Melinda Tankard Reist
Encyclopedia
Melinda Tankard Reist is an Australian author and blogger, notable for her activism against abortionand her stance against the sexualisation
of modern pop culture.
Tankard Reist is the Founding Director of Women’s Forum Australia which used to describe itself as "pro-woman, pro-life" but now describes itself as "an independent women’s think-tank focusing on research, education and public policy to bring about positive changes for women." The source of WFA's funding is unknown.
Tankard Reist is founding director of the Collective Shout: For a world free of sexploitation campaign that "names and shames corporations, advertisers and marketers who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services."
feminist." Pro-life feminism's basic tenant, Melinda told The Melbourne Age on 12 April 1989, "is that women cannot liberate themselves by aborting their babies; that society, not the woman, needs to be reconstructed [...] [L]ife feminists view abortion as part of the oppression of women.
Tankard Reist has links with Australia's Right to Life Association
. and Endeavour Forum, which promotes the claim that induced abortion causes breast cancer. For instance, Tankard Reist was invited to speak at EF's July 1997 public meeting, an event reported in the Endeavour Forum newsletter of that month on pages 1 and 12, in which the self-styled feminist is described as "Mrs" Tankard Reist. She attends the Belconnen Baptist Church, Canberra.
Tankard Reist's first book was Giving Sorrow Words: Women's stories of grief after abortion (2000), a collection of stories solicited from women who experienced grief after abortion. Tankard Reist has no research qualifications and her sampling methods for this book preclude it being interpreted as a wider comment on the prevalence or nature of the phenomenon of post-abortion grief. Tankard Reist quotes Germaine Greer
from the whole woman to support her claim that women do not freely choose abortion, and refers women for "help" to pro-life information and counseling agencies like the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services, American Victims of Abortion and Open Doors.
In Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics (2006) Tankard Reist puts forward her opposition to pregnant women having choice about testing their pregnancy for genetic conditions - tests that could lead to abortions. The book lauds women who have chosen to continue their pregnancies despite negative fetal diagnoses.
Tankard Reist is also the editor of Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (2009) and co-edited Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Porn Industry
with Abigail Bray (2011). In Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (2009), Tankard Reist argues that pornification of everyday life results in consequences ranging from a decrease in the average age of eating disorders to increased violence against women and children despite lacking research qualifications to draw such conclusions. In addition to introducing several authors on the topic, Tankard Reist calls for a 're-personalisation of girls -and women-...' and notes the same applies to boys (p32).
Tankard Reist has contributed a chapter each to the Spinifex Press edited by Jan Fook and Renate Klein (Australia's oldest "pro-life feminist": "Jazza, Monte, Ripper and Little Dog" in Girl's best friend: the Meaning of Dogs in Women's Lives (2001); "The Mother Cats in Cat Tales" in The Meaning of Cats in Women's Lives; and "Kimberley Moonbeam the Fourth" in HorseDreams: The Meaning of Horses in Women's Lives (2004).
China For Women: Travel and Culture edited by Anna Gertslacher & Margit Miosga and published by Spinfiex Press also has a chapter contributed by Tankard Reist. According the to Amazon editorial review of the book: 'Chapters survey history and politics, consider contemporary life and women's issues, and depict Chinese women past and present...'
Spinifex Press, a feminist press and Tankard Reist's publisher, has been criticised for publishing the work of a pro-life activist. However, this criticism misunderstands that Spinifex has long been sympathetic to both pro-life and authoritarian feminist views (One of its authors/editors is Renate Klein, is Australia's longest serving pro-life feminists and an active opponent of RU486). It is thus an entirely suitable home for Tankard Reist's work.
"to act as a counterbalance to the intolerance and bigotry of the Religious Right', hosts a lengthy page on Melinda Tankard Reist attributed to Brian Baxter. It describes Tankard Reist's 12 year position as bioethics
advisor to Senator Brian Harradine
(the longest serving Senator in Australian Federal politics and an extreme social conservative). The period of her employment as "bioethics" advisor covered the years in which Harradine successfully banned, and fought to maintain the ban, on RU486 or mifepristone, sometimes described as the 'abortion pill'. Tankard Reist has no undergraduate or post-graduate qualifications in bioethics (medical ethics) or philosophy.
