Letters to a Young Feminist Quotes

“There is a great sadness in knowing that men of genius are not able to transcend the limits of patriarchy. Had I but known that the works I so cherished had been done by human beings, not gods, and that great women, including feminists, had also once lived and worked, I suspect I might have been able to break free sooner from a whole host of fatally misguided notions. What we don't know can hurt us.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Submission and humility will not protect you from the injustices of this war. Nothing can. But clarity, and solidarity in action, will allow you to fight back - and to keep sane, no matter what happens.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Feminism is a way of understanding reality, not just a series of things to do. Feminism challenges our predilection for one right answer, one right God, one size fits all.
As a feminist, one can be spiritual or secular. One can lead an outwardly conservative life and yet, in feminist terms, be profoundly radical. So too, feminist leaders (like everyone else) can be sexist, or racist, or class-blind, in either their professional or personal lives. Or in both.
Feminist of my generation told the truth about women's condition. We were messengers from the past, or from the future. As ever, some people thought that killing, or at least defaming, the messengers was a way of making us and our truths disappear.
I'm counting on you not to do that.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“You have a responsibility to see that your wounded selves do not get in the way of your warrior selves.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“If we are not strong, our offers of help are minimally useful.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Love is not love if it forces you to compromise who you are. Love is a process and a discipline. It is not only what you feel for someone else. Like freedom, it is a path, a practice, which no legal contract can guarantee or enforce. . .

Loving freely means first 'seeing' yourself and then your beloved for who she or he uniquely is, not who you need them to be. You cannot love someone and expect them to compromise some core part of their identity because you need them by your side at every major event in your life. Loving involves letting go - and going on, sometimes alone, to those places to which your soul is drawn.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“If you need to be rescued by someone, become that someone yourself. Become Princess Charming. She is you.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“A woman needs to be economically independent more than she needs a lover or a child.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Go gently into the day. Honor your idealism, resist cynicism. Keep your heart open to the world, try and make the world better. Don't give up.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Toward that end, you must move beyond words. You must act. Do not hesitate because your actions may not be perfect, or beyond criticism. "Action" is how you put your principles into practice. Not just publicly, or toward those more powerful than you, but also privately, toward those less fortunate than you. Not just toward those who are (safely) far away, but toward those with whom you live and work. If you're on the right track, you can expect some pretty savage criticism. Trust it. Revel in it. It is the truest measure of your success.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Things do not have to last forever to be good, and when they end, it is not always proof that one's principles were wrong.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“Your body and your mind are, together, your primary country of allegiance. As a feminist, you must know - and know how to defend - your country and its boundaries.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“What matters is that you gain more and more control of the institutions that serve us all so poorly.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist

“I expected so much of other feminists - we all did- the most ordinary disappointments were often experienced as major betrayals. We expected less of men and forgave them, more than once, when they failed us. We expected far more of other women, who, paradoxically, had less (power) to share than men did. We held grudges against other women in ways we dared not to do against men. We were not always aware of this.

Be aware of such unspoken double standards. Try and behave more evenhandedly than we did.”
― Phyllis Chesler, Letters to a Young Feminist