Clementine Ford is a name often raised when discussing women's rights in Australia, with a largely divided audience of fierce supporters and even fiercer critics of the social media personality.
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With gender equality and domestic violence hot topics around the globe and here in Wagga, the Wagga Women's Health Centre are bringing Ford to town on Wednesday to share her views.
The centre's Julie Mecham said now was the time to make a noise around the topic.
"Part of getting her here was about continuing the conversation on gender equity," she said.
"We need to look at the overall picture of domestic violence in our community, and domestic violence starts with gender inequality."
Ms Mecham said perpetuating these ideas in society, intentionally or not, is the root cause.
"It can start with something as simple as calling a sexist joke 'not funny'. Don't laugh along," she said.
"Whenever people laugh along with something as seemingly benign as a sexist joke, it starts to set up dialogues that this is how men should think, which then challenges men to think 'Maybe I should be a bit more like that', and that starts in the home too, at the parents knee, understanding what is fair and appropriate."
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Ford has been labelled as an 'extremist' and a 'man hater', but Ms Mecham said these comments overlooked her underlying message.
"While some of her comments may be called controversial, what we see is she's actually calling it what it is," she said.
"There is resistance from a few in the community saying you can't label 'all men like that', but we don't, and Clementine doesn't either- what she says is that all men play a role in changing how gender stereotypes and rigid views of gender make our community narrower.
"It keeps women in positions of danger, so it's important to open the conversation saying everyone plays a part in breaking that down and actively resisting those notions that women are able to be used, that women are less than, that women are not equal across society."
Aside from the controversy, Ms Mecham said she hopes the appearance of Ford will spark a movement for the better in Wagga and the wider society.
"Clementine will stimulate conversation, women will go back to friends, family, partners and children and say we criticise women in the media, we criticise our neighbours, we laugh at women's expense, and the end result is that women die," she said.
"We have to challenge the small things so having her come and talk will hopefully push that conversation, and really, any resistance to that will still stimulate the conversation."
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