Clementine Ford

Clementine Ford is an Australian feminist writer, columnist, broadcaster and public speaker.

Throughout her career, Ford has received Substantial media attention for social media comments concerning women's rights and other social and political issues.

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.

In 2007, Ford began writing a column for Adelaide's Sunday Mail and also began writing for The Drum.

Topics Ford wrote about included distigmatising abortion; she described having an abortion herself as an easy decision that she feels no shame for.

Ford moved from Adelaide to Melbourne in 2011.

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.

On White Ribbon Day in 2015, Ford made public some of the sexist and abusive messages that she had received online.

Meriton Group, the employer of a man who had labelled Ford with a derogatory term, investigated Ford's complaint and the man was dismissed from his job.

Three Adelaide High School boys were suspended from their school for lewd comments they wrote about Ford.

She announced the birth of her son in August 2016.

Ford's writing career includes her contributions as a columnist.

Ford wrote a regular column for Daily Life for seven years.

In September 2016, Allen & Unwin published Ford's first book, Fight Like a Girl.

In March 2016, Ford was banned from Facebook for 30 days for using profanity toward another user who had verbally abused her on her Facebook page.

Ford accused Facebook of having a double standard, as the social networking site meanwhile declined to take action against a user who had posted a graphic internet meme making light of domestic violence.

Her second book, Boys Will Be Boys, was published in 2018.

The book is focused on toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.

In 2018, a Lifeline event featuring Ford was cancelled following a petition calling for her removal, after she had made a Twitter comment which included the phrase "all men must die".

Ford has commented on the issue of her sarcastic tweets being taken seriously by those opposing her.

For example, after the man from Meriton Group was dismissed from his employment, another man tweeted that Ford would not be happy until she had all men fired.

Ford responded by saying she would not be happy until all men were "fired ... into the sun".

According to Ford, despite the clear jest, many men publicly accused her tweet of advocating for their mass murder.

Ford resigned from her role as a columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in January 2019, alleging that she had been "disciplined over a tweet" she made in regard to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and that she had been told it was the paper's policy to refrain from "disrespect[ing] the office of the PM".

In February 2020, Ford began a podcast called "Big Sister Hotline" on which she talks about current feminist issues and questions with guests such as: Florence Given, Salma El-Werdany, Gemma Carey, Aileen Quinn and Yasmin Abdel-Magied.

In May 2020, Ford was criticised for her tweet stating that the coronavirus was not "killing men fast enough", which has since been deleted.

A Melbourne City Council arts grant that had been awarded to Ford was afterwards said to be "under review" as a result of her comments.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp stated that Ford's statement was "deliberately divisive and incredibly unhelpful when we are trying to keep our community together" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following backlash, Ford responded on Twitter by stating that although she still stood "100% behind my fury at men exploiting women's unpaid labour", she had "reconsidered her flippancy in discussing it" and was "a big enough person to admit when [she had] misjudged something".

In 2024, Ford was criticised by Australian Jewish community leaders for her involvement in the doxing of a group of 600 Jewish individuals.

The doxxing involved the public sharing of names, images, and social media accounts of hundreds of Jewish people working within academia and creative industries.

The data was leaked from a WhatsApp group which the administrator said

"was formed in October last year to support and advocate for Jewish people who felt alienated or isolated from their professional peers because of the war".

As the group grew significantly, a minority began discussing campaigns against pro-Palestinian figures, including Ford.