There are few people who illicit a more visceral response from me than Clementine Ford. There are few people who use their public platform to openly preach hatred of one demographic in our society with such impunity.
She is a vile human being.
Her history of misandric statements is a long and well documented one.
Her most recent comments and actions may be her most disgusting yet.
There it is.
A career ending comment for any male on this planet whether he be a President, Prime Minister, movie star, author, journalist, teacher or roof tiler.
No discussion would be entered into. No excuses could be offered.
Yet this contemptible creature seems certain to retain her $20 000 tax payer funded grant for new book. Her publishers have issued no comment on her wish for the deaths of countless men.
The 39-year-old posted the outrageous statement on Twitter on Saturday in response to an article written about gender disparities in parenting children during the coronavirus crisis.
She shared the story of a woman forced to quit her lucrative job during the pandemic because her stay-at-home husband couldn’t cope with full time parenting – and said the man in the story was a ‘pathetic… globular dipsh*t’.
‘This woman deserves better,’ she said.
This sick woman wrote what was purported to be an apology when there was some pushback to her words online and a reprimand from the Melbourne Lord Mayor.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp said Ford’s post was ‘deliberately divisive and incredibly unhelpful when we are trying to keep our community together during COVID-19’.
‘I found these comments offensive and distasteful and I agree with the sentiment of outrage expressed by many members of our community,’ she said.
Mayor Capp explained Ford was given the grant through an independent process as part of a program to support Melbourne’s local arts and cultural sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘I have asked the CEO to review the selection process for these grants,’ she said.
Why was there not an instant withdrawal of the funds? Why is there a need for discussion or review?
The end result will most likely be some vague comments about maintaining standards, bringing the community together in this time of a crisis and a call for less divisive language- and that will be the end of it.
Ford will continue to target men with her vitriolic venom and her 88000 twitter followers will continue to cheer her on.
Imagine if an established, mainstream male journalist wrote a tweet saying:
Honestly, the corona virus isn’t killing women fast enough
Now stretch your imaginative powers and picture his comment garnering support and encouragement from his twitter army.
It would cause a media meltdown. Armageddon.
Yes, we have been here many times before but that doesn’t mean this type of atrocious double standard and encouragement of male bashing should be ignored.
Here is the “apology” Ford produced, no doubt at the behest of her publisher or in fear of losing her grant. Steel yourself, my friends:
I’m a big enough person to admit when I’ve misjudged something.
I still stand 100% behind my fury at men exploiting women’s unpaid labour (exacerbated by the global pandemic), but I’ve reconsidered my flippancy in discussing it.
I’ve always maintained that the difference between jokes that punch up and down is the reality of harm.
Eg joking about firing men into the sun has no basis in reality and therefore no potential to further harm, while ‘jokes’ about domestic abuse are very much reflective of an extensive harm already in place.
The corona tweet was contextually in response to the fact women are once again shouldering the burden of domestic labour at the expense of their own economic freedom, being let down by men who are in turn upheld by systems that have privileged them.
It is acceptable to express fury at that, and it’s disappointing more men aren’t outraged by this reality.
But based on my own metric outlined up thread, I have to accept fault for the corona tweet because it made a flippant joke about something that IS actually a harmful reality, and one that affects marginalised men disproportionately, not to mention robs people of their loved ones.
Regardless of what people want to think about me, I have no wish to compound harm and grief for anyone, nor be dismissive of the very real impact and fear a crisis like this presents.
But I also think it’s fair to be angry at the lack of interest in this crisis’ impact on women.
To be astonished at how women are expected to perform the essential tasks that allow men to thrive, at the expense of women’s stability, while being denied recognition for that work.
A flippant (and yes, poorly judged) tweet doesn’t change that reality and it shouldn’t shift the focus away from it.
If we benefit from privilege, we should also be robust enough to accept critique of the systems that privilege us and work to change them.
Anyway, this acknowledgement isn’t for the men who are looking for any reason to ignore patriarchal impact but for the people genuinely hurt by my words.
I’m sincerely sorry, and I wish I had framed my argument in better terms and in a way that didn’t compound harm. Be well.
How does one begin to respond to someone with such an unhinged, twisted view of reality?
But I also think it’s fair to be angry at the lack of interest in this crisis’ impact on women.
Men are dying at twice the rate of women but we should be angry about the lack of interest in this crisis’ impact on women.
Translation. Women are babysitting their own kids during this pandemic! This is far more worthy of our interest than the deaths of men.
This woman has taken one anecdote about one particular relationship (and no doubt heard only one side of the story) and extrapolated it to be indicative of what is going on in hundreds of thousands of homes behind closed doors. But this of course is how feminists have always operated. One woman is murdered and very quickly, all men are indicted.
Does this witch not understand that mature, loving couples make a personal, mutually beneficial decision as to what best suits their family’s needs during this pandemic?
Does she not understand that the overwhelming majority of women who have chosen to stop working and stay home during this virus lockdown did so because their husband is in a higher paying job which he intends to remain in for many years and this will benefit the wife and children as much as it does him?
Did it ever cross the fetid mind of this demented misfit, that many women are loving the opportunity to be at home with their kids and not rushing off into the rat race and fighting traffic or a demanding employer and getting home at dinner time?
Does this unbalanced imbecile not understand that many men would have relished the opportunity to stop working for a few weeks (if they could afford to) and enjoy the company of their kids? My son cherishes his rostered day off and spent today at the beautiful Rhododendron Gardens in Olinda with his gorgeous daughter Stevie. He texted me to say how much he loved the chance to be with her and just enjoy her company.
This is something so many men are denied in this society which expects men to be the breadwinner while women like Ford (and countless others) can dabble in part time work, pursue a hobby, work fulltime if they feel the desire or simply be at home all of the time.
