About Collective Shout Collective Shout is a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.

Collective Shout is for anyone concerned about the increasing pornification of culture and the way its messages have become entrenched in mainstream society, presenting distorted and dishonest ideas about women and girls, sexuality and relationships.

Since our launch in 2010, we have achieved many wins: billboards objectifying women pulled down, sexualised childrens clothing withdrawn from sale, sexually violent games banned, Andrew Tate’s pimping courses removed from Spotify, and an age verification trial underway to help protect kids from exposure to porn.

(Jul 29 2025, 10:18 AM)Persephone What do we know about these guys?

It's hard not to think of them as at least mildly based with everything going on rn (but that might just be my spite talking, I wanna see porn company revenue go down so bad) but I've heard some accusations that they supported Cuties back on release (???) and that the banwaves did not discriminate some games that were explicit but nothing close to porn.

Melinda Tankard Reist, “More girls in hell …”: The ethics of Maïmouna Doucouré’s film ‘Cuties’ Poor filming choices and the ensuing backlash has, in a whirlwind of accusations, collapsed what was intended as a work of protest into classification as a “porn” production.

(Jul 29 2025, 1:17 PM)Clover

(Jul 29 2025, 10:18 AM)Persephone What do we know about these guys?

It's hard not to think of them as at least mildly based with everything going on rn (but that might just be my spite talking, I wanna see porn company revenue go down so bad) but I've heard some accusations that they supported Cuties back on release (???) and that the banwaves did not discriminate some games that were explicit but nothing close to porn.

I saw some of those comments too but since I now know Reddit is biased to the point of spreading misinformation about this organization that I took it with a grain of salt. (For instance, they accused Collective Shout of being the reason the horror game "Mouthwashing" got removed, but later people pointed out that the game was removed months earlier for completely unrelated reasons. They also kept claiming "Detroit Become Human" was removed by this organization when, as of this post, it's still available for sale on Steam...)

I decided to do a bit of digging about the Cuties thing. I found this mangry article smearing them which brings it up: https://medium.com/@volkcolopatrion4/collective-shout-defended-the-child-exploitation-film-cuties-72195004572a

They are referring to a tweet from Collective Shout which shares an article written by Melinda Tankard Reist. This article also appears to have been shared by Nordic Model Now! as an "absolutely stunning analysis." Here is the article both these feminist organizations shared: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/melinda-tankard-reist-the-ethics-of-mignonnes-cuties/12718886

I started reading through the article and it actually seems quite thoughtful, even though I myself am not interested in or watched Cuties because of the unsettling themes, I do appreciate this woman's thoughtful analysis of it. The article author even stated herself:

Melinda Tankard Reist, “More girls in hell …”: The ethics of Maïmouna Doucouré’s film ‘Cuties’ Poor filming choices and the ensuing backlash has, in a whirlwind of accusations, collapsed what was intended as a work of protest into classification as a “porn” production.

If this sharing of this article on Twitter/X is the only instance of Collective Shout being tied to "supporting Cuties", then I consider it more malding by men upset that there are feminist organizations successfully removing creations that have generated profit off sexual violence against women.

From what I can tell so far, I'd classify this organization along those like WoLF or WDI — they seem to be trying to good for women and girls but they also might receive funding from right-wingers/conservatives merely because the left has largely abandoned women in favor of neoliberal commodification of women. This naturally leads to brogressives to smear them as conservative and such.

(Jul 29 2025, 10:18 AM)Persephone What do we know about these guys?

It's hard not to think of them as at least mildly based with everything going on rn (but that might just be my spite talking, I wanna see porn company revenue go down so bad) but I've heard some accusations that they supported Cuties back on release (???) and that the banwaves did not discriminate some games that were explicit but nothing close to porn.

(Jul 29 2025, 10:18 AM)Persephone What do we know about these guys?

It's hard not to think of them as at least mildly based with everything going on rn (but that might just be my spite talking, I wanna see porn company revenue go down so bad) but I've heard some accusations that they supported Cuties back on release (???) and that the banwaves did not discriminate some games that were explicit but nothing close to porn.

(Aug 2 2025, 10:30 PM)Impress Polly To add a little more in the way of specifics, as one who counts myself reasonably based, I think the more correct term to describe the ethos of at least Collective Shout's founding and current director, Melinda Tankard Reist, is conservative feminist. She describes herself as a "pro-life feminist" and is also the founding director of Women's Forum Australia, which is that country's analogy to America's Independent Women's Forum if you know anything about that. Collective Shout though is exclusively about challenging the sexual objectification of women and girls very broadly and she and they have also worked with multiple radical feminist organizations (e.g. CATW, Spinifex Press) on the anti-porn stuff. I like the crux of what they do a lot and their campaigns certainly draw in far more than just conservative women, as we've already seen elsewhere on this message board. In addition to their recent success in getting a bunch of rape games removed from Steam and Itch.io, they've also, for example, played a role in getting Andrew Tate's infamous Pimping Hoes Degree podcast removed from Spotify and are currently trying to get pornography banned on X, among other things. I like their audacity. Theirs is a kind of "conservative" cause I think I can support!

Since they refuse to acknowledge the existence of patriarchy and romanticize heterosexual marriage and motherhood, conservative feminists can be frustrating sometimes to the point that their sincerity of purpose comes into question. There are sincerely feminist ones though and I feel that Reist, in her own way, is one of those, alongside offbeat thinkers like Louise Perry and Marry Harrington and my country's women's sports activist Riley Gaines. Some things you can work with women like them on, others not, sorta like with libfem organizations. Conservative feminism for the most part is like concerned mom feminism basically and that's not always a bad thing. Certainly not in this case.

(Aug 3 2025, 2:03 PM)Clover Thanks, Impress Polly, I appreciate the deep dive. 🙏