Melinda Tankard Reist

Melinda Tankard Reist
BornMelinda Tankard
(1963-09-23) 23 September 1963
Mildura, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
  • Commentator
  • author
  • blogger
GenreNon-fiction
Subject

Melinda Tankard Reist (born 23 September 1963)[1] is an Australian conservative political activist, writer, speaker and media commentator principally known for her anti-pornography campaigns. She describes herself as "an advocate for women and girls" and a "pro-life feminist".[2][3][4]: 84  Her campaigns to ban X-rated films have gained national attention in Australia.[4] She is the founder of Women's Forum Australia and Collective Shout.

Early life

Tankard Reist was born in Mildura, Victoria. She completed her secondary education at Mildura High School and then studied journalism at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She took up a cadetship at the Sunraysia Daily, where she worked from 1983 to 1987. As a recipient of a Rotary Foundation scholarship, she furthered her studies in journalism at the California State University, Long Beach, during 1987 and 1988.

Career

On her return to Australia, Tankard Reist worked as a freelance contributor to newspapers and ABC Radio. From 1991 to 1993, she lived in Southeast Asia, where she was involved in voluntary aid work, including caring for infants with disabilities who had been relinquished for adoption. On her return to Australia, she took up a position as a media and bioethics advisor to conservative Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine from 1993 to 2005.[4][5] During her time as an advisor, she successfully lobbied against mifepristone and opposed changes to legislation requiring pro-life pregnancy-counseling services to disclose their affiliations in their advertising.[3]

In 2004, she founded the anti-abortion lobby Women's Forum Australia before stepping down in 2007 following the fall of the Howard government to focus on the "sexualisation of children". She then became known as an "anti-pornification campaigner".[4]

In 2012, social commentator Jennifer Wilson criticized the interviewer of a newspaper piece for not inquiring into the faith and motivation for Tankard Reist's work, describing her as "deceptive and duplicitous" about her religious motivations. Tankard Reist threatened multiple lawsuits alleging defamation, ultimately leading to significant mainstream media coverage of the event.[4]

In 2017, Tankard Reist wrote in ABC's Religion & Ethics column to criticize the adult erotica series Fifty Shades.[6]

Tankard Reist is a contributing editor for five books published by Duffy & Snellgrove and Spinifex Press, including works co-authored with Abigail Bray and Caroline Norma.[7] In response to criticism that her views were "pro-life" and thus she "can't be a feminist", her self-described radical feminist publishers at Spinifex Press defended her feminism as authentic in a 2012 Religion & Ethics column (via ABC).[8]

Collective Shout

Main article: Collective Shout

In 2008,[4]: 84  Tankard Reist co-founded Collective Shout, which self-describes as "a grassroots movement against the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising and popular culture."[9] She is also the director of the organisation.[10]

Collective Shout has run campaigns against the child sex abuse dolls,[11] games with themes of sexual violence,[12][13] and sexualized children's clothing and other sexualization of children.[14] The group rose to prominence in 2025 after successfully persuading payment platforms to pressure the digital distribution platforms Steam and Itch.io to remove games with themes of rape, incest, and sexual abuse. Collective Shout has been described as an anti-porn lobbying group by The Guardian, Le Monde and other news outlets;[10][15][16][17] as well as specialized gaming and LGBTQ+ news outlets.[9][18][19][20]

Views

Tankard Reist describes herself as "an advocate for women and girls" and a "pro-life feminist",[2][3][4]: 84  although at other times she has demurred from her feminist identity, saying in response to a question during a 2012 interview with Rachel Hills, "Call me whatever the hell you want, I don't care".[4]: 85  Her description as a feminist has drawn criticism from several feminist authors and academics.[4]: 94  She identifies as a conservative Christian.[4]: 85 

Writings

  • Tankard Reist, Melinda, ed. (2000), Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion, Duffy & Snellgrove, ISBN 978-1-875989-67-6
  • Tankard Reist, Melinda, ed. (2006), Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics, Spinifex Press, ISBN 978-1-74219-048-8[21]
  • Tankard Reist, Melinda, ed. (2009), Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls, Spinifex Press, ISBN 978-1-876756-75-8
  • Tankard Reist, Melinda; Bray, Abigail, eds. (2011), Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry, Spinifex Press, ISBN 978-1-876756-89-5
  • Norma, Caroline; Tankard Reist, Melinda, eds. (2016), Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, Spinifex Press, ISBN 978-1-74219-986-3

See also

References

  1. ^ Who's Who in Australia. ConnectWeb. 2021.
  2. ^ a b "About Melinda". Melinda Tankard Reist. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  3. ^ a b c Hills, Rachel (8 January 2012). "Who's afraid of Melinda Tankard Reist?". The Age. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Gleeson, Kate (1 May 2013). "From Suck magazine to Corporate Paedophilia. Feminism and pornography — Remembering the Australian way". Women's Studies International Forum. 38: 83–96. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.02.012. ISSN 0277-5395.
  5. ^ "Panellist: Melinda Tankard Reist | Q&A | ABC TV". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  6. ^ Reist, Melinda Tankard Reist (9 February 2017). "Violence is the New Black: Fifty Shades of Abuse". Religion & Ethics (ABC). Archived from the original on 9 July 2024. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  7. ^ "Tankard Reist, Melinda at Trove Books". Trove. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  8. ^ Klein, Renate (24 January 2012). "The authentic feminism of Melinda Tankard Reist". Religion & Ethics (ABC). Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  9. ^ a b Litchfield, Ted (20 July 2025). "Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steam's new censorship rules in victory against 'porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists', and things only get weirder from there". PC Gamer. Retrieved 21 July 2025.
  10. ^ a b Taylor, Josh; reporter, Josh Taylor Technology (28 July 2025). "Mastercard and Visa face backlash after hundreds of adult games removed from online stores Steam and Itch.io". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
  11. ^ Molloy, Shannon (16 July 2020). "Disturbing child sex dolls, including anatomically correct babies, sold online in Australia by Alibaba".
  12. ^ "Open letter to payment processors profiting from rape, incest + child abuse games on Steam". 11 July 2025.
  13. ^ Poposki, Claudia (18 July 2025). "400 video games with rape, incest, child abuse pulled from Steam".
  14. ^ Tierney, Lelia (31 July 2025). "35 Facts About Collective Shout".
  15. ^ "Les plateformes itch.io et Steam censurent des milliers de jeux vidéo, sous la pression des prestataires de paiement". Le Monde (in French). 25 July 2025. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  16. ^ Adam, Kathryn (19 September 2015). "Zoo models express disappointment at the magazine's closure". news.com.au. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  17. ^ Ore, Jonathan (31 July 2025). "How an anti-porn lobby on payment processors censored thousands of video games". CBC. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  18. ^ Jupp, Lydia (31 July 2025). "Gaming Platforms Pull LGBTQ+ Titles After Campaign By Aussie Anti-Porn Group". Star Observer. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  19. ^ Riedel, Samantha (30 July 2025). "Payment Processors Are Pressuring Major Gaming Vendors to Pull LGBTQ+ and NSFW Titles". Them. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  20. ^ Hansford, Amelia (24 July 2025). "Itch.io to 'deindex' all NSFW games following pressure from anti-porn lobby group". PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  21. ^ Bogue, Edith (2007). "Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics, by Melinda Tankard Reist". The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. 7 (4): 848–851. doi:10.5840/ncbq20077423.
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