Controversy in feminism & Spare Rib: nothing new

A few years ago, I found this in an old issue of Spare Rib, from September 1980 and took photos of it, to share with the F Word collective when some controversy or other was raging about something on the site and we were all feeling pretty down about it (I can’t even remember what the issue was now).

The recent announcement about Spare Rib being re-published made me remember this.

Sorry for the bad photos but I think it’s pretty interesting. Arguments about feminism in the media; the responsibility of magazines like Spare Rib to represent the movement and not discriminate; how collectives are run; censorship; political splits; conflicts; class issues; what terminology/language to use; all these debates are not new (as Reni pointed out in this article).

Editorial 1

Editorial 2

Editorial 3

Editorial 4

Editorial 5

Editorial 6

Letters page:

Letters page - Controversy

I love the jauntiness of this font, considering how awful the whole fall out must have been for everyone involved. Woo! Controversy!

I couldn’t photo them all properly as I was in a rush but this gives a flavour of what people were saying:

Letters page

Letters page

Letters page

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