{{short description|Australian-British journalist, writer and editor (born 1944)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Marsha Rowe | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1944}} | birth_place = Sydney, Australia | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | education = | occupation = Journalist, writer and editor | known_for = Co-founder of ''Spare Rib'' magazine | spouse = | children = | parents = | website = }}
'''Marsha Rowe''' (born 1944) is an Australian-born journalist, writer and editor now living in the United Kingdom. In 1972, she was co-founder, with Rosie Boycott, of the leading feminist magazine ''Spare Rib''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/womens-rights/articles/print-purpose-and-profit-women-in-publishing|title=Print, purpose and profit: Women in publishing|first=Margaretta|last=Jolly|publisher=British Library|website=Women's rights|date=23 October 2020|access-date=19 January 2023}}</ref>
==Early life== Rowe was born in Sydney, Australia, and raised on the North Shore of Neutral Bay. Her father was an engineer. After a typing course at a Sydney technical college, she worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), <!-- Now in Canberra. -->then based in the grounds of Sydney University.<ref name="Alomes">{{cite book|last=Alomes|first=Stephen|url=https://archive.org/details/whenlondoncalls00step|url-access=registration|title=When London Calls: The Expatriation of Australian Creative Artists to Britain|location=Cambridge, UK & Oakleigh, Australia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1999|page=[https://archive.org/details/whenlondoncalls00step/page/174 174]}}</ref>
Rowe was a secretary for ''Oz'' magazine from 1964 when it was based in Sydney, its original location.<ref name="RoweRN">{{cite news|last1=Rowe|first1=Marsha|last2=Robertson|first2=Geoffrey|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/04/richard-neville-obituary|title=Richard Neville obituary|work=The Guardian|date=4 September 2016|accessdate=18 December 2017}}</ref> Because Rowe was aged under 21, editors Richard Neville and Richard Walsh had to persuade Rowe's father to allow her join the staff.<ref name="Trinca">{{cite news|last=Trinca|first=Helen|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/oz-eras-feminist-offspring/news-story/b4d1d4b68ad7d4d567db4c3d5c394136?sv=21be7c235bc93d516f9bac366e427ec9|title=OZ era's feminist offspring|work=The Australian|date=26 March 2013|accessdate=18 December 2017}}</ref>
"I saw the freedom, the opportunity to make satire, the (editors') lack of reverence for authority," she told Helen Trinca of ''The Australian'' in 2013. "I was still rather mentally restricted in terms of authority, but I could see how they were so funny and mentally stimulating. I learnt a lot from ''OZ'' -- how to start a magazine and do it yourself. Where do you go for new ideas and thinking?"<ref name="Trinca"/> Her period at the Sydney ''OZ'' lasted until 1966.<ref name="Alomes"/> Rowe then worked for the Australian edition of ''Vogue'', but found fashion journalism a restrictive area in which to work.<ref name="BLSR">{{cite web|last=Rowe|first=Marsha|url=https://www.bl.uk/spare-rib/articles/spare-rib-and-the-underground-press|title=Spare Rib and the underground press|publisher=British Library|date=<!-- From source code. -->16 April 2016|accessdate=18 December 2017|archive-date=4 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104093634/http://www.bl.uk/spare-rib/articles/spare-rib-and-the-underground-press|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Counterculture in London== Rowe settled in London in 1969, but at first disliked the city because of the pervading attitude to expatriate Australians. During her six-months in Greece which soon followed, the regime of the Colonels politicised her, and she returned to London.<ref name="Beckett223">{{cite book|last=Beckett|first=Andy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-NURERF4hb8C&pg=PA223|title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies|location=London|publisher=Faber & Faber|year=2009|page=223|isbn=9780571252268}}</ref>