This is the hideous fate women face in our apparently misogynistic patriarchal hell hole, according to Clemmie.
She makes no mention of the fact that the virus is indeed doing a good job of killing off men other than wishing it would do the job more effectively. No compassion for the families who have lost a dad or grandad or fears expressed for the vulnerability of the males she has in her life.
This witch simply calls whatever men do or experience, privilege.
Paid work is a privilege.
Unpaid work (Orwellian speak for looking after your own children so hubby can bring home the juicy bacon) is oppression.
I mentioned the pushback to her hateful comment. Here are some examples:
Ford’s initial post attracted an influx of criticism by people who accused her of ‘weaponising feminism,’ having ‘daddy issues’ and being ‘toxic’.
Former Senator Derryn Hinch described her opinions as ‘repulsive’.
‘Sometimes your Twitter views are truly repulsive. If this is a serious comment, I feel sorry for you. What a way to go through life full of hatred,’ he responded.
Others suggested her post – which she claimed was in jest – paved the way for equally as damaging comments.
‘Clementine, is this a similar joke to: ”Honestly, the corona virus isn’t killing black people fast enough” or ”Honestly, the corona virus isn’t killing disabled people fast enough” or ”Honestly, the corona virus isn’t killing health care workers fast enough”?’
Ford initially argued the backlash proved ‘exactly how fragile men are.’
‘The same men who insist all the time that women laugh at jokes about violence against us because ‘dark humour’ and ‘relieving tension’. Men are pathetic,’ she wrote.
‘Men love to screech about snowflakes and triggered feminists and women not being able to take a joke and they crumble at the first sign of a hyperbolic tweet that doesn’t place them as gods at the centre of the universe. Ding dongs, all of them.’
In 2017, she hand-signed a copy of her book ‘Fight Like a Girl’, with a message that read: ‘Have you killed any men today? And if not, why not?’
Her words are truly the rantings of a sick, warped mind.
Men regard themselves as gods at the centre of the universe?
From what part of her repulsive anatomy did she drag this notion?
But the paragraph below is what truly infuriates me.
The Melbourne-based author has previously spoken about being the target of graphic abuse, trolling and death threats from men on social media, and is known for her often-polarising comments about men.
Ford has played this game for years. She pokes and provokes men and boys with her evil bile and when they respond in kind or lash out, she pounces upon their tweets or posts as evidence of the misogynistic society she has been trying to expose!
Just two weeks ago she played this game with what could have been devastating consequences for a young boy.
Ford received a private message from a fourteen-year-old school boy, no doubt in response to another of her misandric rants.
Here is his message.
What did Ford do when she received this private message in her inbox?
She went on to share it publicly, also posting a picture of the teen and his name. Can you imagine the abuse that would have been directed at this boy? She obviously wanted her mob to emotionally lynch him for daring to say to Ford in a private message what she has been saying about all men for years in the mainstream media.
His photo and name were removed only after the boy’s mum begged Ford to take it down.
A forty-year-old woman who has worked in the media for decades and uses the most violent, vicious language whenever she speaks of males, suddenly needs her fainting couch because a young boy suggests she put a gun in her mouth.
She pretends she is pushing back and taking a stand on behalf of all the young girls out there who are subjected to this kind of abuse, but that is a blatant lie. It is other females who are most likely to taunt and abuse girls online. We even have a charity named after a young girl who killed herself after a period of online bullying from other girls.
Ms. Ford explained the high school boy, thought to be around 14 years-old, contacted her out of the blue and sent a series of abusive messages.
Out of the blue.
What a dirty, disingenuous twit, is our Clementine.
She has written two books focusing on the toxic nature of boys and men. She has written countless abusive comments about males on line, she proudly claims to bathe in male tears and often suggests men be killed.
Out of the blue.
She claims to have been sickened by the boy’s message.
Liar.
I think her nether regions would have tingled in sensual delight as another young male fell into her perfectly constructed trap.
She would have salivated as she posted (with trembling hands) his personal details and picture.
She felt sickened. And pigs fly.
What a disgraceful specimen of humanity.
Our boys are subjected to this barrage of hate every day whether it be Ford’s foul-mouthed tirades, giant billboards on our highways or advertisements on tv reminding them just how toxic they are.
I wonder how many male journalists would get nasty comments from teenage girls if they regularly demanded the death of women or wrote books about the toxic nature of femininity?
To think this woman gets invited to speak at our colleges and high schools as though she is a figure of inspiration for girls and someone who has something worth saying to our boys.
When she appeared at Aquinas College in Ringwood (not far from my home) she performed the following stunt.
The 35-year-old blogger and controversial, outspoken activist was slammed by parents after she blocked questions from year 10 schoolboys at the private secondary school.
The incident, which caused some female Aquinas students to walk out of Ford’s talk, happened in May this year.
One angry parent claimed Ford had treated the 15-year-old male students “like crap”.
“The boys wanted to ask her questions, and she refused to answer questions from boys.
She goes, ‘No no, I’m only taking questions from girls,’” parent Darren told Melbourne Radio 3AW.
“The ones that turned on her after she treated the boys like crap, was the girls who got up and left.”
The father said following the fallout from the talk, Ford “went nuts, she crucified the boys online and the school had to do a massive backpedal”.
What a charming human being is Clementine.
Ford said, with regard to the private message from the boy: while teenagers can often speak in such violent terms, she was horrified by it and wanted to call out the behaviour and ‘set an example’.
Here we have a woman who called another female journalist a cunt during a live tv program saying she was horrified by the boy’s words.
‘What’s going on in the head of anyone who would say that to somebody?’, she went on.
That’s exactly what I ask myself every time I read another one of your bigoted, hate fueled rants, Ford.
