Melinda Tankard Reist is a Canberra author, speaker, commentator, blogger and advocate for women and girls.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) and the recently released Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (Spinifex Press, 2009), now in its second printing.Melinda’s commentary has been published and broadcast in Australia and overseas. She has appeared recently on ABC’s Q&A, Channel Seven’s ‘The Morning Show’, ABC 666 ‘Keynote Speakers’, ABC Melbourne ‘Jon Faine program’ and 2GB Drive, to name a few. 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. SpeakingMelinda 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. Melinda also consults on a range of issues of concern to women. See the testimonials section for some of the responses to recent addresses she has given.AdvocacyMelinda’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.CampaigningMelinda is one of the founders of a new grassroots campaigning movement “Collective Shout: For a world free of sexploitation“. Recently launched, Collective Shout names and shames corporations, advertisers and marketers who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services. Collective Shout has seen success with a number of recent campaigns against products which sexualise and commodify children.
