8/10/2025
Grace Binns, Not So Shrinking Violet
CW: discussion of misogyny, gendered violence, self harm and suicidality
Please note that the names of some interviewees have been changed to ensure their anonymity
This article was barred from publication by the Executive of the Monash Student Association (MSA), the student union at Monash University’s Clayton campus. This was on account of a draft of it being deemed ‘potentially defamatory’, leading them to prohibit the Monash student magazine, Lot’s Wife, from publishing it at all.
In writing this piece, I spoke to four women and gender diverse people from different positions and political backgrounds who have all served as student representatives in the MSA, and they were all united on this very fact; there is misogyny in the Monash student union.
Charlotte (she/her), current and former MSA Office Bearer for the Disabilities and Carers Department, says that this is not an issue confined to the MSA, but one that afflicts ‘all of student politics’, noting that those who perpetuate this misogyny are often ‘in control of a massive amount of money and power’ by virtue of their positions.
Whilst different student tickets and factions often attempt to allege that their political oppositions are the primary perpetrators of misogyny in student politics, Charlotte highlights their hypocrisy.
‘They are all guilty of the same thing. They all run around accusing the other side of being misogynists but it’s all of them.’
She goes on to discuss how the universality of this issue is underscored particularly during student elections, when toxic behaviours are often justified with the mentality that ‘it’s just campaigning.’ In Charlotte’s experience, some of the ‘worst offenders are often the convenors of tickets because they are the more serious politicians.’
Some of the most common experiences amongst the interviewees I spoke to were being interrupted, intimidated, manipulated, mansplained to, and constantly undermined.
Aishwariya (she/her), current Lot’s Wife editor and former Office Bearer, says misogynistic influences have created a ‘culture where assertiveness, dominance, and control are valued over empathy, collaboration, and equity.’
She explained how these behaviours are distinctly gendered because they are ‘specifically targeted at women, especially those who challenge male-dominated spaces or refuse to conform to expectations.’ Emily (she/they), a former highly involved student representative, clarifies that the misogynistic culture within the MSA ‘stems from the student participation’ within the union, while the MSA’s suite of full-time and casual staff work earnestly to ‘cultivate…a positive working environment.’
Former Women’s Officer Julia (she/her) adds that male representatives will also often ‘take credit for a woman’s work when it suits them.’ Concerningly, episodes of anger demonstrated by men are not uncommon either, with Emily saying she has been made to feel ‘unsafe’ consistently by one repeated perpetrator on account of his ‘extreme anger’ and ‘emotional manipulation.’
Charlotte also witnessed his behaviour, and described the volatile reactions he would exhibit whenever he did not get his way. ‘It’s literally like a switch flips when I say no. He would get very, very angry, and then would sit there smiling and blinking as if it was a totally normal thing to say to someone.’
Another harrowing experience for Charlotte occurred ahead of the 2024 student elections, when she founded an independent ticket, Access. She says that when she met the male leaders from the two largest tickets on campus to discuss potential preference deals, one threatened to have her ‘run out of the [MSA]’, while the other took the opportunity to detail unsolicited criticisms of her work as Office Bearer for the Disabilities and Carer’s Department.
Whilst many men in the MSA have unsurprisingly attempted to appear in solidarity with women, Aishwariya describes these efforts as ‘superficial’, saying these attempts were more ‘about optics than real action.’
Analogising with the recent and satirical online trends of Clairo-loving-matcha-drinking performative male manipulators, Julia says ‘[the] performative male in student politics will champion feminism while putting women in unfair and disadvantaged situations.’
Charlotte adds that ‘it’s often the ones that position themselves as the most progressive that treat women the worst. You have [men] putting up motions about violence against women and then screaming at women in the Monash Student Council.’
According to Emily, not only do these men seek to falsely position themselves as feminists, but also depend on their association with women representatives to obfuscate responsibility for gendered criticisms. ‘Women are…often tokenised for the benefit of male representatives’ and ‘used as shields within student politics’, they explained.
Aishwariya says male representatives exhibit this ‘performative allyship to gain support without any real intention of addressing issues that affect women.’
Like all cultural phenomena, this misogyny and toxicity can surely not be reductively attributed to any one influence, but rather a steady accumulation of factors and attitudes with monumental effect.
Amongst the students I spoke to, however, one leading theory as to how this culture of misogyny developed was that student politics is simply a microcosm of real-world politics; that the misogyny in our student union is a mirror of the misogyny in our government, and in our broader society.
It is not uncommon for student politicians to work in real-world parliamentary offices whilst serving as elected student representatives, and Charlotte says the influence of these environments on individual behaviours is evident. ‘We know parliament is not great for women… and I do think that has an impact on what is viewed as okay.’
Julia posits that many student politicians aspire to ‘impress major political parties and establish themselves’ by exhibiting influence with little regard for the harm their behaviour causes.
This political pipeline from student representative to real-world parliamentary staff seems to have enabled the normalisation of manipulative and misogynistic behaviours through a means-to-an-end mentality; a belief that even harmful measures can be justified in the pursuit of political victories, particularly if these perceived successes can bulk up a careerist’s resume. Charlotte says of one notorious past representative that despite ‘being reported at all levels for all sorts of things… he has never faced consequences-and he now works for a senior MP.’
For Julia, knowledge that perpetrators can be rewarded with professional opportunities is making her ‘concerned about the future of government in this country.’
Several interviewees noted that misogyny is often perpetrated concurrently alongside an intersecting form of oppression such as racism, ableism, and queerphobia. This rang true for many of the students I spoke to, whose diverse identities have been exploited to alienate them even further in the world of student politics.
