The Death of Feminism

Phyllis Chesler was one of the first feminist I read in 1970 and she radicalized me. Chesler, Kate Millett, Andrea Dworkin, Redstockings, Mary Daley - I did not always agree with them but I identified with them.

Chesler is still my sister and teacher.

New: The Death of Feminism: What’s Next In the Struggle for Women’s Freedom
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The Kirkus reviews Chesler's new book.
Phyllis Chesler in The Death of Feminism aims a loud wake-up call at her fellow feminists, charging that while feminism is not exactly dead, it is failing, suffering from the disease of politically correct passivity.

She argues that Western feminists are not focusing on the really important problem: jihadic Islamic terrorism. Western feminists, she claims, are largely leftists infected by a multicultural relativism that is actually a disguised form of racism and sexism, and they do not understand the dangers to our lives and our values represented by reactionary Islamism; further, she says, they have become rigid and intolerant of diverse opinions, silencing and harassing anyone, such as herself, who disagrees with them.

Chesler's personal experience with Muslim male psychology and the Islamic way of life is the subject of a chapter titled "My Afghan Captivity," in which she tells of her mistreatment and virtual imprisonment in Kabul as the bride of a Western-educated Afghan and of her eventual escape back to the United States.

She uses the expression "gender apartheid" to describe the position of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies, which seems a curiously bland term for cultural acceptance of genital mutilation, forced marriages of young girls, stoning of women and "honor" crimes.

The author provides a host of examples of the brutal crimes committed against women by fundamentalist Muslim men, not just in non-Western countries but also in Europe, where millions of Muslims have emigrated in past decades and are largely unassimilated and hostile to Western culture. American feminists, she urges, must make the plight of Muslim women one of their top priorities. In her final chapter, Chesler calls on American feminists to rethink their priorities and work to make U.S. foreign policy reflect their concern for women's rights everywhere.

A fierce polemic, filled with vigorous arguments and distressing human stories.

EARLY ENDORSEMENTS FOR PHYLLIS CHESLER'S NEW BOOK
The Death of Feminism: What’s Next In the Struggle for Women’s Freedom
“To read Phyllis Chesler is to encounter one of the most challenging and original minds in the world today. Every Chesler book takes on the conventional wisdoms and political correctness with verve and insight. The Death of Feminism is a tour de force, combining personal experience, brilliant analysis and heart-felt advocacy. Chesler demonstrates how anti-Israel bigotry, which has already damaged the credibility of many human rights organizations, is now endangering feminism. A must read.”--Alan Dershowitz, author of The Case For Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved

“With passionate eloquence, one of the founders of modern feminism indicts Western feminists for their indifference to the plight of women oppressed under reactionary Islam. The Death of Feminism is a fearless act of truth-telling.”--David Frum, co-author of An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

“Phyllis Chesler has written a brave and passionate book. Let the hypocrites she denounces on the feminist Left and their politically correct allies quail.”--Hillel Halkin, author of Letters To An American Jewish Friend, Across The Sabbath River, and A Strange Death

“Phyllis Chesler has lived a fascinating, engaged and passionate life. In this book she has written about two worlds she knows intimately: feminism and Islam. Her text is about the latter's war against women and the former's war against itself. If you read this book, it will change the way you think about both.”--David Horowitz, author of Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left

In The Death of Feminism Phyllis Chesler explores a system of “Islamic gender apartheid” both East and West and throughout the world now. At first it seems simple, then it grows more complex and involuntary and eventually becomes diabolic in its curtailment of every woman’s human rights.
She knows whereof she speaks: in a chapter entitled “My Afghan Captivity,” Phyllis describes how she herself was held hostage to reactionary custom as a young bride. Had her pregnancy been known she would never have escaped. But she survived and in telling her story she is sounding a warning to the West which, in the fullness of multi-cultural relativism, it ignores to its peril. --Kate Millett, author of Sexual Politics and Going to Iran

“Phyllis Chesler brings an eloquent and righteous anger to bear against Western feminists for their dual habit of overlooking the plight of Muslim women and blaming Israel, by far the Middle East's most feminist country, for the woes of that region. Chesler's focus on this topic, it turns out, is informed by an intensely personal experience; in The Death of Feminism she reveals her nightmare as a young wife in Afghanistan in 1961. That event, it turns out, was a crucible vital both to her general intellectual development and to the making of this powerful book.” --Daniel Pipes, author of Militant Islam Reaches America and In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power

“Phyllis Chesler here supplies what has been conspicuously lacking since 9/11: a comprehensive call to women to defend their equality of dignity as human beings against a foe that short-sighted multiculturalists and advocates of political correctness have up to now given a pass -- despite its obvious threat to them. Chesler here speaks out fearlessly, passionately, and profoundly against the dehumanization of women that is institutionalized in Islamic Sharia law and manifested in innumerable ways in Islamic societies -- as well as among Muslim immigrants to Western countries. This book should not be missed by any feminist, but not only feminists: Chesler sounds a call that every woman in the Western world, and every man, should heed before it's too late.” --Robert Spencer, author of Islam Unveiled and Onward Muslim Soldiers

Feminisim is dead, long live new feminism! This is the message of Phyllis Chesler's fascinating study of Islamic gender apartheid that, transcending the traditional frontiers of Islam, is spreading to the West including the United States. Anyone interested in understanding Islamism, this latest enemy of open societies, should read this book.”--Amir Taheri, author of The Cauldron: The Middle East Behind the Headlines

“Ms. Chesler's book is a welcome critique of the Feminist Left's willful and shameful neglect of their sisters' plight in the Islamic World. Rejecting cultural relativism or political correctness, Ms. Chesler paints a depressing but truthful picture of the world that women under Islam have to live in. One hopes Ms. Chesler’s book will bring about not only a change in attitudes but some sort of political and social action on behalf of women suffering because of the totalitarian and misogynistic tenets of Islam.”--Ibn Warraq, editor of Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out

“With great talent and in a vivid style, Phyllis Chesler observes every aspect of today's American culture, politics, and society with humor and through a feminist lens. This enlightening picture unveils the most dramatic domestic and international problems of our times, including that of Islamic gender apartheid, analyzed by a daring and politically incorrect lover of truth.”--Bat Ye'or, author of Eurabia and Islam and Dhimmitude

EARLY ACADEMIC ENDORSEMENTS:

“This is a must read book by any independent thinking liberal, conservative or middle of the roader. With precision, accuracy, honesty and compassion, Phyllis Chesler has made the compelling case for a long overdue, much needed paradigm shift in the world feminist movement. By naming names and with disturbing examples, she points out that modern feminism dangerously dismisses fundamentalist radical Islam's atrocities against women as multiculturally politically correct, while at the same time attributing much of this oppression to a growing anti-Israelism within the movement. In doing so, she suggests that these feminists have become accomplices in the direct and indirect oppression of Muslim, Jewish and other women worldwide, through their own faulty thinking and prejudices.”--Edward S. Beck, President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East