Diana E. H. Russell facts for kids

Diana E. H. Russell (6 November 1938 – 28 July 2020) was a South African feminist writer and activist.

For the past 45 years she was engaged in research on violence against women and girls. She wrote many books and articles.

For The Secret Trauma, she was co-recipient of the 1986 C. Wright Mills Award. She was also the recipient of the 2001 Humanist Heroine Award from the American Humanist Association.

She was also an organizer of the First International Tribunal on Crimes against Women, in Brussels in March 1976.

Early life

Russell was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, a twin and the fourth of the six children of a South African father, James Hamilton Russell, and a British mother, Kathleen Mary (née Gibson) Russell. She attended Herschel Girls' School, an Anglican boarding school for girls. After completing her Bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Cape Town, at the age of 19, Russell left for Britain.

In Britain, she enrolled in a Post-Graduate Diploma in Social Science and Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1961, she passed the Diploma with Distinction and also received the prize for the best student in the program. She moved to the United States, in 1963 where she had been accepted into an interdisciplinary PhD program at Harvard University. Her research focused on sociology and the study of revolution.

Russell's radical activism began with her involvement in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. In 1963, Russell had joined the Liberal Party of South Africa that had been founded by Alan Paton, the author of Cry the Beloved Country. While participating in a peaceful protest in Cape Town, Russell was arrested with other party members. She came to the conclusion that non-violent strategies were futile against the brutal violence and repression of the white Afrikaner police state. Thereafter, she joined the African Resistance Movement (ARM), an underground revolutionary movement fighting apartheid in South Africa. The principal strategy of the ARM was to bomb and sabotage government property, and though Russell was only a peripheral member of the ARM, she still risked a 10-year incarceration if caught. Russell's analysis of strategies and tactics for social and political change is detailed in her book, Rebellion, Revolution, and Armed Force: A Comparative Study of Fifteen Countries with Special Emphasis on Cuba and South Africa (1974).

Other

In 1977, Russell became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.

See also

In Spanish: Diana Russell para niños