Clementine Ford is an Australian feminist writer, columnist, broadcaster and public speaker on women's rights and other social and political issues.

Personal life

Ford spent much of her childhood growing up in the Middle East, specifically in Oman on the eastern border of the United Arab Emirates. At the age of 12, her family relocated to England. Ford spent the remainder of her teenage years growing up in Adelaide, South Australia. As a teenager, she struggled with body image, body dysmorphia and an eating disorder.

Ford studied at the University of Adelaide, where she took a gender studies course; she describes this as a personal catalyst for her decision to become a women's rights activist. During her time at the university she also worked as an editor and contributor for the student newspaper On Dit.

Ford moved from Adelaide to Melbourne in 2011. She announced the birth of her son in August 2016. Ford has stated that raising her son with little assistance from her partner put pressure on the relationship, which she left.

Writing career

Ford's writing career includes her contributions as a columnist. Ford wrote a regular column for Daily Life for seven years. In 2007, Ford began writing a column for Adelaide's Sunday Mail and also began writing for The Drum. Topics Ford wrote about included destigmatising abortion; she described having an abortion herself as an easy decision that she feels no shame for. In 2014, she wrote of her outrage towards comments made by Cory Bernardi which labelled pro-choice advocates "pro-death" soldiers of the "death industry". Later that year, she wrote an opinion piece against a Victorian bill that would change the state's abortion laws, arguing that if politicians really cared about the lives of women and girls that they would advocate for improved access to birth control, including terminations.

In September 2016, Allen & Unwin published Ford's first book, Fight Like a Girl. Her second book, Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and Toxic Masculinity, was published in 2018.

In 2018, Monash University lecturer Michelle Smith considered Ford to be "Australia's most prominent contemporary feminist".

Ford resigned from her role as a columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in January 2019, alleging that in September 2018 she had been disciplined over a tweet calling then prime minister Scott Morrison "a fucking disgrace" following negative comments of his concerning transgender education of teachers, and that she had been told it was the paper's new policy to refrain from "disrespect[ing] the office of the PM". Fairfax Media responded that their social media policy, which covered contributors, prohibited the use of "abusive language".

In February 2020, Ford began a podcast called Big Sister Hotline in which she talks about current feminist issues and questions with guests such as Florence Given and Yasmin Abdel-Magied.

Publications

• Ford, Clementine (2016). Fight Like a Girl. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760292362.
• Ford, Clementine (2018). Boys Will Be Boys. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760632335.
• Ford, Clementine (2021). How We Love: Notes on a Life. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760877187.
• Ford, Clementine (2023). I Don't. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781761069666.