Melinda Tankard Reist

Melinda Tankard Reist (born 23 September 1963) is an Australian writer, speaker, blogger and media commentator. Tankard Reist describes herself as "an advocate for women and girls" and "pro-life feminist". Her website also states that "She is well known for her work on the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls and working to address violence against women."

Tankard Reist was born in Mildura, Victoria. She completed secondary schooling at Mildura High School and studied journalism at RMIT before taking up a cadetship at the Sunraysia Daily where she worked from 1983 to 1987. As a recipient of a Rotary Foundation Scholarship, she studied journalism at the California State University, Long Beach in 1987 and 1988.

On her return to Australia, Tankard Reist was a freelance contributor to newspapers and to ABC radio. From 1991 to 1993 she lived in South East Asia and was engaged in voluntary aid work including caring for infants with disabilities relinquished for adoption. On her return to Australia she took up a position as an advisor to independent Senator Brian Harradine from 1993 to 2005. Tankard Reist was on the founding committee of Karinya House for Mothers and Babies, a supported accommodation and outreach service to women pregnant without support, and Erin House, transitional housing for women post-birth. She was involved with independent women’s think tank Women’s Forum Australia from 2005 to 2009. She has also worked as a consultant to NGOs whose focus is on addressing global poverty, including World Vision Australiafrom 2005-2008, engaged in the development of WVA’s Don’t Trade Lives campaign. In 2009 she co-founded Collective Shout for a World Free of Sexploitation, a grassroots campaigning movement which targets advertisers, corporations and marketers which objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services. She is also a member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia.

Writing

Tankard Reist is a contributing editor of four books: 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) and, with Abigail Bray, Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry (Spinifex Press, 2011).

Executive management

Tankard Reist is the founding director of Women’s Forum Australia which describes itself as being " an independent women’s think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy development about social, economic, health and cultural issues affecting women."