Spare rib magazine rosie boycott autobiography

Description

Spare Rib was the best-known and longest-running publication of the Women’s Liberation Movement.

The gay rights people were shouting that we weren’t supporting them, the radical feminists were shouting that we weren’t radical enough. Covers courtesy of Caroline Mardon and Laura Wilson

Rather than white middle-class women writing about marginalized women in Britain and globally, Bellos wanted the latter to speak for themselves.

“It was a lot of fun,” she tells me, recalling the magazine’s “Don’t Do It Di” badges for the 1981 royal wedding and a dishcloth the magazine produced emblazoned with the words, “You start by sinking into his arms and end up with your arms in his sink.”

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When I ask her about Spare Rib‘s legacy, she points out, “The fact that you’re even talking to me about it now shows how it’s recognized as a significant contributor to debate and change within the women’s movement and within broader society.” It’s a sentiment shared by Marsha Rowe, “‘The press today includes all the things that we originally did.

It’s considered normal now; part of the general conversation.”

Rosie Boycott, co-founder

There were lots of things rumbling around in 1971.

One cover had a woman supposedly in the throes of an orgasm with the line: “The liberated orgasm … Make a New Year resolution to have one.” It went over very badly. It was always a very radical magazine and beautifully produced but it evolved. I’d seen the alternative magazine Oz and thought: “This is fabulous.” So I got a job there and saw how it was put together.
At the end of the decade, I moved to London.

They’re much more hostile now. I think it lost a certain spark. At that point, domestic abuse was rarely talked about. It later became a TV drama and is now a set text throughout UK.

1979: Angela Carter’s first non-fiction book published

Angela Carter’s first non-fiction book, The Sadeian Woman, is published.

What is Black? After that, we realised, well, actually, we can’t run those kind of ads.

I don’t think anyone took us particularly seriously. Contributors included internationally known feminist writers and activists from Nawal El Saadawi to Angela Carter.

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