By Helen Bishop
International Tribunal for Crimes against Women in 1976
The International Tribunal for Crimes against Women, in Brussels, March 1976 was such an important event. 2000 women attended, from 40 different countries. I wanted to write about it for HOWL because now nobody seems to know about it. There was no internet or social media then. 1976 was the same year Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up the Apple Computer company!
I taught in Paris from 1970 to 76. During this time, I became a feminist, joined a local consciousness raising group, had my first lesbian experience and in March 1976, I went with my CR group to the International Tribunal. This four day event, not a conference but a ‘hearing’ of testimony about various crimes against women, was organised by Diana Russell, an American academic and campaigner against violence against women, who coined the term ‘femicide’. At the conference she said,
From the burning of witches in the past, to the more recent widespread custom of female infanticide in many societies, to the killing of women for so-called honour, we realise that femicide has been going on a long time.
Diana and Nicole Van der Ven, a Belgian journalist, planned the Tribunal together. The two women had somehow managed to get the enormous Palais de Congres in Bruxelles for four days. Simone de Beauvoir sent an introductory speech, saying she hoped it would be ‘the beginning of radical decolonisation of women’.
Diana and Nicole had been based in Paris while organising the event, so we found out about it through our Paris women’s liberation networks. We were determined to be there. We found ourselves among hundreds of women of all ages and from all over the world. It was amazing. Each half day had a theme (rape, femicide, domestic abuse, prostitution, pornography, abortion, women political prisoners, economic oppression etc….). Women spoke from personal testimony or presented papers about the position in their countries. These were not academic papers but reports from groups around the world. Simultaneous interpreting was available on the earphones at each seat, in many languages, done by a big team of volunteer women interpreters sitting in the interpreting booths (this was after all an international conference hall!).
One day sitting next to me was an American policewoman in uniform. I asked her why she was in uniform and she said she had been officially sent by her city’s police force to find out more about these issues. I was amazed. Would a British or French city have done this? But many other women from other parts of the world were there incognito, at risk from their governments’ repressive regimes for attending such an event.
The initial list of crimes against women did not include any reference to lesbians. Many lesbians attending, including some in my group, were angry, saying that we did not expect to be invisible in a big women’s event like this. Everyone agreed to occupy the stage to make the point. About 70 lesbians went up on stage and one made a speech about invisibility and issues facing lesbians. Although urged by some of my friends, I couldn’t bring myself to go onto the stage. I had only had one lesbian experience, one night. I wasn’t ready to be so visible. (Diana Russell’s account says that lesbianism was one of the themes of the Tribunal, but it wasn’t taken up until after the mass lesbian intervention)
I listened to testimony about rape and domestic abuse in India, in the Philippines, and other countries and in Europe, and about poverty, prostitution and trafficking. I was new to feminism and I remember thinking how much bigger the whole struggle was than our little group in Paris, and feeling a bit overwhelmed about how to make things change, as well as feeling uplifted and excited by the information exchange going on formally and informally.
The main ‘witness testimony’ and reports went on continuously each day in the hall. There were also side events and workshops. I went to a ‘self help’ workshop run by women from Denmark and Holland I think. The area was curtained off and no men allowed (there were only a few men at the event). Inside a team of women described and talked about our reproductive organs, how to keep healthy, issues around the pill, gynaecological infections and complaints etc. They also demonstrated the use of speculums for self examination. I remember being very struck when the leader said ‘all our lives, only our partners and doctors have properly seen our genitals. Have you ever looked at yourself down there?’ They produced mirrors and encouraged us to lie down and have a look. It was a revelation for me. How had I never thought to do this for myself? A couple of the leaders lay down and inserted clear plastic speculums and invited us to look, using torches, to see what the inside of the vagina looked like. Some women couldn’t bring themselves to look. I did, and I thought all that cavernous pinkness was amazing! The team showed us (demonstrating on themselves) how to put in a speculum without causing pain, they talked about what the vagina should look like at different times of the menstrual cycle, and why doing a regular self examination was a good idea, to get to know your own body and therefore to identify anything that could be a problem. They pointed out that doctors only look at you once, and all women’s bodies are different, so checking your vagina yourself is more likely to identify unexpected changes. They showed us the illustrated book Our Bodies Ourselves published by Boston Women’s Health Collective in 1971, which started the women’s health self help movement in America. The book quickly sold around the world including the UK. And updated versions are still on sale now.
I also went to a pornography workshop. The team running this workshop had assumed rightly that many women had never seen pornography, so invited us to watch a bit, then asked us to say how we felt. Several women, including me, had felt disturbed that we had felt aroused while at the same time being horrified. (This was not hardcore porn, but a strange man appeared and took control, so it had suggestion of rape). Some women in the group were quite critical of those who admitted arousal, saying, but you can’t have that response, this is porn, it’s anti women. The workshop leaders were quick to say that the aroused response was common in their workshops and OK, it didn’t mean you approved of porn. They also showed a porn video of two women having sex, and talked about some men being aroused by lesbian sex, and the demand for it in the porn market. To me, as a new lesbian, this was a complete revelation.
Abortion was illegal in many countries. Some women had learnt how to do the new suction abortion method, in order to help women secretly. (Update: The UK’s Abortion Law 1967 is not abortion on demand, but requires 2 doctors’ signatures and before 24 weeks, and women can be prosecuted under the Offences Against the Person Act 1881 if they attempt to end their own pregnancy. Ireland legalised abortion in 2018, up to 12 weeks, Northern Ireland in 2020. In USA Roe vs Wade legalised abortion in 1973, but America is going rapidly in the opposite direction, overturning Roe vs Wade in 2022 and outlawing abortion altogether in some states. France made abortion a constitutional right in 2024.)
It was at the Tribunal that I first came across the idea of Wages for Housework, presented by Italian women. There was a big discussion among our group on the way home, some thought it an idea that wouldn’t work, others thought it was the solution to women’s independence.
There was music as well. An elderly American woman sang ‘Little Boxes’ who I think was Malvina Reynolds herself. In the evening, we went to the Bruxelles women’s building, I remember thinking wow, a whole building for women, we don’t have that in Paris or London, and it was the first time I had seen an all-women rock band, the Flying Lesbians, who I think were German. The place was crowded with women from all over the world and we danced and danced and danced.
The Tribunal was in March. In July 1976 I left Paris, after working there for 6 years. Before I left, I had a big party and gave away a lot of my clothes, my complete set of Spare Ribs, lots of my women’s liberation books, and probably the papers from the Tribunal, because I don’t have any now, only memories.
If anyone reading this, went to the Tribunal, please post your memories to HOWL! When starting to write this, I googled and found a verbatim record of the whole four days, transcribed and translated by Nicole van der Ven, with an introduction by Diana Russell, published in 1977. You can read all 204 pages here https://dianarussell.com/f/crimes_against_women_tribunal.pdf It is an amazing read covering most of the women’s issues of the time. It gives the number of women from each country, (40 from UK), but no names, because Diana and Nicole took a decision to burn the attendance records. They didn’t want to put any woman’s life at risk, since some women attending had been threatened by their country’s regimes. Diana died aged 81 in 2020.
A memorial text: https://www.dianarussell.com/obituary.html?fbclid=IwAR09A7pIAqWSEbCibJ0raHAo1jMqpJt3CgWKZYWvzqkvzKT5OttFfgcSYI
Here is a list of the many feminist books Diana wrote: https://www.dianarussell.com/books.html
A Guardian obituary: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/23/diana-russell-obituary
And a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tribunal_on_Crimes_against_Women
https://www.dianarussell.com/political_actions.html#organizinginternational