Clementine Ford is an outspoken Australian feminist opinion writer. I’ve admired her work for some years because of her ability to get underneath conventional thinking about social relationships, to argue for women’s rights to determine their own agendas and behaviours and to call out men, particularly straight white men, for their sexist or misogynist attitudes.  Her writing is full frontal, confronting, insightful and accurate, if unpleasant (for men) to face.

As a result, she receives a torrent of online abuse, mainly from men, telling her what they want to do to her, or what she should do to herself. Personally, I couldn’t take it.  I stopped corresponding with a close friend when I received a single personally abusive email.  Yet she has no choice but to ‘take it’ if she wants to keep publishing her confronting feminist views.Read More »