By Phyllis Chesler

Texas-born Patricia (”Tissie”) Said, formerly of the Owens family, is the mother who lured her two teenage daughters, Sarah and Amina, to their deaths at the hands of their own father this past New Years Day in Dallas. How can a mother do such a thing? Even if her own life was threatened, even if her husband Yasser had literally held a gun to her head and told her to trick her daughters into returning, isn’t a mother supposed to sacrifice herself for her children? Or at least to protect them? What can explain such a perversion of maternal instinct and of the life force itself?

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By Fern Sidman

Jewish Press Op-Ed contributor, Dr. Phyllis Chesler was the recipient of the 2008 Kehillah Award for Distinguished Public Service, bestowed upon her by The Academy For Jewish Religion at their gala dinner on Monday evening, March 10th. The resounding message of this year’s dinner was the call to continue to create an atmosphere of respect and unity amongst all branches of Judaism and was aptly entitled, “Embracing All Voices”. The dinner which took place at Manhattan’s elegant Harmonie Club was attended by several hundred people.

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By Phyllis Chesler

“I have been warned to shut up. But when Yasser Abdul Said killed those girls he did not just spill Muslim blood on American soil. He shed my blood. I am not going to be quiet. I made a promise at their funerals that I would speak out.”

I am talking to Gail Gartrell, the great-aunt of Amina and Sarah Said who were honor-murdered by their father, Yasser Said, on New Year’s Day, 2008. (I have written about this tragic case before for Pajamas Media HERE.)

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By Phyllis Chesler

There was a time when feminist groups did high concept performance art/political theatre as a way of shocking, enlightening, and entertaining us all. That time has not passed. In the past, the late, great art critic, Arlene Raven, kept me apprised of whatever Suzanne Lacey and others were doing—and they did great things.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I always suspected those communist murderers of being touchy-feeling feminists — you know, in a misogynistic, paternalistic kind of way (I’m being sarcastic). Seriously, these recent revelations about Mao Zedong only add further proof of what an evil megalomaniac he was:

Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.

“You know, China is a very poor country,” Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department’s historian office. “We don’t have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them, we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands.”

A few minutes later, Mao circled back to the offer. “Do you want our Chinese women?” he asked. “We can give you 10 million.”

After Kissinger noted Mao was “improving his offer,” the chairman said, “We have too many women. . . . They give birth to children, and our children are too many.” …

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By Phyllis Chesler

On Friday, February 8th, I wrote about Professor Noah Feldman’s op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he viewed a long-standing Turkish ban on the wearing of head-scarves in universities as a ban against religious “freedom.” On Saturday, February 9th, I noted here that on the very next day, February 9th, the New York Times (page A4) featured an interview with a Turkish woman lawyer, Fatma Benli, titled: “Under a Scarf, a Turkish Lawyer Fighting to Wear It.”

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By Phyllis Chesler

My headscarf is giving me a headache! What I mean, is that the issue of the Islamic headscarf is a tricky, thorny one with no hard-and-fast solution in sight precisely when one is required. Just yesterday, a dear friend challenged me on this very subject.

She said: “How can you favor the state forbidding women from doing something that they want to do for religious reasons?”

A fair enough question.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The East is much wilder than the Wild West of yore and once again, an infidel “do-gooder,” 49 year-old Syd Mizell, who taught English and embroidery to Afghan girls and women and helped them with “income-generating” projects , has been kidnapped in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Mizell worked for the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation. The fact that she wore a burqa and spoke Pashto did not keep her safe. The Afghan government is currently hunting for her and her 35 year-old driver, Hadi Mahdi, but as yet, no group has taken responsibility or issued any demands.

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By Phyllis Chesler

According to Las Vegas ex-prostitute Jody Williams, founder of Sex Workers Anonymous, we should compare the “promotion of prostitution with the way the tobacco companies market cigarettes. “They’re taking advantage of your ignorance of the industry,” she told the Pahrump Valley Times on September 7, 2007 at a press conference.

Williams said ex-prostitutes came to her organization suffering from a variety of physical and emotional disorders. “Women in prostitution suffer from the same combat stress that Vietnam and combat vets do, but they have fewer services than vets do,” she said.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The Grey Lady editors just slipped it right in there—the magazine spread was so big (eight pages,with eight huge color photos), and so unbelievable, that I actually missed it. I am talking about the Sunday New York Times magazine article about female genital mutilation in Indonesia.

Not until Dr. Andrew Bostom called it to my attention, did I stop, look, and let the headline sink in: “A Cutting Tradition.” I probably thought it was a rather long article about a recipe—not for a lifetime of agony, but for another way to cut and prepare a meal. Something Asian, maybe Fusion. The women’s faces were Asian faces.

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By Phyllis Chesler

They are clever these Iranian Islamists; subtle and sly. Deranged as no men have been before them. For example, just a few days ago, Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, claimed that the West “abuses women” and that Islamic Iran “honors them.” His proof? Islam forces women to “wear the hijab.” Veiled women are entirely invisible to your average man-on-the-street whom, it is assumed, would otherwise sexually harass or rape every woman they see.

He said it. I didn’t.

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By Phyllis Chesler

PHYLLIS CHESLER’ S PREPARED REMARKS 1/15/08

(I will write up the press conference which took place at the American Jewish Congress later.)

You may also see the press conference on U Tube:
http://youtube.com/profile?user=AJCongress

Recently, in the pages of the New York Times, Gloria Steinem wrote that we should not hold the only female Presidential candidate to a higher and different standard than we hold male politicians; when we do, Gloria explained, that’s sexism. From 1972 on, I have been explaining to Gloria and to other Ms. feminists that we should not hold the only Jewish state to a higher or different standard than we hold all other nations states; when we do, it is called racism or Jew-hatred or anti-Semitism.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Ms was always hard to keep going. Gloria Steinem had to devote almost all her time to fund-raising to keep it afloat. Editors had to threaten to sue for medical benefits and writers had to threaten lawsuits because they had not been paid. Despite appearances, it was always a shoe-string operation. But it had a good run. Over time, the magazine got smaller and less influential—something which is typical of many magazines. Until now, Ms continued to enjoy considerable “girlish” acclaim and a nearly spotless reputation—at least among its followers, certainly not among its opponents. And, every major liberal Jewish organization viewed their aims as similar to that of Ms magazine’s.

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By Phyllis Chesler

This story out of Dallas is an awful one. The mainstream media has certainly failed their task but so did the local police and social service agencies—at least according to the (still only local) report published yesterday in the Dallas Morning News and picked up today only by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

In 1998, when they were 8 and 9 years-old, these slaughtered girls accused their father of sexual abuse. Their mother swore it was true. The girls then said that they had lied. The authorities believed them.

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by R. John Matthies*

Is a Muslim within his rights to insist a female physician examine his wife, or refuse male assistance in the birth of his child? And, are hospitals obliged to accommodate the Muslim’s wish when this unfairly burdens staff, entails a delay that jeopardizes patient care, or if accommodations like these contravene the Hippocratic oath? Europe grapples with questions like these with increasing frequency; and Great Britain and the Netherlands appear well on their way to translating the discriminating tastes of their hospital guests into hospital policy.

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