Page last updated 17/12/2025.
Disclaimer: no guarantees of factual accuracy. Some claims are based on best evidence.
Since the start of 2024, the Monash Student Association has been run by the Change ticket. Before that it was run by the Together ticket.
Everybody agrees that there are two separate issues when looking at the misogyny article - misogyny on the one hand, and censorship and defamation on the other.
First, read The State of Misogyny in the MSA. A condensed and edited version has been published by the University of Melbourne’s Farrago and the University of Sydney’s Honi Soit.
Grace, interviewer and author of the misogyny article, was a 2024 MSA Women’s Affairs Committee member elected on the Together ticket and the unsuccessful Elevate candidate for MSA Secretary in the 2024 MSA elections. From the start of 2025 she has run Not-So-Shrinking Violet - an Instagram page and a series of pieces in Lot’s Wife, the MSA student magazine, covering women’s issues and feminism. She lives with a 2025 Women’s Officer and a 2025 Lot’s Wife Editor.
Individuals named as interviewees in the misogyny article include another 2025 Lot’s Wife Editor and the 2024-2025 Disabilities & Carers Officer.
The members of the MSA Executive at the time of the misogyny article’s writing and release, all linked to Change, include the 2026 National Union of Students President, a 2026 Lot’s Wife Editor (currently Treasurer since July), the 2026 MSA Secretary (currently General Representative) and the 2025-2026 Clubs & Societies President.
In the past, the Lot’s Wife Editors were able to directly consult with the MSA lawyer for advice on potential defamation. The experience of an MSA office bearer who submitted to Lot’s Wife in the past was that passages that were potentially defamatory would be identified and could be amended to resubmit in consultation with the Lot’s Wife Editors. MSA Executive members contend that this was the first case of its kind.
At the end of August, Grace emailed the directly elected members of the MSA Executive - the President, Treasurer and Secretary - notifying them that she was planning the misogyny article and inviting comment. Grace received no direct reply to this email. In separate correspondence with the MSA President Sasha, Grace indicated that she would welcome advice on avoiding potential defamation to ensure that the article could be published.
Having been made aware of a potentially defamatory upcoming article about the MSA and individuals in the MSA, and given the reluctance of the Lot’s Wife Editors to cooperate with them, the MSA Executive demanded that the Lot’s Wife Editors forward Grace’s imminent submission to them for review. The MSA Executive kept exclusive access to the MSA lawyer.
In early September, a week after the advertised submission deadline for edition 6 had passed, Grace emailed a first draft to the Lot’s Wife Editors requesting that it be shared with the MSA Executive to see if an article could be published in some form. The MSA Executive emailed it to the MSA lawyer who advised simply, one day before edition 6 was to go to print, that the draft was potentially defamatory and that the MSA Executive would have grounds under the MSA Constitution to direct the Lot’s Wife Editors to not include it. Consequently, the MSA Executive voted to ban the Lot’s Wife Editors from publishing the article.
Since sending the draft, Grace edited the article to remove content that she thought could be potentially defamatory. After the rejection of the first draft by the MSA Executive, she made no further attempts to submit the article to Lot’s Wife. Instead, it was submitted to other student newspapers at different universities.
In Radwife, the sixth Lot’s Wife issue of 2025, redaction bars take the place of the article. Separately for this edition, Radio Monash recorded Rad Wife - Aish and Georgie Chat Student Media. In the interview Aishwariya (a Lot’s Wife Editor and one of the students interviewed for the misogyny article) and Georgie (Radio Monash President) cover a lot of ground, but among the topics discussed are censorship and misogyny.
A Monash Student Council meeting was scheduled for early October. Two days before, an agenda was circulated to MSC members and subscribers, in which item F was confidential and available only to MSC members to be discussed in camera (with no non-MSC members permitted to observe). On the day of the meeting, a final agenda was circulated without any confidential sections. The final agenda was available to only MSC members before the meeting.
Item F in the final agenda, titled Lot’s Wife Article, contained 3 motions:
Preamble:
In late August of 2025, student writer and advocate Grace Binns wrote to the MSA Executive to give notice of her intention to write an article investigating the state of misogyny in the MSA for publication in the final edition of Lot’s Wife for 2025. In the absence of a reply, Grace proceeded to research and write the piece, submitting it prior to the Lot’s Wife deadline, only to be advised that the article was not permitted to go to print. Pursuant to clause 34 (9)(c) of the MSA Constitution, the MSA Executive had directed Lot’s Wife to not publish the piece on account of legal advice that had been received that it could be ‘potentially defamatory’. Grace received no direct communication from the MSA Executive regarding the legal advice or the decision made. She was not advised by the Executive at any stage as to how the piece was potentially defamatory, who it was potentially defaming, or how it could be amended in order to ensure its inclusion in the final edition of Lot’s Wife.
This decision by the MSA Executive represents an alarming infringement on the independence of student media at Monash, a concerning aversion to criticism, and a reluctance to acknowledge and address the impact of systemic misogyny on the experiences of women within the MSA.
Motion #4:
This MSC:
- Condemns the decision of the MSA Executive to suppress the article by Grace Binns in question, particularly without explanation or consultation.
- Affirms the importance of a free, independent, and thriving body of student media at Monash University in highlighting social, political, and personal issues that interest the student body.
Preamble:
Misogyny is a systemic issue that is pervasive in all institutions, and the MSA is no exception. It is gravely important that the MSA not only affirms the lived experiences of women, but actively works to combat an issue that is so deeply entrenched in its culture. As such, to deny the publishing of the article is to deny the experiences of women in the MSA and their encounters with sexism. As Monash’s largest student advocacy body, passive performance is not enough – the MSA should feel both morally and socially obligated to actively work against the perpetuation of misogynist attitudes, in order to ensure all student representatives can enjoy a healthy and dynamic working culture that promotes empathy, growth, and authenticity.
