‘Beyond sick of it’: Abbie Chatfield fires back at critics

Abbie Chatfield addresses the fallout from speaking out during the federal election campaign, saying she was a ‘scapegoat’ amid attacks from trolls.

Abbie Chatfield has addressed the controversies that erupted following her decision to speak out ahead of this year’s federal election — and how she is “often a scapegoat” to the “demeaning” and “deeply damaging” effects of being targeted by fellow feminists and far-right trolls.

Chatfield used her platform to speak out about politics and the recent federal election in May. An Australian Electoral Commission inquiry was raised after collaborative social media posts between Chatfield and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as well as former Greens leader Adam Bandt, were queried by Liberal Senator Jane Hume.

The AEC ultimately concluded that Chatfield’s posts did not require authorisation under electoral law.

Listen to the full interview with Abbie Chatfield on Something To Talk About:

Speaking to the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, Chatfield said: “The AEC stuff was a whole other level of, I believe, discrediting smaller voices, but also discrediting outspoken young women”.

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Abbie Chatfield is on the cover of today’s Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

“It seems that when women do more than one thing, they’re deemed as inept at all the things they do,” Chatfield told Something To Talk About, in a new episode released today.

“But when men do more than one thing it’s like, wow, he’s a footy player and he can read an autocue.

“The AEC thing made me feel really targeted. I feel I’m often a scapegoat because of how the media portrays me as being the spokesperson on things, and they go, ‘Oh, she’s talking again…’”

Chatfield also addressed recent criticisms lobbed at her by prominent writer and feminist Clementine Ford, who accused her of “profiting from the performance of being politically engaged” following an interview that Chatfield conducted with Albanese on her podcast.

Abbie Chatfield has addressed her recent controversies in a new interview with Stellar. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Clark

“I feel like I’m in the middle of stories like that all the time. So it’s kind of, unfortunately, my norm,” Chatfield told Something To Talk About.

“But it’s never enjoyable or pleasant. This idea that because I’m not doing things perfectly, that I’m an idiotic narcissist, I don’t know anything, I’m brain dead, I’m a deeply basic thinker – they’re just insults.

“It’s not actually critiquing my work.

For more from Abbie Chatfield, listen to the full interview on Something To Talk About:

“It was really hurtful because then after that, the right-wing comments came in saying, ‘Nothing better than a cat fight. Two feminists fighting. You can’t even agree with each other!’

“And it’s very demeaning. And that isn’t Clementine’s fault, but it is something that she should have considered, and that I have considered when I haven’t called her out for

things that I would say are deeply damaging.”

In the Stellar cover story and podcast episode released today, Chatfield also opens up about her personal life and relationship with boyfriend Adam Hyde, and why she is in a better place when it comes to her life outside of work

She issues a warning to women, saying they “shouldn’t date Trump supporters”.

Listen to the full interview with Abbie Chatfield on Something To Talk About now, and watch it here.

See the cover shoot with Abbie Chatfield in today’s Stellar via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA). For more from Stellar, click here.

Originally published as ‘Beyond sick of it’: Abbie Chatfield fires back at critics