Clementine Ford vows to ‘curse’ men for donations in her new money-making venture

Feminist writer Clementine Ford has unveiled an ambitious plan to keep people paying for her controversial opinions.

Clementine Ford is not going down without a fight.

The controversial feminist columnist and author — who describes herself as “a professionally angry person” — quit her job in spectacular fashion this week, unleashing a foul-mouthed tirade at her former employer, Fairfax.

Unveiling her new plan to make a living via the membership subscription platform Patreon — the 38-year-old claimed she recently had her Fairfax columns halved which means her wages were also halved before she spectacularly quit.

Clementine Ford was a columnist for Fairfax for seven years.

However, she still wants to be paid for writing about “feminism, violence against women, misogyny, pop culture, parenting and mental health”, so has set up a page which allows feminists to “pledge” cash to fund her work.

On the page “Fight Like A Girl” she jokingly vowed to “curse 10 men” for every monthly $10 pledge donated to her new money-making venture.

On the Patreon page, she has described how tough it is to make a living from “producing feminist content that challenges and explores the world we live in.”

“The majority of media appearances I make on radio and TV are all unpaid,” she wrote. “I have written two successful books but making a liveable wage from books is actually very rare.

More than 700 patrons have pledged money to Ms Ford through the new scheme.

“As a freelancer, I have no sick leave, no holiday pay, no superannuation and no contract that provides me with stability. I say all that not to moan, but to puncture and (sic) illusions people seem to have about feminist work being an ingenious get-rich-quick scheme.”

She is now asking her fans to donate “as little as $1 a month” so she can keep her social media pages — which allegedly “boost(s) the work of other women and non binary voices” — going.

“I want to keep creating feminist content and running a free Facebook page and Twitter, but I also recognise that this work IS work,” she said.

“In order to keep doing those things effectively in this environment, I need to put a value on it — not just the hours required to produce the work, but the impact that its fallout also produces which is often abusive in nature.”

It comes after Ms Ford unleashed a social media diatribe against her former employer which ended with kiss emojis and the blunt farewell: “Bye Fairf***ed!”

The Wednesday night Twitter rant began with an out-of-the-blue message, in which Ford wrote: “Scott Morrison is a f***ing disgrace. Always has been, always will be.”

Australian feminist author and columnist Clementine Ford has come under fire for a series of tweets deconstructing her departure from Fairfax in relation to this tweet against Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Twitter

Clementine Ford’s online rant before quitting. Picture: Twitter

She continued: “Also, here’s some tea and I can spill it now that I have resigned from Fairfax: in September, they threatened to fire me because I had called transphobic Scott Morrison a ‘f***ing disgrace’ on Twitter and they said that new policy was we ‘didn’t disrespect the office of the PM’.

“I asked if it would be acceptable for me to call him ‘a disgrace’ instead and the person disciplining me said that they would need to check.”

Ms Ford alleged that Nine Newspapers new boss James Chessell was “protecting the Liberal brand” given he was once an adviser to former Treasurer Joe Hockey.

“I am not the only writer who’s had pieces knocked back that were critical of other news sources’ practices and elevating of bigotry. The reason? ‘We don’t criticise the competition.’ And this too, which I heard consistently over the last year or 2: ‘When they go low, we go high.’

“Fairfax is dead. That’s a fact.”

Ms Ford accused the Prime Minister of engaging in “transphobia bulls**t” and alleged she was reprimanded for disrespecting Mr Morrison.

Clementine Ford is no stranger to controversy.

“From what was translated to me, ffx were very concerned the Australian would write an article about it so needed to show some disciplinary action had been taken. Fine, give me 4 weeks paid leave, I said. Free $$$ woo!

“But on a more serious note (and as I said then), why are ffx allowing their policies to be dictated by a news source wholly unconnected with them? And why is the Prime Minister being protected from criticism by a supposedly independent news org?

“And you can say, well why didn’t you leave earlier? But the truth is, freelancers eat s**t for money for so long. We have no job security, no super, no sick pay, no leave and we learn to be grateful for what we get. Which ain’t much.”

Monique Farmer, life editor of the two newspapers, issued a statement following Ms Ford’s dummy spit.

“Clementine Ford has been a contributor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for the past seven years and we thank her for her work over that time.”