Rowe was employed on the London edition of ''OZ'', and one of the magazine's London editors, Felix Dennis, later <!-- in 2001. -->described her as the publication's "anchor" during this period. When the three editors (Neville, Dennis and Jim Anderson) were tried at the Old Bailey for obscenity in ''Schoolkids Oz'', Rowe was part of the defence team<ref name="BLSR"/> and was responsible for typing documents for the defence each evening.<ref name="Trinca"/> "I ''hated'' having to be a secretary. But I really did have a sort of idea that maybe women were there to support men," she told Andy Beckett in 2005. "In the counter-culture we still did all that stuff the men didn't."<ref name="Beckett223"/>
However, when the three male editors were away, Rowe was not left in charge. When Neville co-founded the short-lived ''Ink'' in 1971, Rowe joined him, but resigned over the male domination of the venture after a few months.<ref name="RoweRN"/><ref name="BLSR"/> Three female typists, whom she had hired, were sacked by the men when the publication acquired new office equipment. She was aware of what some of the women had given up to work for ''Ink''; it had no trade union representation.<ref name="Beckett223"/><ref>Stephen Alomes (p. 183) writes that it was two of the three female typesetters who were removed.</ref> It appeared to her, and underground press colleague Louise Ferrier (who was romantically connected to Neville at the time), that sexual freedom for men still meant women were objectified and excluded from the editorial process.<ref name="Trinca"/><ref name="BLSR"/> (Rowe has quoted one woman as having said that year: "With brothers like these, who needs chauvinists?")<ref name="BLSR" />
With Michelene Wandor also involved, they organised a series of meetings for other women involved in the underground press. Fifty people turned up at the first meeting in December 1971 at Rowe and Ferrier's basement flat in Notting Hill.<ref name="Beckett223"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Todd|first=Selina|url=http://docplayer.net/60240027-Models-and-menstruation-spare-rib-magazine-feminism-femininity-and-pleasure.html|title=Models and Menstruation: Spare Rib Magazine, Feminism, Femininity and Pleasure|journal=Studies in Social and Political Thought|issue=1|year=1999|pages=18–34, 22}}</ref> At the third meeting, Rowe has said she suggested women should establish their own magazine.<ref>Beckett, p. 224</ref> An American in London, Bonnie Boston, had suggested the idea to her, but according to Stephen Alomes, the only other supportive voice came from Rosie Boycott.<ref>Alomes, p. 184.</ref>
==Founding ''Spare Rib''== Boycott and Rowe founded ''Spare Rib'', the feminist monthly magazine, the first edition appearing in June 1972. It was intended as "the alternative news magazine for women", and Rowe has written that while it was "seen as the public face of the women's movement", the magazine "was not synonymous with the movement".<ref>{{cite news|last=Rowe|first=Marsha|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/spare-rib-grassroots-feminism-not-brand|title=Spare Rib was born of grassroots feminism. It's not a brand|work=The Guardian|date=14 June 2013|accessdate=18 December 2017}}</ref> The 20,000 print run of the first two issues sold out, helped by the publicity received from the refusal of W. H. Smith to stock it.<ref name="SmithQuaid">{{cite book|editor-last1=Smith|editor-first1=Angela|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JK80DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14|title=Re-reading Spare Rib|author1-last=Smith|author1-first=Angela|author2-last=Quaid|author2-first=Sheila|chapter=Introduction|location=Cham, Switzerland|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2017|pages=14, 16|isbn=9783319493107}}</ref> Boycott and Rowe, however, had significant differences and the formation of a collective to run the magazine, at Rowe's suggestion, led to Boycott being marginalised, and she resigned not much more than a year later after the launch.<ref name="SmithQuaid"/>
