Tag: Abbie Chatfield

Clementine Ford is a bully, and I’m calling it out. I believe in her voice and her voice matters – but so does the harm she’s causing.

And that’s hard to say because what she speaks about is important. Her voice is essential. She has contributed enormously to feminist discourse in Australia. Her words have shifted public conversations around gender, power, and violence. Her ideals are, for the most part, aligned with mine. I believe in her passion. I believe in many of her points. I believe she is often right, but I cannot excuse intimidation, bullying and harassment.

Because this isn’t about her beliefs. It’s about her behaviour.

Her platform isn’t being used for collective liberation, it’s being used to dominate. To shame. To punish difference, not just indifference. She doesn’t just disagree; she obliterates. She speaks with contempt. She controls the tone of the conversation through fear and superiority. And she has built a reputation that keeps people afraid to speak up, because they know what happens when you end up on her bad side.

That’s not activism. That’s not justice. That’s domination dressed in moral righteousness.

Her obsession with Abbie Chatfield has become disturbing. Abbie didn’t engage with the bullying. She didn’t retaliate or spiral into online warfare – she tried to keep her focus on her own work, in her own lane.

When I was critical of Clementine in a post she had shared about Abbie, she responded: “Your hero [Abbie] will survive being challenged, you may not be so robust.”

What. The. Actual. Fuck?!

Abbie – who is great, but let’s be real, she’s not exactly Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 – can survive being challenged. But that’s not what Clementine is doing. This isn’t intellectual discourse anymore. It’s grown into relentless public shaming across multiple platforms. Clementine is sitting on a moral throne and unleashing the trolls – knowingly fuelling the far-left to join with the far-right trolls who already threaten, abuse, and harass Abbie regularly.

Now Abbie, someone who has publicly shared her experiences with ADHD and trauma, has been triggered and pushed into what looks very familiar to me as an episode of ADHD overwhelm and/or a complex PTSD spiral – crying, pleading: “Leave me alone! Please don’t do this. Please don’t stop me and other people talking about Gaza!”

And you know what? Valid.

The emotion is valid. The overwhelm is valid. The fear is valid. Because what’s happening here isn’t feminist accountability – it’s cruelty in activist clothing. The way she’s being torn to shreds and dehumanised is, quite frankly, disgusting.

Abbie will, of course, be ridiculed for “not being accountable” or for “ignoring valid criticism” or “putting energy into this instead of stopping a Genocide” –  but that’s just textbook gaslighting. It reframes her explosive reaction as over-sensitivity or misguided hurt, instead of what it actually is: a human response to sustained personal ridicule, bullying, and harassment.

Is Abbie Chatfield perfect? No. None of us are. We shouldn’t have to be perfect to be treated with respect. Her imperfections do not justify obsession, endless ridicule, or public harassment. We have to hold space for imperfection within activism – or we create a climate where only the loudest, most aggressive voices survive – and they’re not always the most effective for change or recruiting allies.

Clementine is a black-and-white thinker. She seems to lack the one thing necessary for actual change: pragmatism. And this is the core issue.

When activism gatekeeps with intellectual elitism, it becomes inaccessible to some and alienating to many. When Clementine – or any intellectual – intimidates or shuts down anyone who doesn’t meet their bar or match their aggression, they climb up onto a moral pedestal (or petty-stool), and cut people down from it. It’s elitist bullying disguised as conviction. Yet it often silences the very people they claim to be ‘helping’ or ‘liberating.’

Sound familiar? It’s tyranny cloaked in activism.

When idealism burns so hot it scorches pragmatism, we risk losing the very change we claim to fight for. Her idealism is powerful, but power without care becomes control.

In our passion for justice, we can’t forget that pragmatism is what turns ideals into impact – not every path has to look the same to be moving forward.

We can disagree on tactics. We can approach the same cause from different angles. But if we abandon respect and turn on each other in the name of justice, we risk becoming aggressors ourselves – there’s room for different tactics without abuse.

Even I have been afraid to speak out about Clementine’s behaviour, me without a enormous platform. I do feel afraid that perhaps I won’t be so “robust” to “survive” a Clementine attack as she so curtly pointed out. I am vulnerable. I am a queer single mother, neuro-divergent, living with complex PTSD, and in active survival mode. I know how cruel and dehumanising her attacks can be, and I’ve watched how she goes after anyone who questions her methods. And still – my voice matters too and I believe it’s important to say something. Because until we name this behaviour, others will remain too scared to engage in activism at all.

There has to be space for people to use their privilege to speak about genocide, injustice, and harm – and to do so in ways they feel is safe for them and that they can sustain. It’s not accessible for everyone to march, shout, or perform public rage. Some are struggling to survive while resisting. Some don’t have higher education. Some are illiterate. Some can’t “read a book”. Some believe in other pragmatic ways of fighting systems that condone violence – or need to choose paths that feel safer, but not necessarily less effective.

This isn’t a takedown of feminism. It’s a call to protect it from the rot of ego and cruelty. We don’t all have to agree. But we do have to stop tolerating bullies just because they say the right things loudly. A politics that relies on cruelty isn’t justice. It’s just power, repackaged.