Melinda Tankard Reist

Author, Speaker & Advocate

Melinda Tankard Reist is an author, speaker, blogger and advocate for young people. She is best known for her work addressing sexualization, objectification, harms of pornography, sexual exploitation, trafficking and violence against women. Melinda is author/editor of seven books including Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualization of Girls (2009), Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry (2011, co-edited with Dr Abigail Bray) and Prostitution Narratives: Stories of survival in the sex trade (co-edited with Dr Caroline Norma).

An opinion writer and media commentator, Melinda has appeared on ABC’s Q&A and The Gruen Sessions as well as many other TV and radio programs. Melinda is co-founder and Movement Director of the grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, exposing corporations, advertisers and marketers who objectify women and sexualize girls to sell products and services. An Ambassador for World Vision Australia, Compassion Australia, HagarNZ and the youth mentoring body, The Raise Foundation, Melinda is also Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Culture and Ethics, Notre Dame University, Sydney. Melinda is named in the Who’s Who of Australian Women and the World Who’s Who of Women.