Skip to content

Women must begin to "save" themselves and their daughters before they "save" their husbands and their sons; before they "save" the whole world.

— Phyllis Chesler Women and Madness (1972)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Women and Madness (2005), pp. 348–349, and Women and Madness (1972), p. 301.
Work: Women and Madness, 1972
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Phyllis Chesler

I am not saying that a female-dominated or Amazon society based on the oppression of men is any more "just" than is a male-dominated society based on the oppression of women. I am merely pointing out in what ways it is better for women. Perhaps someday a choice between forms of injustice will not be necessary.

Women and Madness (1972)

All Phyllis Chesler quotes →

Topics

Women

More quotes by Phyllis Chesler

To those who think I am suggesting that we have a war between the sexes, I say: but we've always had one.

Women and Madness (1972)

Perhaps only some young women, perhaps only a minority of all women, will be able to effect such changes through consciousness alone, through the strength of understanding, which, if transformed into wisdom, always means the performance of necessary actions.

Women and Madness (1972)

Women … do not have to forsake the "wisdom of the heart" and become men. They need only transfer the primary force of their supportiveness to themselves and to each other—but never to the point of self-sacrifice.

Women and Madness (1972)

Should or can there be a single standard of behavior for both sexes? Is there such a thing as a biologically rooted female culture that should remain separate from male culture, partly because it is different than or superior to male culture? Women must convert their love for and reliance on strength and skill in others to a love for all manner of strength and skill in themselves.

Women and Madness (1972)

In Amazon societies... no division of labor based on sex seems to have existed... Although Amazon leaders existed and queens were elected, the societies seem to have been...ones in which any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression.

Women and Madness (1973)

All Phyllis Chesler quotes →

You may also like

The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.

James Connolly

There is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.

Thomas Ford

To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.

Mahatma Gandhi

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Phyllis Chesler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.