Phyllis Chesler Quotes

Perhaps only some young women, perhaps only a minority of all women, will be able to effect such changes through consciousness alone, through the strength of understanding, which, if transformed into wisdom, always means the performance of necessary actions.

For women not to fear rape because we can successfully defend ourselves against it is not anachronistic but revolutionary. For women to be considered as potential warriors (in every sense of the word, including its physical representation) is not anachronistic but revolutionary. If realized, it might imply a radical change in modern life.

There is a great sadness in knowing that men of genius are not able to transcend the limits of patriarchy. Had I but known that the works I so cherished had been done by human beings, not gods, and that great women, including feminists, had also once lived and worked, I suspect I might have been able to break free sooner from a whole host of fatally misguided notions. What we don't know can hurt us.

Sons or fathers, poor men or rich men, sacred or secular: all are homosexual in their worship of everything phallic.

All men are not rapists - but almost all rapists are men.

Many 'natural' events - like early death, disease, hardship - are neither desirable nor necessary.

Primates – and young humans who lack verbal skills – will use physical aggression to express themselves or to get their way. They will hit, push, shove, spit, kick, punch, and bite. As children grow, they add verbal aggression to their repertoire. They will shout and threaten. As children develop further and gain more social intelligence, they begin to employ indirect and nonphysical forms of aggression. From an evolutionary and anatomical point of view, girls and women are less inclined to attack anyone directly, or physically, than man and boys are – unless, as mothers, their offspring are in immediate physical danger. In addition, girls and women are culturally trained to employ indirect methods of aggression, as a low-risk, low-injury, approach.

Girls learn that a safe way to attack someone else is behind her back, so that she will not know who is responsible. This tracks girls and women into lives of chronic gossip and rumor mongering, but it also allows girls and women to fight without physically killing each other outright.

If we are not strong, our offers of help are minimally useful.

Good people in the West have often failed to distinguish between Islam and Islamism ...

That these girls avoid use of physical violence in resolving conflict, does not mean that these conflicts are resolved in meaningful and enduring ways. Girls might smile, give in, give up - and then continue the conflict behind their opponents' backs. Girls might also smile, give in, make fatal compromises, because their need to belong (or not to be excluded) is more important to them than sticking to their principles.

Exile ... might be the largest new state created by the twentieth century and the psychology of the twenty-first century.

It is no accident that stock exchange floors - in addition to bedroom floors - bring out the noisy blood, the flushed cheek, and the passionate cries of men. Most men are making love when they make 'magical' amounts of money.

Women ... do not have to forsake the "wisdom of the heart" and become men. They need only transfer the primary force of their supportiveness to themselves and to each other but never to the point of self-sacrifice.

[On highly politicized Islamists:] In the name of freedom they demand the right to renounce freedom. In the language of tolerance they demand that intolerance be granted a dignified place at the table.

Mary, mother of Jesus, pays for her maternity by giving up her body, almost entirely: she foregoes both (hetero) sexual pleasure (Christ's birth is a virgin and "spiritual" birth) and physical prowess. She has no direct worldly power but, like her crucified son, is easily identified with by many people, especially women, as a powerless figure. Mary symbolizes power achieved through receptivity, compassion, and a uterus. (There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a consciously willed "receptivity" to the universe; on the contrary, it is highly desirable, and should certainly include "receptivity" to many things other than holy sperm and suffering.)

It is impossible for a Westerner to imagine the deadening torpor of a protected life under house arrest. Eventually, one is grateful for the smallest outing outdoors
a lovely picnic in a burqa, being allowed to watch the men and boys fly kites or swim.

I am not saying that a female-dominated or Amazon society based on the oppression of men is any more "just" than is a male-dominated society based on the oppression of women. I am merely pointing out in what ways it is better for women. Perhaps someday a choice between forms of injustice will not be necessary.

Psychologically, enviers wish to be the one God loves most, the Chosen One, the one whose being radiates excellence. Many women wish to star in this role, and many do. The male universe has room for many more stars; the female universe is therefore much smaller, and the competition quite fierce for the limited number of starring roles.

Submission and humility will not protect you from the injustices of this war. Nothing can. But clarity, and solidarity in action, will allow you to fight back - and to keep sane, no matter what happens.

For every marriage that is made in Heaven, there is a marriage made in Hell.

Only the powerless live in a money culture and know nothing about money.

The chowdry, or burqa
the Saudi, North African, and Central Asian version of the head, face, and body shroud
is a sensory deprivation isolation chamber. It is claustrophobic, may lead to anxiety and depression, and reinforces a woman's already low self-esteem. It may also lead to vitamin D deficiency diseases such as osteoporosis and heart disease. Sensory deprivation officially constitutes torture and is practiced as such in the world's prisons.

Before I began research for this book I was not consciously aware that women were aggressive in indirect ways, that they gossiped and ostracized each other incessantly, and did not acknowledge their own envious and competitive feelings. I now understand that, in order to survive as a woman, among women, one must speak carefully, cautiously, neutrally, indirectly; one must pay careful attention to what more socially powerful women have to say before one speaks; one must learn how to flatter, manipulate, aree with, and appease them. And, if one is hurt or offended by another woman, one does not say so outright; one expresses it indirectly, by turning others against her.
Of course, I refuse to learn these "girlish" lessons.

According to Brown and Gilligan, by the third grade,
expressing a "different" view among girls has already become "too dangerous and risky." A pre-adolescent girl is sometimes willing to speak more directly when only one other girl is present; this changes when a third girl joins them. However, even as girls are learning how to be indirect and nice, they continue
to judge one another. Girls are concerned about who is a true friend and who is only faking it. A girl risks losing her entire social world if she dares to think for herself or if she refuses to back her best friend or her clique even when she thinks they are in the wrong.

Goddesses never die. They slip in and out of the world's cities, in and out of our dreams, century after century, answering to different names, dressed differently, perhaps even disguised, perhaps idle and unemployed, their official altars abandoned, their temples feared or simply forgotten.

For most women, being seen, having others pay attention to you, is imagined and experienced as more desirable and more powerful than commanding an army or seizing control of the means of production and reproduction.

You have a responsibility to see that your wounded selves do not get in the way of your warrior selves.

The idea that women's strong attachments to each other are what make them so vulnerable is horrifying. I count my close friendships with a few girls that I know as one of the best things I have going for me right now. My love for them leaves me open to hurt, but ... all love does, or at least that's the cliche. Perhaps girls and women do come to love each other too quickly, or once they are trapped into appearing as though they love one another, they don't want to back out of it. That is probably true. But a fear of confrontation in relationships is the downside. The ability to love easily is a positive.

Time is life. Anyone who wastes my time is killing me. Please don't!

Feminism is a way of understanding reality, not just a series of things to do. Feminism challenges our predilection for one right answer, one right God, one size fits all.
As a feminist, one can be spiritual or secular. One can lead an outwardly conservative life and yet, in feminist terms, be profoundly radical. So too, feminist leaders (like everyone else) can be sexist, or racist, or class-blind, in either their professional or personal lives. Or in both.
Feminist of my generation told the truth about women's condition. We were messengers from the past, or from the future. As ever, some people thought that killing, or at least defaming, the messengers was a way of making us and our truths disappear.
I'm counting on you not to do that.