A Spare Rib Books imprint (soon to be renamed Virago Press) was founded in 1973 by Carmen Callil whose own company had assisted on publicity for the magazine's launch. Rowe and Boycott became directors of the new company, but both resigned the following year.<ref name="BLSR"/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1aNoAB3TWwC&pg=PT107|title=Virago is 40: A Celebration|year=2013|publisher=Virago|page=107|isbn=9781405521536}}</ref>
==Later life== Rowe, after herself leaving ''Spare Rib'' in 1987,<ref name=Contrappasso>{{cite web|url=https://contrappassomag.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/contrappasso-extra-literary-prizes-and-reviews-by-noel-king/|title=Contrappasso Extra: 'Literary Prizes and Reviews'|website=Contrappasso Magazine: International Writing|first=Noel|last=King|date=6 June 2016|access-date=19 January 2023}}</ref> became a freelance editor, commissioning books for feminist publishers and writing her own works.<ref name="SmithQuaid"/> She was fiction editor at independent publishing firm Serpent's Tail and ran a life-writing course (Your Life's Word).<ref name="BLSR" /><ref name=Contrappasso /> Among the collections she compiled for Serpent's Tail are ''Sex and the City'' (1989), ''So Very English'' (1991), and ''Sacred Space'' (1992). Rowe contributed to the 1992 anthology ''Serious Hysterics'', edited by Alison Fell, which also featured short stories by Marina Warner, Lynne Tillman, Zoe Fairbairns, Nicole Ward Jouve, Leslie Dick and other writers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Serious hysterics|publisher=Serpent's Tail|location= London|date= 1992|oclc=26542448 }}</ref>
Rowe collaborated with Felix Dennis and Mike Pentelow, on ''The Characters of Fitzrovia'', which was published in November 2001.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Mikhail|first1=Kate|last2=Dennis|first2=Felix|last3=Rowe|first3=Marsha|url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/nov/25/features.magazine47|title=Life support|work=The Observer|date=25 November 2001|access-date=18 December 2017}}</ref>
After living in London for many years and for some years in Leeds, and she moved to Norwich, and is working on writing a memoir.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://petersfraserdunlop.com/clients/marsha-rowe/|title=Marsha Rowe|website=Peters Fraser + Dunlop|access-date=19 January 2023}}</ref>
==Bibliography== === As editor === * {{cite book|editor-last=|editor-first=|title=Spare Rib Reader|location=Harmondsworth|publisher=Penguin|year=1982|isbn=978-0140052503}} * {{cite book|editor-last=|editor-first=|title=Sex and the City: A Serpent's Tail Compilation|publisher=Serpent's Tail|year=1989|isbn=978-1852421656|url=https://archive.org/details/sexcityserp00rowe}} * {{cite book|editor-last=|editor-first=|title=So Very English: A Serpent's Tail Compilation|year=1991|publisher=Serpent's Tail|isbn=978-1852421793}}<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oDUeAQAAIAAJ|title=So Very English: A Serpent's Tail Compilation|isbn=9781852421793 |via=Google Books|last1=Rowe |first1=Marsha |year=1991 |publisher=Serpent's Tail }}</ref> Contributors include Mario Vargas Llosa, Fay Weldon, Susan Daitch, Kathy Lette, Lynne Tillman, Nicole Ward Jouve, Fleur Adcock, Jean Binta Breeze, Roy Heath, Adam Zameenzad, Naomi Mitchison, Kate Pullinger, Judith Grossman, Jill Neville, Ben Okri, Emma Tennant, Deborah Levy, and others.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781852421793|title=So Very English|magazine=Publishers Weekly|date=1 January 1991}}</ref> * {{cite book|editor-last=|editor-first=|title=Sacred Space|year=1992|publisher=Serpent's Tail|isbn=978-1852422608}} * {{cite book|editor-last=|editor-first=|title=Infidelity|publisher=Chatto & Windus|year=1993|isbn=978-0701144630|url=https://archive.org/details/infidelity00rowe}} * With Mike Pentelow, ''The Characters of Fitzrovia''. Chatto & Windus. 2001. {{ISBN|978-0701173142}}.
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowe, Marsha}} Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Australian expatriates in England Category:British book editors Category:British feminist writers Category:British magazine founders Category:20th-century British women journalists Category:Women anthologists Category:Women print editors Category:Writers from Sydney Category:People from the North Shore (Sydney) Category:20th-century British journalists