this barbaric custom is tribal in origin, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam have not tried to abolish it as a crime against God or humanity.

Renowned author, scholar, activist, and journalist, Dr. Phyllis Chesler has been an independent and politically incorrect truth teller for nearly half a century.

This volume is a tremendous service to history - a witness at the critical time when womens rights will either advance worldwide, or the hard-won gains of western women will begin to erode due to the thoughtless mass acceptance of multiculturalism.

This volume is a collection of breaking news reports from the front lines of the propaganda war against Israel, the Jews, and the infidel West. Dr. Chesler tracks the slow motion Holocaust that began in Israel in 2000, a holocaust that remained invisible to most of the world, and that foreshadowed the global expansion of Islamic Jihad. Dr. Chesler documents how educated Westerners and the mainstream media distort the war against the Jews by presenting Jewish self-defense as criminal aggression and by burying or misnaming the facts. This book is a must-read addition to your library in these most frightening and challenging of times.

A dangerous worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but misinformed students, right-wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, academics, feminists, European politicians, journalists, and international human rights organizations have joined together to again scapegoat the Jews and the Jewish state for crimes they did not commit and for whatever ails the world. In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling and prize-winning Jewish feminist author Dr. Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism – now often seen in the form of anti-Zionism – has become fashionable and even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, Israel, America, and Western civilization.

The 2003 edition of this book was a pioneering work that has stood the test of time. This new edition updates, expands, and strengthens the original analysis and also has a new introduction, resource section, and the answers to the twenty most frequently asked questions.

When she arrived in Kabul with her Afghan bridegroom, authorities took away her American passport. Chesler found herself unexpectedly trapped in a posh polygamous family, with no way back to the future. She nearly died there but she got out. This dramatic tale re-creates a time gone by, (and one that has now returned to the 10th century), and shares the way in which Chesler turned adversity into a passion for world-wide social, educational, and political reform.

“Phyllis Chesler is by far the bravest and most outspoken American feminist to address the plight of Muslim women. I recommend this book be put on the reading list of every American school." —Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Completely updated and revised for the twenty-first century, Mothers on Trial remains the bible for all women facing a custody battle, as well as the lawyers, psychologists, and others who support them. This landmark book was the first to break the false stereotype about mothers getting preferential treatment over fathers when it comes to custody. In this new edition, Chesler shows that, with few exceptions, the news has only gotten worse: when both the father and the mother want custody, the father usually gets it. The highly praised Mothers on Trial is essential reading for anyone concerned personally or professionally with custody rights and the well-being of our children.

“Man’s inhumanity to man”--that phrase is all too familiar. But until Phyllis Chesler's now classic book, a profound silence prevailed about woman’s inhumanity to woman. Women's aggression may not take the same form as men's but girls and women are both aggressive and competitive. They judge harshly, hold grudges, gossip, exclude, and ostracize or shun other women. And, like men, women also internalize sexist beliefs. She covers teenage “mean girls”—and when those girls become adults and she does so globally. A breathtaking expose.

“Phyllis Chesler's book tells the truth. Such a wealth of learning and academic irreverence. This is profound and helpful thinking." — Kate Millett

Feminist icon and political activist Phyllis Chesler, author of the 2.5-million copy bestseller Women and Madness and the controversial The New Anti-Semitism, calls for an overhaul of the women's movement. In this important book, Phyllis Chesler asks the questions: Within feminism, is there room for free thinkers who oppose the party line? What if a feminist believes in capitalism? God? Patriotism? Chesler is the first to show the crisis in feminism today, which is silencing women and stripping them of power. In order to be a member of the club you must reject capitalism, see religion as a dangerous form of patriarchy, oppose the war, and turn a blind eye to the woman-defeating practices of Islam. The result contradicts the moral and ethical principles feminism was built on. Chesler signals a critical need for women to come together in a pro-individualist form of feminism.

A dangerous worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but misinformed students, right-wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, academics, feminists, European politicians, journalists, and international human rights organizations have joined together to again scapegoat the Jews and the Jewish state for crimes they did not commit and for whatever ails the world. In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling and prize-winning Jewish feminist author Dr. Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism – now often seen in the form of anti-Zionism – has become fashionable and even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, Israel, America, and Western civilization.

The 2003 edition of this book was a pioneering work that has stood the test of time. This new edition updates, expands, and strengthens the original analysis and also has a new introduction, resource section, and the answers to the twenty most frequently asked questions.

“Our souls yearn to pray, in peace, in the sacred place, to read from our holy Torah, together with other Jewish women.” In Israel today, the historic Western Wall, known as the Kotel, a holy site for Jewish people, is under the religious authority of the Orthodox rabbinate. Women have only limited rights to practice Jewish ritual in its precincts. This passionate book documents the legendary grassroots and legal struggle of a determined group of Jewish women from Israel, the United States, and other parts of the world―known as the Women of the Wall―to win the right to pray out loud together as a group, according to Jewish law; wear ritual objects; and read from Torah scrolls at the Western Wall. Eyewitness accounts of physical violence and intimidation, inspiring personal stories, and interpretations of legal and classical Jewish (halakhic) texts bring to life the historic and ongoing struggle that the Women of the Wall face in their everyday fight for religious and gender equality.

Feminist Foremothers in Women’s Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health is by and about the more recent wave of feminist foremothers; those who were awakened in the 1960s and ’70s to the realization that something was terribly wrong. These are the women who created the fields of feminist therapy, feminist psychology, and women’s mental health as they exist today. The 48 women share their life stories in the hope that they will inspire and encourage readers to take their own risks and their own journeys to the outer edges of human possibility.

Chesler, perhaps best known for Women and Madness (LJ 10/15/72), presents a collection of her essays and papers on a variety of feminist issues. She discusses patriarchy, psychiatric treatment of women, custody battles, child abuse, women and the criminal justice system, and Camp Sister Spirit, a space in Mississippi created for lesbian women. In one paper she epouses the cause of Mary Beth Whitehead of the Baby M case and in another criticizes Naomi Wolf's Fire with Fire (LJ 1/94) for sounding like "women's magazine advice." A scholar and a radical feminist, Chesler does not equivocate. Recommended for all women's collections in high school, public, and academic libraries.

Chesler (Women and Madness, etc.) here emotionally addresses grave questions arising from the widely publicized struggle for custody of Baby M. Mary Beth Whitehead agreed to bear the child, in 1985, as a surrogate mother for Betsy and William Stern, but refused to give up the baby, thus precipitating lawsuits and national debate over parental rights. The author, a psychotherapist and feminist who publicly spoke in favor of Whitehead and organized a campaign against surrogacy, describes her involvement and the support of women's-rights activists in a book that is, unfortunately, so intemperate as to dilute the vital issues raised. She describes the women who attended the birth mother's trial as "blood-thirsty, pro-male, pro-middle class," Whitehead as "condemned and tormented" like a "character in a soap opera." Much relevance is buried under Chesler's vehement accusations against a woman-hating society that regards a surrogate as a "womb for hire." Nevertheless, the book serves to alert the public to the moral and social considerations of surrogacy. Appended are court briefs, verdicts and the Stern/Whitehead parenting contract. First serial to Ms.

The author draws on her own experiences, on interviews, and on myth, history,art and literature to provocatively explore male psyche and sexuality and therelationships men have with women and each other.