Phyllis Chesler - Studies, Activism, and Writings On Islam

Studies, Activism, and Writings On Islam

On December 14, 2005, Chesler delivered a presentation before a United States Senate committee entitled, "Gender Apartheid in Iran and the Muslim World", She called for the U.S. government to oppose what she described as "Islamic gender apartheid" and to support the rights of women living in fundamentalist Islamic regimes. "If we do not oppose and defeat Islamic gender apartheid, democracy and freedom cannot flourish in the Arab and Islamic world," she said. "If we do not join forces with Muslim dissident and feminist groups; and, above all, if we do not have one universal standard of human rights for all—then we will fail our own Judeo-Christian and secular Western ideals." She also told the committee that her experience in Afghanistan taught her "the necessity of applying a single standard of human rights, not one tailored to each culture".

Honor Related Violence and Honor killings

Chesler published three studies about honor killings in the American journal Middle East Quarterly in 2009, 2010, and 2012. In one essay, she documented that 91% of the total worldwide cases of honour killings that she found reported in the English-language media were Muslim-on-Muslim crimes, including those committed in North America and Europe. The torture-murder rate was at its highest in Europe. Based on these sources, Chesler has concluded that "there are at least two types of honor killings and two victim populations." She identifies the first group as consisting of daughters with an average age of seventeen who were killed by their families, and the second group as consisting of women with an average age of thirty-six. In the study, Chesler indicates that an honor killing is committed by a girl's entire family of origin, and that women sometimes even collaborate in this femicide. In her most recent study, "Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings" Dr. Chesler asserts that both Hindus and Muslims committ honor killings. Hindus perpetrate these murders to retain caste purity and do not repeat these crimes in western countries; whereas Muslims committ honor killings worldwide, and do so mainly as a way of regaining family honor.

Chesler argues that honor killings differ qualitatively from Western domestic femicide. She has acknowledged that "many honorable feminists" disagree with this position, writing that "understandably, such feminists fear singling out one group for behavior that may be common to all groups." Chesler's position is that perpetrators of domestically violent femicide are regarded as criminals in the west but that the same stigma does not attach to honor killings in all other societies.

In an address before the New York County Supreme Court, Chesler reported that she has submitted affidavits on behalf of Muslim women and converts from Islam whom she contends believed themselves to be in danger of being the victims of honor killing, and who sought asylum and citizenship in the United States.

Burqas

In 2010, Chesler wrote a further essay in Middle East Quarterly calling for the burqa to be banned in western countries. She argued in defense of this position that the Qur'an commands both men and women to dress "modestly"; that several Muslim-majority countries have, in the past, banned the full burqa or niqab, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslim countries do not require that women wear a face veil; that the burqa can function as a "sensory deprivation and isolation chamber"; and that physical and psychiatric illnesses are associated with lack of sunlight. She wrote that she was not opposed to the headscarf (hijab), on the grounds that it does not obscure a woman's facial identity.

Other

Chesler has been writing about rape, incest, sexual harassment, and domestic violence since the late 1960s. Her focus has mainly been in the West. With the rise of Islamic fundamentalism,terrorism, and gender apartheid, and the Islamist persecution of women, Chesler began to explore similar themes in Muslim-majority countries. Chesler found that sexual abuse is widespread in Muslim communities worldwide, and that such abuse "leads to paranoid, highly traumatized and revenge-seeking adults". She has further argued, in a paraphrase of Nancy Kobrin, that some suicide bombers may be unconsciously acting out their hatred of women in committing violent acts. A 2006 review in the Toronto Star described Chesler's views on this subject as "compelling, if strident". Muslim feminists and dissidents, such as Ibn Warraq, and Amir Taheri have all lauded Chesler's work in this area as ground-breaking and truthful.