Feminism may no longer be a dirty word but Charlotte Raven’s bid to resurrect feminist magazine Spare Rib is taking longer than expected. The journalist and her team have postponed plans to launch the website until July but they insist that this is mainly because there has been so much constructive feedback that they want to incorporate the thinking of the sisterhood into their project.
The membership scheme opens for business tomorrow, and with positive feedback from more than 2,000 people they have already raised £27,191. Raven is confident that they can reach the target of 5,000 paying members which will enable them also to relaunch Spare Rib as a bimonthly magazine.
The team also plans to create the joyous wheeze of telling members what they forgo if they make donations, itemising each potential sum in terms of a pair of kitten heels (at the high end) down to the price of a bikini wax and a Diptyque candle.
There is one man who won’t be joining the sisterhood in their quest to open up feminine spaces in our phallocratic society — poet and magazine magnate Felix Dennis.
“I went to see Felix in the hope that he would invest or get involved but he said ‘No way’,” Raven tells me. Dennis was a natural choice, you might have thought, given that he was behind the counter-cultural magazine Oz in the Seventies.
“He said if there was a call for a magazine like it there would be one by now. He was really funny and friendly but I don’t think he will be involved.”