The ban, a restriction on the importation and marketing of RU486, was specified in a 1996 amendment to the Therapeutic Drugs Act which came to be known as the Harradine amendment. It included a prohibition on "the importation into Australia of any restricted goods without the written approval of the [Health] Minister'.. The Harradine amendment was removed from the TGA Act in 2006, after a cross-party bill (co-sponsored by Senators Lyn Allison
(Dems), Judith Troeth (Libs), Fiona Nash (Nats) and Claire Moore (Labor) was put to a conscience vote and achieved the overwhelming support of the Australian Parliament.
Later that year, Tankard Reist became active in opposing the Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005, which would have required pro-life pregnancy counselling agencies to refrain from deceptive and misleading advertising that did not make clear to women they would not refer for abortion. The legislation, co-sponsored by Natasha Stott-Despoja (Dems), Carol Brown (Labor), Kerry Nettle (Greens) and Judith Troeth (Libs) was never voted on. Tankard Reist argued against the bill in an individual submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiring into the bill, and was a key figure in Women's Forum Australia, which also made a submission opposed to the bill's passage.
After Harradine lost his seat, Melinda co-founded Women's Forum Australia with other highly religious women including Katrina George and Selena Ewing who have links to pro-life advocacy organisations, religious "think-tanks" like the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute and Opus Dei.
Sexualization
The definition of the term, Sexualization has been the subject of debate and dispute. It has been described as the act or process of sexualizing. It refers to the making of a person, group or thing to be seen as sexual in nature or a person to become aware of sexuality...
of modern pop culture.
Tankard Reist is the Founding Director of Women’s Forum Australia which used to describe itself as "pro-woman, pro-life" but now describes itself as "an independent women’s think-tank focusing on research, education and public policy to bring about positive changes for women." The source of WFA's funding is unknown.
Tankard Reist is founding director of the Collective Shout: For a world free of sexploitation campaign that "names and shames corporations, advertisers and marketers who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services."
Standpoint
Melinda Tankard Reist describes herself as a "pro-lifePro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
feminist." Pro-life feminism's basic tenant, Melinda told The Melbourne Age on 12 April 1989, "is that women cannot liberate themselves by aborting their babies; that society, not the woman, needs to be reconstructed [...] [L]ife feminists view abortion as part of the oppression of women.
Tankard Reist has links with Australia's Right to Life Association
Right to Life Australia
Right to Life Australia is an organisation which advocates pro-life positions in issues such as abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research.Right to Life was started in 1973 by Margaret Tighe as Right to Life Victoria...
. and Endeavour Forum, which promotes the claim that induced abortion causes breast cancer. For instance, Tankard Reist was invited to speak at EF's July 1997 public meeting, an event reported in the Endeavour Forum newsletter of that month on pages 1 and 12, in which the self-styled feminist is described as "Mrs" Tankard Reist. She attends the Belconnen Baptist Church, Canberra.
Tankard Reist's first book was Giving Sorrow Words: Women's stories of grief after abortion (2000), a collection of stories solicited from women who experienced grief after abortion. Tankard Reist has no research qualifications and her sampling methods for this book preclude it being interpreted as a wider comment on the prevalence or nature of the phenomenon of post-abortion grief. Tankard Reist quotes Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
from the whole woman to support her claim that women do not freely choose abortion, and refers women for "help" to pro-life information and counseling agencies like the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services, American Victims of Abortion and Open Doors.
In Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics (2006) Tankard Reist puts forward her opposition to pregnant women having choice about testing their pregnancy for genetic conditions - tests that could lead to abortions. The book lauds women who have chosen to continue their pregnancies despite negative fetal diagnoses.
