Marsha Rowe

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.

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), then based in the grounds of Sydney University.

Rowe was a secretary for Oz magazine from 1964 when it was based in Sydney, its original location. Because Rowe was aged under 21, editors Richard Neville and Richard Walsh had to persuade Rowe's father to allow her join the staff.

"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?"

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.

Rowe was employed on the London edition of OZ, and one of the magazine's London editors, Felix Dennis, later 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 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. At the third meeting, Rowe has said she suggested women should establish their own magazine. 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.

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". 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. 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 18 months after the launch.

Later life Rowe, after herself leaving Spare Rib in 1987, became a freelance editor, commissioning books for feminist publishers and writing her own works.

Rowe collaborated with Felix Dennis and Mike Pentelow, on The Characters of Fitzrovia, which was published in November 2001.

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.