Hatefilled Clementine Ford

In a brilliant column recently published in The Australian, Henry Ergas summed up 2023 as "the year of living angrily."

Describing the successive waves of outrage and hatred dominating the year's public discourse, he made the point that the Greeks believed rage differed fundamentally from ordinary anger: "anger had a defined focus; rage, a sign of fury at the world, was labile, readily shifting from one object to another."

"Characteristic of personal immaturity, it was by its nature opportunistic, rushing to the target of the moment, like a child rushing to a new toy," he explained.

One of Australia's greatest haters has a new toy. For nearly two decades, feminist Clementine Ford has been spewing out her hatred of men. Now she has revealed herself to be also a zealous anti-Zionist who is stirring up her quarter of a million followers to attack Jewish women on social media.

She started her man-hating campaign in media appearances back in 2007 but attracted widespread public attention in 2015 due to her infamous tweet saying simply: "Kill all men."

From then on, she was regularly promoting outrage with her anti-male views. In 2017, she signed a fan's book with the words, "Have you killed any men today? And if not, why not?"

In 2020, complaints were made about a funding grant she was receiving from the Melbourne City Council after she posted a tweet stating, "Honestly, the corona virus isn't killing men fast enough." The Council continued to fund her.

During a public address made when her only child was a newborn, she introduced the following comment with loud gagging noises: "Euch. I have a male baby and it's just, all the time: Feed me! Pay attention to me! Engage me!" she said, before gagging again. "Euch. So boring."

In a review of Ford's new book, "I Don't: The Case Against Marriage," Antonella Gambotto-Burke sums up this whole history by concluding that Ford "displays a deep, sustained, and ugly rage against men, which she justifies as an appropriate reaction to misogyny."

"The degree of disgust she expresses for men is more than disturbing: it should be illegal," concludes Gambotto-Burke.

Of course, Ford is a provocateur, deliberately posting outrageous comments to attract more followers. But the real worry is that Ford already attracts a massive audience, with her vile attacks on men clearly appealing to the young women indoctrinated in our anti-male school and university systems. She's been offered a steady stream of media jobs, regular public appearances, all manner of prestigious and lucrative gigs.

There has been the odd set-back, with periodic suspensions of her social media accounts. In 2018 nearly 15,000 people signed a petition objecting to her appearance at a Lifeline event to raise money for suicide awareness. In the end, Lifeline wimped out – instead of ditching Ford they cancelled the whole event.

But now that Ford has stirred up a real hornet's nest with her foul attacks on Jewish women, let's hope this time she has bitten off more than she can chew.

Like many prominent feminists across the world, Ford was utterly silent about the October 7 attacks by Hamas, despite plenty of evidence of rape, including mass rape so brutal that they broke the pelvises of their victims - including elderly women and children.

Recently the New York Times published the results of an intensive investigation of the pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality of women in the attack on Israel – containing truly horrifying revelations.

Having posted not one word about the October 7 rapes, Ford soon started posting anti-Israel rants, including a bizarre missive to "Zionist women" where she attacked them for being upset that their "bloodlust" against Hamas wasn't being supported. "I don't care that you felt betrayed or let down, and I especially don't care that you want to have a big crybaby rant ... You're pathetic, you disgust me, and I pity you for being so basic and gross that you think others should cheer on the murder of thousands just to make you feel better".

She calls them "enthusiastic supporters of a murderous regime that has been killing children for over 70 years because YOU want to believe YOUR colonising is somehow different."

The fact that Ford spent much of her childhood in Oman may have something to do with her biased view of Middle Eastern history, but her ignorant attacks are most bizarre. Like her claim that Jewish women are "white" and exaggerating their concerns about antisemitism.

Ford's very public attacks on Australian Jewish women come at a time when the world has been stunned by the pro-Palestinian crowd chanting "Gas the Jews" at the Opera House, and Israel has issued travel warnings for Israeli citizens visiting Australia due to rising levels of antisemitism.

But Ford has doubled down. After a petition calling on Ford's publisher to sever ties with the author attracted over 3,000 signatures, Ford responded by publishing the names of some of the signatories on her social media which meant they came under ferocious attack from Ford's fans - their businesses were targeted, they received worrying personal attacks, including threats to their children.

Yet the publisher, Allen and Unwin, continues to support Ford, despite claiming that "as publishers, we refuse to publish material that is hate-based, antisemitic or in breach of Australia's racial discrimination laws." Huh, both Jew and male hatred somehow slips through the cracks here.

There's been one recent win – Nova Radio has just cancelled Ford's Dear Clementine podcast after two years with the network, so that's something.

Yet last week she announced she'd received funding from the government-funded ScreenNSW for her new TV project, 'Smile B**ch' – a "dark comedy about one woman executing her revenge against the men who have wronged her." Just what we need to promote harmony between the sexes in 2024.

Many are now protesting to ScreenNSW objecting to the use of tax-payers money for her latest male-bashing exercise. Anyone attacked by her on social media needs to report her to the platform and then make a complaint to the eSafety Commission, which is required to tackle online hate relating to race, religion or gender – both her antisemitic and male-hating posts should fall into their bailiwick.

Let's start the New Year by working to rein in this woman's divisive bile.