#phyllis chesler

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“In general, women psychologically and socially matter to each other so much that that they tend to expect too much from each other. The smallest error, the most minor disappointment between women is often magnified and resented. A woman can go from being a Fairy Godmother to being an Evil Stepmother in a flash.”

- Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness

[lilacsupernova]

Feminist books 2025 Part 1

Part 2 coming soon 👀

All the feminist / gender-critical / woman-centred books I read in the first half of this year. I feel so lucky to able to read the words of such brilliant women.

I've linked to digital copies where available (book title link), plus posts on my blog quoting or otherwise about the author where applicable (author link). Also included are links to relevant videos, like the author discussing their work.

Comments welcome! Have you read any of these books? What did you think? Do you have any recommendations? I'll post Part 2 at the end of the year. Happy reading, gyns.

(Last year's list here)

1. Phyllis Chesler (2001) Woman's Inhumanity to Woman

A meaty, important, confronting but enlightening work. I love how Chesler is prepared to deeply investigate topics which are taboo even within feminism. Because reality is complex and contains seemingly paradoxical attributes: society and feminism can both judge women more harshly for their behaviour (see: (Un)Kind below), however, feminism can also overcorrect for this and refuse to acknowledge the ways women harm each other, children, and even men. There's a lot of 'well, men are worse and women are oppressed so let's ignore the ways feminists – and women in general – are shooting ourselves in the foot by refusing to acknowledge the ways we can be awful too'. I found a lot of validation in Chesler's analysis of female bullying strategies b/c of how they've affected me personally, how I've participated in them, and how I've seen them play out in a range of situations (eg. radblr, broader gc movement, friendship groups, etc.). Give it a go if you dare.

WDI discussion of the book here.

2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014) We Should All Be Feminists

A reread of this short classic. Great introductory feminist text you've probably already read.

Her famous tedx talk here.

3. Victoria Smith (2025) (Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism

You can tell what a fan of this work I am from all the quotes on my blog lol. Smith is articulate, incisive, and witty here; I expected nothing less based on her previous book (Hags), articles, and tweets. If you can afford to, consider buying it to support this incredible writer, otherwise ask your local library if they'll get it.

Smith writes about women's work here.

4. Dava Sobel (2024) The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

I knew Curie was important to science and indirectly helped pave the way for female scientists, but damn! I didn't realise the full extent of either, plus her direct facilitation of women in science through teaching, employment in her lab, and later training women to help with radiology efforts during WWI. Highly recommend if you're at all interested in science, herstory, or the brilliant Madame Curie herself.

Sobel discusses her book here.

5. Jenny Lindsay (2024) Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars

Short and sweet text analysing the effects of the TERF witch hunt on women. By a Scottish poet who was hounded (cancelled) in 2019. Could serve as an introductory text for someone dipping their toes into the gender 'debate', or to learn more about cases of hounding in the UK – both well-publicised and under-the-radar.

Lindsay's article which inspired her to write her book here.

6. Nahid Shahalimi (ed.) (2021) We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to be Heard

Anthology compiled by author, filmmaker and activist Nahid Shahalimi. Contains pieces by founder of Code to Inspire Fereshteh Forough, activist Razia Barakzai, singer Aryana Sayeed, political leader and activist Fatima Gailani, journalist Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi, entrepeneur Manizha Wafeq, researcher and security council member Mariam Safi, filmmakers Roya Sadat, education activist Hila Limar, politician and activist Fawzia Koofi, politician and activist Hosna Jalil, director and producer Mina Sharif, and artist Rada Akbar.

Shahalimi discusses her book here.

7. Cecilia Caballero, Yvette Martínez-Vu, Judith Pérez-Torres, Michelle Téllez & Christine Vega (eds.) (2019) The Chicana M(other)work Anthology: Porque sin Madres No Hay Revolución

While it took some wading through academic newspeak ('Chicanx', 'positionality', 'Brown bodies', etc.), this was an enlightening read of the testimonios of Chicana madres weaved with research into a trenza (braid). This is a topic I knew next to nothing about and I'm glad it has broadened my feminist understanding. One of my favourite aspects of the anthology was when writers mentioned songs which were important to their lives and work; I enjoyed listening to these songs while reading.

The editors discuss their work here.

8. Rahaf Mohammed (& Sally Armstrong) (2022) Rebel: My Escape from Saudi Arabia to Freedom

Remember the young Saudi woman holed up in a Bangkok airport hotel tweeting about her situation because she knew being found by her family or returned home would mean her death? This is her story. It's a confronting read about the extreme oppression she experienced growing up in Saudi Arabia. I'm so glad she escaped safely to Canada (and ashamed my country Australia rejected her asylum claim). I highly recommend reading the words of ex-Muslims; nothing dispels bs claims about 'Islamophobia' than listening to those who have escaped the ideology.

