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Women and Madness

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Women and Madness

By: Phyllis Chesler
Narrated by: Hillary Huber
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About this listen

Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler's pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly 50 years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this seminal book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women's psychology. This completely revised and updated edition from 2005 adds to her original research and findings perspectives on the issues of eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation, and more.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2005 Phyllis Chesler. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. This audiobook is published in arrangement with Waldorf Publishing c/o Susan Schulman Literary Agency. Gender Studies Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences Health Discrimination Substance abuse Social justice
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An interesting, thought provoking and impassioned book. It contained an eclectic mix of mythology, history, research, author opinion, and, essentially, manifesto. At times these worked very well and added to the richness and depth of the book, at other times, the book could feel a little disjointed because it was doing so much.

I particularly enjoyed the research chapters and felt the author made a lot of valuable points about engendered mental illness, how this plays out socially, and patriarchal power imbalances being reproduced within mainstream psychiatry. Insights into these areas attracted me to the book and I wasn't disappointed. I'll definitely be going back to re-read these chapters and Chesler's primary research.

I felt that some of the points were more nuanced than than the way they were presented, which could be quite forceful. For me this meant some of the arguments lost their power e.g., comparison of homosexuality and historic treatment of lesbian women vs gay men.

The narrator was very fast and, because the arguments could be complex, this meant I sometimes missed the crux of them even though I had set the narration speed to 90%. I have purchased the book and am looking forward to re-reading it at a slower pace.

I recommend the book but unless you are very familiar with the topics or process information very quickly, I would suggest getting the written version.

Interesting but consider getting written version

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