About Melinda

Melinda Tankard Reist is a Canberra author, speaker, media commentator, blogger and advocate for women and girls. She is well known for her work on the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls and working to address violence against women

Writing

 Melinda is author of Giving Sorrow Words: Women’s Stories of Grief After Abortion (Duffy&Snellgrove, 2000), Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics (Spinifex Press, 2006)  Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (Spinifex Press, 2009), now in its fourth printing and co-edited with Dr Abigail Bray, Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry (Spinifex Press, 2011).

Melinda’s commentary has been published and broadcast in Australia and overseas.  She has been a panellist on ABC’s Q&A, and is a regular on Channel 7′s Morning Show, along with rfrequent appearances on a range of television and radio programs. Melinda contributes regularly to online opinion sites including ABC The Drum Unleashed. She’s also editor of Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s  Magazines (WFA 2007). Melinda is named in Who’s Who of Women (Australia) and World Who’s Who of Women. 

Speaking

Melinda is in demand as a speaker in Australia and overseas, including for schools, conferences and youth events. Melinda has addressed intimate gatherings and audiences of 15,000. She the ‘Testimonials’ section of this site for responses to her presentations. Melinda also consults on a range of issues of concern to women.

Advocacy

Melinda’s advocacy for women and girls has included helping establish a supported accommodation and outreach service for women pregnant and without support, involvement in projects to address poverty, trafficking and sex slavery, and working to highlight and address the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in Australia and globally.

Melinda has worked with World Vision in the design of  its national anti-trafficking campaign and lent her support to other NGOs working to address the status of women globally. She has formed alliances with many international groups on these issues.

Campaigning

Melinda is one of the founders of a new grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout: for a world free of sexpolitation. Formed  at the end of 2009,  Collective Shout names and shames corporations, advertisers and marketers who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services.  Collective Shout has succeeded in campaigns against a number of major corporations.