Mohammed's CBC News interview on her escape here.

9. Debra Soh (2020) The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society

I remember wanting to read this book years ago, not realising quite how pro-trans it actually is; I suppose the trans/gender critical landscape was very different five years ago. Soh is no feminist, proudly mentioning writing for Playboy, and describes herself as 'sex positive'. Throughout this book she: refers to tims and some males with DSDs with female pronouns; argues there is a biological basis for gender, not just sex–in fact everyone has a gender identity; and is strongly pro-trans, but draws the line at 'trans children'. She misunderstands or misrepresents radical feminism: claims radfems "chose" the term 'TERF' rather than having it foisted upon us; quotes an eg. of violent words from tras and one where 'radfems' allegedly threatened to 'cut off transwomen's genitals if they step into women's spaces' (unfortunately I can't check her source as I listened to this on Spotify); and tut-tuts meanie radfems for using "inflammatory" language, like correctly-sexing trans-identifying people, "deadnaming" them, and "revoking the lesbian card" of women who have sex with "women with penises [sic]". For bonus points, she pulls out the usual 'trans-identifying people aren't the danger in women's spaces, men pretending to be trans are' furphy. And if someone appears uncomfortable about a trans-identifying person being in a single-sex space "let it be up to the trans person to decide what is appropriate". Yeah that's not going to fly anymore, Debra. For the class-traitor-cherry-on-top, she says outright that even agps should be allowed in women's spaces bc paraphilias don't make men any more dangerous, only antisociality does (?!). Never mind studies which have found a man having one paraphilia (like autogynephilia) means he is more likely to have others, including exhibitionism, voyeurism, pedophilia... hmm... Anyway, I decided to listen to an alternative viewpoint on gendered brains on Spotify later this year (see below).

Soh's Triggernometry interview here.

10. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2025) Dream Count

My first Adichie novel and I enjoyed it. Featured intertwined stories of four women born in Nigeria and Guinea living in the US, touching on a variety of women's experiences and concerns. One of the characters, Kadiatou, is based on real-life Guinean hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, who accused then IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in 2011. I appreciated the inclusion of covid and how isolating that whole experience was at times because I feel like we've moved on as a society without actually processing that trauma—I know I haven't. Approaching it with the distance of time and fiction was cathartic. By chance, I had Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe on my to read shelf to read. I hadn't realised it was by a Nigerian author who inspired Adichie's writing; I read it later in the year.

Adichie discusses her novel here.

11. Daphna Joel & Luba Vikhanski (2019) Gender Mosaic: Beyond the Myth of the Male and Female Brain

A big advantage of listening to this book over reading it is hearing author Vikhanski herself bring a sassy slant to sexist claims it analyses. The short, snappy chapters make this book very accessible to someone without knowledge about gendered brains or science in general. It's a fascinating breakdown of the bad science behind claims that male and female brains exist (I would love to hear the authors debate Debra Soh, mentioned above, on their contrasting views on James Damore's google memo, for eg.)

However, it has some contradictory claims about gender. There's a based early take on gender as a patriarchal hierarchy, not an aspect of humans backed by science. But then a later chapter talks about 'gender identity' as a coherent thing and cites WPATH uncritically. Then the next chapters argue children shouldn't be limited to 'boy' or 'girl' subjects or toys, but whatever they're interested in, and discusses challenging gender stereotypes with their kids. Then in the very next argues with a woman questioning why a 'genderqueer' person needs to announce their gender identity with their obnoxious clothes by saying she is announcing her own 'gender identity' by wearing feminine clothes, I—. How can women so intelligent and educated include such contradictory arguments in the same book? Were these parts written by both authors? I also laugh at the (well-meant but serious) suggestion one should use the term 'guys' to be gender-neutral—that term is a pet peeve of mine.

Joel's 2012 keynote address at the International, Interdisciplinary Conference on Sex, Gender, and the Brain here.

12. Sarah Wynn-Williams (2025) Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work

Yes, this is the memoir about facebook you probably saw posts about here on tumblr. I have mixed feelings about it; on the hand it's a terrifying exposé of facebook (Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan come off especially badly) that Wynn-Williams was incredibly brave to whistle-blow about, on the other, she comes off a tad disingenuous in her portrayal of herself as more naïve and innocent than she likely was...

Wynn-Williams' The Free Press interview here.

13. Julie Bindel (2025) Lesbians: Where are We Now?

I didn't know Bindel had released a new book until it popped up in my Spotify recommended, in Pride Month no less! There's something so comforting about her Mancunian accent, even as she relays horrifying stories. She sounds like the strong lesbian aunt I wish I had. Anyway, great book covering lesbian culture, activism, and issues in the past, present, and future.