Tankard Reist is also the editor of Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (2009) and co-edited Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Porn Industry
with Abigail Bray (2011). In Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (2009), Tankard Reist argues that pornification of everyday life results in consequences ranging from a decrease in the average age of eating disorders to increased violence against women and children despite lacking research qualifications to draw such conclusions. In addition to introducing several authors on the topic, Tankard Reist calls for a 're-personalisation of girls -and women-...' and notes the same applies to boys (p32).
Tankard Reist has contributed a chapter each to the Spinifex Press edited by Jan Fook and Renate Klein (Australia's oldest "pro-life feminist": "Jazza, Monte, Ripper and Little Dog" in Girl's best friend: the Meaning of Dogs in Women's Lives (2001); "The Mother Cats in Cat Tales" in The Meaning of Cats in Women's Lives; and "Kimberley Moonbeam the Fourth" in HorseDreams: The Meaning of Horses in Women's Lives (2004).
China For Women: Travel and Culture edited by Anna Gertslacher & Margit Miosga and published by Spinfiex Press also has a chapter contributed by Tankard Reist. According the to Amazon editorial review of the book: 'Chapters survey history and politics, consider contemporary life and women's issues, and depict Chinese women past and present...'
Spinifex Press, a feminist press and Tankard Reist's publisher, has been criticised for publishing the work of a pro-life activist. However, this criticism misunderstands that Spinifex has long been sympathetic to both pro-life and authoritarian feminist views (One of its authors/editors is Renate Klein, is Australia's longest serving pro-life feminists and an active opponent of RU486). It is thus an entirely suitable home for Tankard Reist's work.
Activism
Unbelief.org, a site which describes its aims (in part)"to act as a counterbalance to the intolerance and bigotry of the Religious Right', hosts a lengthy page on Melinda Tankard Reist attributed to Brian Baxter. It describes Tankard Reist's 12 year position as bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
advisor to Senator Brian Harradine
Brian Harradine
Richard William Brian Harradine , Australian politician, was an independent member of the Australian Senate from 1975 to 2005, representing the state of Tasmania. He was the longest-serving independent federal politician in Australian history, and a Father of the Senate.He was born in Quorn, South...
(the longest serving Senator in Australian Federal politics and an extreme social conservative). The period of her employment as "bioethics" advisor covered the years in which Harradine successfully banned, and fought to maintain the ban, on RU486 or mifepristone, sometimes described as the 'abortion pill'. Tankard Reist has no undergraduate or post-graduate qualifications in bioethics (medical ethics) or philosophy.
The ban, a restriction on the importation and marketing of RU486, was specified in a 1996 amendment to the Therapeutic Drugs Act which came to be known as the Harradine amendment. It included a prohibition on "the importation into Australia of any restricted goods without the written approval of the [Health] Minister'.. The Harradine amendment was removed from the TGA Act in 2006, after a cross-party bill (co-sponsored by Senators Lyn Allison
Lyn Allison
Lynette Fay "Lyn" Allison is an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1996 to 2008, representing the state of Victoria. She was the last federal parliamentary leader of the Australian Democrats....
(Dems), Judith Troeth (Libs), Fiona Nash (Nats) and Claire Moore (Labor) was put to a conscience vote and achieved the overwhelming support of the Australian Parliament.
Later that year, Tankard Reist became active in opposing the Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005, which would have required pro-life pregnancy counselling agencies to refrain from deceptive and misleading advertising that did not make clear to women they would not refer for abortion. The legislation, co-sponsored by Natasha Stott-Despoja (Dems), Carol Brown (Labor), Kerry Nettle (Greens) and Judith Troeth (Libs) was never voted on. Tankard Reist argued against the bill in an individual submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiring into the bill, and was a key figure in Women's Forum Australia, which also made a submission opposed to the bill's passage.
After Harradine lost his seat, Melinda co-founded Women's Forum Australia with other highly religious women including Katrina George and Selena Ewing who have links to pro-life advocacy organisations, religious "think-tanks" like the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute and Opus Dei.