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An Autobiographical Time-Line 1940-1958: I Grew up In !1 Phyllis Chesler: An Autobiographical Time-Line 1940-1958: I Grew up in an Orthodox home in Borough Park, Brooklyn. I attended Hebrew School five days a week but was not allowed to have a Bat Mitzva because at that time, girls did not have this coming-of-age ceremony. I took this very hard. But I was already a born rebel. I Joined Hashomer Hatzair in 1948, and Ain Harod in 1950. I also attended public school. 1958: I obtained a full scholarship to Bard College. 1961: I traveled to Afghanistan and was kept in captivity in a harem in a polygamous household. What I learned there became the basis for my very American feminism. I was already using the word “patriarchal” in my Kabul diaries in 1961-62. 1962 –1969: I was active in the American civil rights and anti-War movements. I obtained my Ph.D in Psychology. I studied the maternal influence in learning by observation. I published two studies in Science magazine. I also did research on gender preferences involved in choosing a psychotherapist. 1967-1969: I joined NOW and participated in countless demonstrations, marches and consciousness raising groups. I joined a NOW committee which met in Ti-Grace Atkinson’s home. I was at a meeting where Kate Millett spoke as the head of NYC-NOW’s Education committee in NYC. 1969: I co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP). This organization is still going strong. I demanded one million dollars in reparations at the national convention of the American Psychological Association for all the harm done to women in the name of “mental illness;” this demand was covered world-wide. I did so as a co-founder of AWP. 1970: I delivered my first major feminist speech in Great Neck, Long Island at a distinguished forum, together with Dr. Barbara Joans. Barbara !2 and I had already been helping women obtain illegal abortions. Dr. Amy Swerdlow, who would found a Women’s History program at Sarah Lawrence, told me that this lecture is what had “converted her to feminism.” 1970: I taught the first course for credit in Women’s Studies and pioneered one of the first Women’s Studies programs in the country at the City University of New York, (CUNY) at Richmond College, now the College of Staten Island. I wanted this to be minor, not a major, which I feared would be ghetto-ized. 1970: I founded the first-ever feminist salon in NYC together with Vivian Gornick. Leadership was later assumed by Erica Duncan. 1971: I secretly acquired data that led to the class action lawsuit (Melaini et al) on behalf of women at CUNY which took 17 years to win. The lawyer, Judith Vladeck, eventually wanted to open a separate cause of action for only me on the basis of my having been discriminated against for my feminist/political beliefs. I advised her not to waste time on this. 1971: My feminist colleagues and my students demanded that I publish Women and Madness anonymously and donate any proceeds to the downtrodden. 1971: I delivered a keynote address at the first-ever feminist conference on Rape In NYC which was organized by New York Radical Feminists. There were several other keynoters, including Florence Rush. It was written up widely and it led to a book edited by Noreen Connell of the Conference Proceedings and it influenced others who came along later and either wrote about or became activists in this area. I was quoted as saying at this conference, “in the matter of rape we should take the weapon away from the offender;” this statement earned me death threats. 1971-1972: I attended and supported the earliest meetings that led to the founding of both Ms. Magazine and Signs, an academic feminist journal. !3 1971-72: I experienced anti-Semitism, as expressed by Jill Johnston and Kate Millett. This sent me straight to Israel for my first-ever visit. This form of racism was confirmed for me by none other than Rita Mae Brown. 1972: I travelled to Greece with my student, George Sedaris, and his wife. Then I travelled to Israel with Drs. Judi Kuppersmith and Eve Leoff. 1972: Gloria Steinem and I published Wonder Woman comic strips. We chose the comics, I wrote an Interpretive essay with an academic bibliography, Gloria wrote a Preface. 