Bindel and Kathleen Stock discuss the book on their Lesbian Project podcast here.

[dwellordream]

Phyllis Chesler & Emily Jane Goodman, Women, Money, & Power, 1976

[dworkin-dork]

"A woman needs to be economically independent more than she needs a lover or a child."

Phyllis Chesler

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Our Next Great Battle

Elias Rodriguez, a Chicago man, executed two people--employees of the Israeli Embassy when they attended the Jewish Museum in Washington D.C

by Phyllis Chesler

For at least the last quarter-century, and even earlier than that, the world had been advised about what was coming our way, about the nature of Islam, Jihad, terrorism and its penetration of the West both culturally and economically.

The scholar Bat Ye'or (1971, 2005) understood that the purposeful execution of two people at the D.C. Jewish Center on May 21st was not only bound to happen--but that such executions were already well underway. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the information, the warnings, the predictions, and the analyses of Islamist Jihad, Islamic gender and religious apartheid, and the true nature of Israel, were in our hands. I both read and was privileged to work with the following visionaries, journalists, and scholars, all of whom were condemned as racist Islamophobes and conservatives.

I am thinking of Jean Raspail (1973), Steven Emerson (1995), Oriana Fallaci (2001, 2004), Daniel Pipes (2002), Alan Dershowitz (2003), Irshad Manjie (2003), Paul Berman (2003, 2010), Pierre Rehov (2004, 2006), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2004, 2006), Natan Sharansky (2004), Andrew Bostom (2005), Bruce Bawer (2006), Nonie Darwish (2006, 2008), Brigitte Gabriel (2006, 2008), Ibn Warraq (2007), Douglas Murray (2007), Robert Spencer (2008), Richard Landes (2008), Gloria Greenfield (2008, 2011), Wafa Sultan (2009), Abigail Esman (2010), Nancy Kobrin (2010), Charles Small (2013), Nidra Poller (2014). This is far from an exhaustive list.

Even I knew that the Western world had been saturated with incendiary Big-Lie propaganda against Israel and the Jews. Such ideas inevitably lead to attacks on Jews in Israel, and on Jews in the West on streets, in synagogues, at Jewish Centers, Jewish Museums, in restaurants, on trains, at nightclubs, and on college campuses in Jihad-like hordes.

This is one way of actualizing the chants to "globalize the Intifada."

I called for an Iron Dome against the propaganda at least fifteen years ago. I wrote and lectured about this. There were never any takers.

Now, when it is almost too late--really, when it is far too late--people are beginning to wake up. Americans, both Jews and Christians, as well as dissident Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, are alarmed. Parents of college-age students are concerned; they are starting to advise their children not to attend Ivy League schools, where Jew hatred has long been protected under the banner of free speech and academic freedom; universities where they also hide their Jew hatred by insisting that their anti-Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism.

As I claimed in 2002 and 2003, anti-Zionism is an essential part of the "new" antisemitism. Denying that this is so is tantamount to Holocaust denial.

What must be done when it is long past midnight?

Groups to support Jewish students on American campuses now exist.

[haggishlyhagging]

Custody is not a new issue for feminists. In the nineteenth century, suffragists fought in the abolitionist movement against slavery; some fought for custody for mothers. For example, there was a woman named Mrs. Phelps, the wife and the sister of United States and Massachusetts state senators. When her husband was flagrantly unfaithful, beat her, threw her down the stairs, and when she dared to complain about this— he locked her up in a mental asylum. Eventually, with her brother's help, Mrs. Phelps (whose first name I do not have) was released from this imprisonment. She ran away that very day with one of her children. Why did she have to flee with her child to retain custody? Because in the nineteenth century, and for all the previous centuries of patriarchal history, men have always owned wives and children, as legal chattel property. All during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, if a man divorced his wife, she was not legally entitled to ever again see her children. Like surrogate-contract mother Mary Beth Whitehead, legal wives had no legal rights.

Susan B. Anthony came to the aid of Mrs. Phelps, took her in, helped find her sanctuary. She did so without shame. Some of Anthony's abolitionist friends chastised her for doing so. They told her she was endangering the women's rights movement and the anti-slavery cause. Anthony disagreed. She said:

Don't you break the law every time you help a slave to Canada? Well, the law that gives the father the sole ownership of his children is just as wicked, and I’ll break it just as quickly. You would die before you deliver a slave to his master, and I will die before I will give up the child to its father.

How many liberal, gender-neutral feminists are there today who would utter these words, who would take this risk, who would act on such a belief?

-Phyllis Chesler, “Mothers On Trial: Custody and the "Baby M" Case” in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism

[awed-frog]

The days shatter into each other like large rocks, one after the other, along the road of time. Am I dreaming? Am I awake? I am alone.

Phyllis Chesler, An American Bride in Kabul

[infinitemovielist]