Fundamental to combatting misogyny is the understanding that it does not solely manifest as overt declarations of gendered prejudice, but also through more insidious behaviours such as manipulation and intimidation that perpetuate traditional conceptions of masculinity as a means to dominance. By challenging misogyny, we recognise that true leadership does not necessitate power-hungry bulldozing; by challenging misogyny, we affirm that leadership can instead be guided by kindness, empathy, and understanding; by challenging misogyny, we ensure that the MSA always aspires to be a place where all can feel safe, welcome, and supported.
Motion #5:
This MSC:
- Formally acknowledges that misogyny occurs within the MSA, and recognises the varied and intersectional lived experiences of women and gender diverse people who have had to navigate a misogynistic culture in the MSA, both historically and contemporarily.
- Commits the MSA to upholding and enhancing existing structures for the promotion of gender based equality, and acknowledges the current systemic failings that have enabled the perpetuation of misogyny in the MSA.
Motion #6:
This MSC:
- Commits to undertaking an institutional review of gender based equality in the MSA.
- Asks that this review be undertaken by the sitting and future Women’s OBs, in conjunction with the MSA executive, and appropriate, independent professionals.
- Requests that the review begin with a period of consultation and assessment of current organisational culture prior to the end of 2025, and involve the establishment of a working group to publicly present deliverable actions and suggested reforms by April 2026.
Just before the meeting, Grace posted her (revised) article on Instagram.
The misogyny article motions were the first real item on the agenda. Before they could be debated, MSA Executive Divisional representative Jay moved to skip them. The MSC voted 12 to 11 to address the motions.
During the debate, a number of speakers asked to be directly quoted in the minutes under the MSC standing orders. The standing orders are understood to allow, but not mandate, that minutes include direct quotations on request.
Read Lot’s Wife’s live coverage of the debate (view thread without an account).
The MSC chair Sasha closed debate on the first motion after 50 minutes, with a few people left on the speaking list. MSA Secretary Felix moved that all three motions be voted en bloc, in a single vote rather than separately as originally submitted. This procedural was agreed to with 12 votes in favour and 11 against. Debate was not reopened, so the latter two motions were voted on as part of the bloc without being discussed.
The vote was conducted with 23 MSC members and proxies present besides the chair. The first vote by show of hands was declared 11 in favour, 11 against and 2 abstentions, with Sasha casting the tiebreaking vote against. A recount was declared 11 in favour, 11 against and 2 abstentions, with Sasha casting the tiebreaking vote against. Supporters of the motions discovered that the total both times was 24, more than the 23 votes that there were supposed to be.
After some argument, a physical division was called. Returning 11 votes in favour, 10 against and 2 abstentions, the 3 motions passed.
The following are more or less agreed:
An article should have been published. It is a failure that the article has not yet been published by Lot’s Wife. There are a number of intersecting reasons that combined for this outcome, possibly including some structural reasons. Nevertheless, the whole episode gives the appearance that the prospects of the article’s publication were not helped by the embarrassment that the article could cause to the MSA Executive. Indeed, some MSA members contend that the article was conceived to embarrass the MSA and specific powerful current or former Change student politicians.
None of the students, not even the law students, are lawyers or qualified to advise on defamation. It would not have been appropriate for the MSA Executive or its members to directly give legal advice on defamation or how to avoid it.
It is impossible to really capture what happens, or appears to happen, in MSC meetings. If you have the time and want to know what happens at MSC, I encourage you to observe live on campus or virtually rather than just reading Lot’s Wife or my accounts.
The MSA Executive never shares legal advice that it says it receives with relevant parties or the Monash Student Council. It could, and members of the MSA Executive often express a personal willingness to agree to do so, but it never does. So there is nothing unusual about them not sharing the legal advice in this case. There would be a problem if the MSA Executive was misrepresenting legal advice.
The MSA is a notoriously opaque organisation (even to some of its MSC directors) with an institutional attitude to student reporters that is often obstructive, alongside a general reluctance under this administration to engage with the media. In one instance, I had a favourable outcome delivered verbally in an unrelated chance meeting half a year after asking, and never received any official or written communication. In some ways, the MSA is more open as a stranger.
Lot’s Wife itself, its Editors and its reporters are an institution that is highly politicised and enmeshed in the internal politics of the MSA, with its Editors invariably elected as part of the ticket that wins overall control of the MSA - the student union that Lot’s Wife is meant to hold to account. In particular, since Change won election to the MSA, the Lot’s Wife Editors have come from a faction of the Labor Left. The social, political and constitutional reality is that Lot’s Wife cannot be considered to be independent media in the current situation, regardless of the overt censorship exercised by the MSA Executive this year.
Accepting that Lot’s Wife is currently irredeemably compromised, the Editors over the past two years have made great improvements to its non-creative output, especially in the sphere of local student politics. It is the one student media publication that relatively consistently and seriously covers the Monash Student Council through its live tweeting and articles in its papers, in the absence of any speedy release of official minutes. Under these Editors, student politicians and activists from various groups and factions have contributed their voices to the paper. At the 2025 National Union of Students National Conference, Lot’s Wife journalists provided among the best and most comprehensive coverage out of student media organisations across the nation. It could be argued that Lot’s Wife and its student politics coverage have benefited from its factional connections.
The point is that Lot’s Wife is not independent and was not before the MSA misogyny article. The question is really about Lot’s Wife as free - and thriving - media.