1972: I published my first book, Women and Madness (Doubleday hardcover, 1972; Avon paperback, 1973). The book became a relatively instant sensation and received the first front page New York Times book review of any feminist work. It was also a bestseller. Dr. Catharine Stimpson gave me a book party at her loft on the Bowery which was an “event” unto itself. The book went on to sell more than 3 1/2 million copies. I also received thousands of letters from women all over the country who wrote to say that this book changed their lives, that they had signed themselves out of mental asylums, left terrible marriages, returned to college, sued their rapists, sued their unethical therapists, etc. On and On, the letters came. 1972: New York Magazine published an excerpt of Women and Madness as a cover story titled “The Sensuous Psychiatrist.” The article discussed psychiatrists having sex with their patients. I was sued by a psychiatrist who shared the same name—but a different middle initial--as his psychiatrist father, who was named in the article. The son sued me for $9M; I wanted to take him to lunch to discuss the matter, but the lawyers wouldn’t allow that; in the end, he settled for $1 because he didn’t want any more publicity and a trial had interested the media. I learned the lesson that it’s not always wise to listen to your lawyer. !4 1972: I was in Antigua and quite by chance happened to help and then hide from the authorities a young British man who had tried to harpoon his girlfriend on the beach—presumably while under the influence. She, and no one else were hurt. I arranged a BOAC flight for him out of the country, essentially saving his life. 1973: I co-organized the first-ever press conference about anti-Semitism among feminists in NYC. Aviva Cantor Zuckoff and Cheryl Moch took the lead on this. I had been concerned about this since the early 1970s and it is precisely what sent me on my first trip to Israel in 1972. 1973: I sued the Hearst Corportation regarding Avon Books’ paperback edition of Women and Madness. I was upset by the small advance they gave me, upset by small errors and changes they had made in the manuscript, upset by formatting changes and photo issues, but most of all upset by the fact that the publisher, Peter Mayer, wouldn’t take my calls. In fact, his secretary said that when she tried to put through a call, he said, “Who wants to talk to that bitch?” Although I was advised by friends that taking on my publisher about their right to print my book with unauthorized changes would wreck my relationship with them, I was very hot-headed and young. I won; Avon had to inform readers of the differences between my work and their version. Chesler v. Avon became a precedent-setting case regarding the right of an artist to protect the integrity of his/her work. But I really didn’t win—the delay in getting the book out knocked Women and Madness off the bestseller charts. 1973: I spoke at Harvard to students in the psychiatry program. After hearing what I had to say, four female psychiatrists quit the program. 1973-1975: I fought pitched battles to keep my tenured line as a Psychology Professor, to obtain tenure, and to be promoted. Year after year, major feminist leaders had to sign petitions on my behalf. The lawyer for our class action lawsuit considered filing a separate cause of !5 action for me alone concerning political persecution (above and beyond gender discrimination) but I did not want to spend my time on this. Mid 1970’s: Jean Julian’s early lesbian custody battle. The judge gave the husband the passports of the two sons and he took the boys to Italy. The mother—now a lesbian and a feminist—received custody, traveled to Italy and returned with one willing son. I became involved in several other high profile lesbian custody cases. 1974-1975: Jane Alpert, a member of the Weather Underground, pleaded guilty in 1969 to conspiracy in the bombing of numerous buildings in New York, but skipped bail prior to sentencing. She hid for more than four years, during which time she said she evolved from a leftist radical to a feminist. In 1974 she sent her manifesto, Mother Right: A New Feminist Theory to Ms. Magazine, along with her fingerprints to verify that it was indeed she who was sending the manuscript. In November of 1979 Alpert surrendered, but was greeted by suspicion by several feminists (including Ti Grace Atkinson and Flo Kennedy). They that she had made a deal with the Feds by “naming names” or by revealing too much and was therefore responsible for the subsequent arrest of at least two other women. 1974: I tried to interest the major Jewish feminists in NYC in creating a C-R group to examine anti-Semitism as racism and our relationship to feminism. Most turned me down flat. Some later went on to build careers in precisely this area. 1974: I held a benefit at my apartment for Emily Jane Goodman’s Women’s Law Center.
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