Phyllis Chesler Quotes

• 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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Powerful, Mean, Army

  46 Copy quote

• Women must begin to "save" themselves and their daughters before they "save" their husbands and their sons; before they "save" the whole world.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Daughter, Husband, Son

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Reality, Understanding, Challenges

  7 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Father, Son, Men

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Dream, Cities, Names

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  7 Copy quote

• Ideal mental health, like freedom, exists for one person only if it exists for all people.

  Phyllis Chesler

  People, Mental Health, Persons

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  3 Copy quote

• children need truly evolved people - not other, larger children - as parents. Therefore, don't have a child until you've forged your own identity, can support yourself, and have already begun the work of creating or maintaining an extended family.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Children, Creating, People

  3 Copy quote

• Should or can there be a single standard of behavior for both sexes? Is there such a thing as a biologically rooted female culture that should remain separate from male culture, partly because it is different than or superior to male culture? Women must convert their love for and reliance on strength and skill in others to a love for all manner of strength and skill in themselves.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Sex, Skills, Culture

  "Women And Madness". Book by Phyllis Chesler, 2005.

  3 Copy quote

• 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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Heart, Sacrifice, Men

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  6 Copy quote

• Sexual pleasure is not a sin. Nor is it a sacrament. It is your right as a human being to exercise as you see fit. It's amazing that I feel the need to say this, but, given our times, I do.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Exercise, Needs, Sin

  3 Copy quote

• 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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Men, Choices, Way

  "Women and Madness". Book by Phyllis Chesler, 2005.

  3 Copy quote

• How sad that men would base an entire civilization on the principle of paternity, upon the legal owership and presumed responsibility for children, and then never really get to know their sons and daughters very well.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Daughter, Children, Responsibility

  6 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Time, Waste, Killing

  6 Copy quote

• Most mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Mother, Children, Giving Up

  3 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Men

  6 Copy quote

• If women take their bodies seriously and ideally we should then its full expression, in terms of pleasure, maternity, and physical strength, seems to fare better when women control the means of production and reproduction. From this point of view, it is simply not in women's interest to support patriarchy or even a fabled "equality" with men. That women do so is more a sign of powerlessness than of any biologically based "superior" wisdom.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Mean, Men, Views

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  3 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Psychology, Twenties, Might

  Phyllis Chesler (2013). “An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir”, p.144, St. Martin's Press

  3 Copy quote

• If it were natural for father to care for their sons, they would not need so many laws commanding them to do so.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Father, Son, Law

  3 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Culture, Knows, Powerless

  Phyllis Chesler, Emily Jane Goodman (1976). “Women, money & power”, William Morrow & Co

  3 Copy quote

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

  Phyllis Chesler

  Heaven, Hell, Made

  3 Copy quote

• Women must convert their love for and reliance on strength and skill in others to a love for all manner of strength and skill in themselves

  Phyllis Chesler

  Skills, Reliance

  Phyllis Chesler (1973). “Women & madness”

  3 Copy quote

• [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.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Names, Tolerance, Demand

  3 Copy quote

• The West has funded the war against itself by buying Arab oil. It is as simple and as tragic as that.

  Phyllis Chesler

  War, Simple, Oil

  Phyllis Chesler (2013). “An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir”, p.188, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• Afghans excel at fighting Afghans. This is what Afghans do, even when they are not being invaded by foreign powers. They fight each other, tribe against tribe, brother against brother, half-brother against half-brother, cousin against cousin, uncle against nephew, father against son.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Cousin, Brother, Uncles

  Phyllis Chesler (2013). “An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir”, p.115, St. Martin's Press

  4 Copy quote

• Jews have always yearned for Jerusalem, from which they'd been exiled many times, but they also yearned for each and every one of the countries where they had been persecuted and where their ancestors once lived and are still buried.

  Phyllis Chesler

  Country, Jerusalem, Buried

  Phyllis Chesler (2013). “An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir”, p.145, Macmillan

  3 Copy quote

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