Clementine Ford is confronting the myth of the crazy cat lady

The stigmatisation of single women is nothing new. Feminist writer and broadcaster Clementine Ford has had it up to here with the diabolical lengths patriarchy has gone to in order to keep women under its eye. She’s armed with research – delving as far back as the European witch trials and through to the formation of the Western legal system. And she’s bringing the conversation to the Sydney Opera House for the All About Women Festival (Mar 11-13).

The best-selling author of the feminist manifestos Fight Like a Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, Ford has most recently written How We Love, a confessional memoir that explores love in its many forms. To anyone who has only given her work a passing glance, this new direction would feel like a huge detour from her earlier rallying cries. But you don’t have to dig too deep to see that Ford’s work is just as profoundly embedded with compassion as it is anger. And that anger and grief that she articulates is symbolic of the collective experiences of many women.

Why is society – and when I say society, I mean patriarchy – why are they so scared of women being left to our own devices?

The tradition of marriage is the latest topic in her firing line, and she’s bringing it to a festival of feminist ideas with which she has a enjoyed a long relationship. Arts and culture editor Alannah Maher had a chinwag with Clem before she takes to the soapbox. 

Clem, you’ve been involved with All About Women since it started 11 years ago. What is it like to look back on that time?

I'm very honoured and privileged, because it's such an amazing festival to be a part of, and it's evolving year after year. It's been really interesting to see the evolution of feminist discussion in the last ten years. You know, the 2000s, the aughts, were all about the backlash against feminism. It was very well planned and constructed, with newspaper articles asking ''Is feminism over?", which they've been printing for over 100 years. Since the evolution of the printing press they’ve asked that question: “What does it do for women? It just makes them unhappy!” 

So then when [feminism] resurged again at the beginning of the two-thousand-and-teens, it's totally fair to say that it had a very insular view. And it's been really interesting to see how it's evolved and expanded and moved beyond this idea of one particular kind of feminism, and who it's for. 

Chip Rolley [head of the Sydney Opera House Talks and Ideas team] has brought in three different people to co-curate the festival this year. There's Dr Amy Thunig, an Indigenous person who is also non-binary; there's Jane Caro, who is an older feminist; and then there's Jamila Rizvi, who is a cis feminist of colour. There's a good sort of cross section, I think. It's not just about who you invite to speak at the festival, it's also about the diversification of who is planning the festival. I think that that's been a really exciting development too, seeing what different ideas all those people will bring. 

How else have you seen the festival evolve? Personally, I've loved seeing it demonstrate a more expansive definition of women and including non-binary people in discussions about gender.

Totally. Look, I'm gonna say something that reveals my age here, but I hope younger readers really understand the spirit of what I'm trying to say – and that is that we have been so privileged, in the last ten years in particular, to be able to benefit from a really public conversation about trans identities. That just simply was not really happening in the mainstream. Not even in the arts, certainly not in the ’90s when I had just finished high school. 

I really feel like people who reject the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge and diversity and wisdom are closing themselves off. Just like JK Rowling, or Germaine Greer, who has even been a guest of the festival. Germaine Greer was an extraordinary contributor to the feminist movement in the 1970s, and she really did significantly change international conversations around feminism, and she individually liberated lots of women. She does have a legacy that shouldn't just be thrown away, but her refusal to challenge herself, and to accept that the movement doesn't belong to just her is obviously incredibly disappointing. And yet there are other people as well who demonstrate a willingness to evolve, and to learn from it to sit down... “Not all older feminists!”

_{Photograph: SOH/Mikki Gomez | Clementine Ford performs Love Sermon at All About Women 2022}

One of the panels you’re speaking on this year is Who Made Me a Spokesperson?. How do you navigate the pressure of being one of Australia's faces of feminism?

I was nervous when they asked me to do this panel. Because by the very nature of putting yourself forward to answer that question, you're acknowledging that some people at least do consider that you're a spokesperson. I'm not going to be deliberately obtuse. I know that there is a view amongst some people that either I do get too much of a platform, that I shouldn't have it, and I don't deserve it. And that's a fair critique, people are entitled to that view. And then there are other people who say things like, “Thank you for being our voice”, to which I'm like, I can't possibly be the voice of an endless amount of people. I have just one very specific experience. What they really mean is “Thank you for saying the things that I don't feel comfortable saying.” 

I don't care what men think about me, so that makes the job a lot easier. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about and researching these things, so I do feel like I can articulate an argument that's based on facts. It doesn't mean that I'm always right, but I can at least think through a process. 

Your talk Spinster has strong ties with your next book, A Case Against Marriage, which is due out in October. Can you tell me about the themes you’re exploring here, and what inspired you to dive into them?

My friend, she's also a researcher on the book, said to me, “You want sex without love, and love without sex”. Because I have a lot of really deep, intimate, platonic relationships with people that aren't – they're not really just friendship, but also, they never cross over into sex, because that would ruin it. And then there’s people who you might have sex with, who you're like, I could never go deeper with you emotionally because that would be like slitting myself open. 

So I just realised that I don't conform to that thing, that women in particular, we've always been told – which is that you grow up, you find someone to love, preferably a man according to society, and you have to conform to this monogamous sort of structure where you are a nuclear family. I think that we should talk more about the incredible capacity for different kinds of relationships. 

You could be equally happy not with a person. By like, doing a lot of travel, or living by yourself and having chickens, or writing books or whatever. Like, the goal shouldn't be to find a person to make you happy, it should be to find who you are, and do what makes them happy. 

Why is society – and when I say society, I mean patriarchy – why are they so scared of women being left to our own devices? I mean, I know the answer to that and I'm sure you do as well, but it's really baffling that a single woman incites so much rage in men. It can’t be that you care about women’s happiness. Because there are things that we're telling you that we need to be happier, and you laugh them off, or you ridicule us, or you tell us that we're making them up. Like, I think a lot of us would be happy being able to walk on the street at night safely. But you don't want to talk about that. Instead, you want to pretend that your concern about our welfare is whether or not we are 50 years old and living in a house by ourselves. That's about your needs, my friend.

_{Photograph: SOH/Prudence Upton | Clementine Ford speaks on a panel at FODI 2015}

What would you say to a younger Clementine Ford? Is there anything you'd do differently?

I can't say that I would do anything differently. And that's not because I haven't made mistakes, but because even the mistakes you make are a good invitation to reflect on what kind of person you want to be. When you have fucked up, either in personal or professional ways, you can use it as an opportunity to be better next time, rather than just hiding behind your own indignation of being held to account. 

What do you like to get up to when you’re visiting Sydney? 

I find Sydney quite intimidating because I don't understand the public transport system. When you live here [in Melbourne], you get very used to everything kind of being set on a grid. I've got a really beautiful extended family and lots of amazing, outspoken, powerful women there [in Sydney] who are great to be around. I also like to go to the McIver’s Ladies Baths. Basically anywhere you can submerge yourself in water is amazing. 

Clementine Ford is a guest speaker at All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House (Mar 11-13, 2023). She is speaking on the panel Who Made Me a Spokesperson? (Sun Mar 12, 2.15-3.15pm) and delivering the talk Spinster (Sun Mar 12, 6-7pm). 

You can also keep an eye out for an appearance with Libby Donovan at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May. 

She is the host of the weekly Dear Clementine podcast on the Nova podcast network, where she answers anonymous questions about life, work, family, relationships, and more.