Spare Rib and Underwater Livecams

• Main Author: Clare Brant
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Groningen Press 2019-07-01
• Series: European Journal of Life Writing
• Online Access: https://ejlw.eu/article/view/35615

https://www.bl.uk/spare-rib. Digital citizens of the future may have sorted a gender politics which works for everybody. A utopian hope, yes; in case not, and in any case, I would want them to know that in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, there was a worldwide women’s movement full of daring thinkers and brave activists. So often history is written by the victors; web resources at least prolong the availability of alternative versions. What’s known as second wave feminism worked largely through print and word of mouth, but is now partially recuperable through podcasts, oral history and digital archives. Spare Ribe was a polemical, practical monthly magazine published in Britain from 1972 to 1993. It’s available again, newly digitised at the British Library.  Underwater Livecams.  I like to imagine that future netizens will know more about the oceans than we do. But they should know that some of their predecessors are passionately curious about life underwater, and that there were webcams which livestreamed from depths no human had seen before.