Charlotte, for example, says her concerns regarding ableism in the MSA and university more broadly have not been taken seriously by other representatives who engage only in limited and ‘very performative’ consultation. ‘They would say “we’ve asked our resident disabled person and they say that we’re not ableist”’
For Emily, their experience as a gender diverse and queer person often made them ‘the perfect target as a shield’ to be employed by other representatives to claim ‘that they couldn’t be homophobic or sexist simply because they had supported/spoken to [them]’. This argument reduces meaningful engagement with marginalised communities to tokenistic check-box exercises designed to insure against valid criticisms of concerning behaviours.
Aishwariya says her experience of misogyny was a ‘double burden’ due to the way women of colour can be ‘villainised through racialised stereotypes. She has observed that when women of colour ‘speak up’ about issues such as misogyny, they are frequently dismissed and ‘stereotyped as being overly assertive, angry, or difficult.’
So, what is the net effect of misogyny in a student union? The systemic consequences are difficult to quantify, but, without meaningful repercussions for those that perpetuate these issues, the very least of them is a cyclical and toxic culture of disrespect; a culture that is isolating and harming the ‘people trying to change the system’, in favour of those who instead treat it like a ‘game of monopoly’, according to Julia. Charlotte echoes this sentiment, saying that many people who ‘would be fantastic’ student representatives are instead leaving the MSA ‘traumatised.’
The paradox here is that the very people that the MSA needs- to challenge misogynistic behaviours and attitudes are often the ones who are alienated.
Charlotte has additionally observed that misogynistic attitudes are rarely conveyed in written communication, allowing perpetrators to maintain plausible deniability, and further limiting the avenues of reporting open to those victimised. “They know how to do it in a way that they won’t be caught. They will continue going on to do this. There is nothing that follows them. There is nothing recorded, so why wouldn’t they go on to say it to the next person?’
Aishwariya noted that misogynistic behaviours are also ‘often masked as political disagreement or personal rivalry’, helping perpetrators to further obfuscate responsibility.
Alongside misogyny’s systemic and cultural impact, there is the very raw and real harm inflicted upon those victimised- a harm which should never be understated. For Julia, her experiences of misogyny in the MSA became a ‘very emotionally taxing experience’, a sentiment shared by Charlotte. ‘You do start to question if you are the problem.’ She says that one of the main things that ultimately kept her involved for so long was the knowledge that disrespectful attitudes too often go unchallenged, particularly in student council meetings, and a subsequent desire to change that fact.
For Emily, the ‘constant attacks on [their] character’ eventually caused their ‘self-esteem and self-worth to crumble.’ When she said she wanted to resign, her male counterparts told her that if she tried, they would delete her email of resignation so that they never had to act on it. She says she felt ‘belittled and small’ and was left with a ‘constant feeling of being trapped.’ The immense stress, self-doubt and ‘imposter syndrome’ she felt drove her to suicidality and self-harm during her time in the MSA. Ultimately, she left student politics and student unionism entirely.
This is the disgraceful reality of the situation-young women and gender diverse people are being burnt out, abandoned in a system they once championed, and pushed to absolute extremes.
The very people we need most in our student union right now - critically and independently minded young women - are the very people that the system is burning out at a record rate. For those who want to change the MSA’s misogynistic culture, the MSA seems an unsustainable environment in which to exist. Now, where does that leave us? How can we move forward?
Whilst these are not questions that can be comprehensively answered in one mere paragraph, or even one article, the students I spoke to think there are at least a couple of places to start. Importantly, several of them called for reform to reporting processes both within the MSA and beyond.
Charlotte claims the MSA’s HR department is ‘essentially powerless’ in penalising students for misconduct. Emily noted that it took some eight months for disciplinary action to be taken against a student representative she reported to MSA HR and University Student General Misconduct, by which point she was no longer even working within the MSA.
Seeking an alternative approach, Charlotte reported her experience to the University’s Safer Community Unit, an independent department designed to address ‘disclosures of concerning, threatening and inappropriate behaviour.’
Among the other preventative and responsive measures discussed were greater education for student representatives on their rights and responsibilities in the MSA, autonomous meetings for women in the organisation, more diverse leadership teams, and mandatory toxic masculinity training.
Emily additionally noted the importance of peer intervention saying ‘students in the MSA also need to hold other students accountable for their actions.’ She argues that male students need to start ‘taking ownership when they are called out. It is not always about the intention, but also the result of behaviour and how it affects others that matters too.’
Aishwariya suggests that the silence of many student representatives on this issue is the product of a culture that ‘rewards loyalty over accountability and prioritises maintaining alliances over doing what is right.’
For many people, misogyny seems but one symptom of a system designed for advocacy now buckling under the weight of unbridled personal and political ambitions. Whilst Emily still believes that ‘student unionism is a very valuable part of university culture’ she laments that ‘well-meaning and passionate people’ are being alienated ‘in favour of careerists and power-hungry individuals.’ Charlotte says that while many people start out as the former, they quickly become the latter.
‘I do think most people start with the best intentions, but the longer they are in, the more indoctrinated they get, and then they start emulating those behaviours of intimidation.’ Julia would like to see the MSA free from the influence of real-world political parties as much as possible, arguing ‘it should be about student experience, not a grooming ground for young Labor and Liberal.’
If you have made it this far, then I would implore you to turn your mind now to the fact that this piece reflects the distressing and alarming experiences of just four out of the dozens of people in the MSA. Please, take a minute to consider how many instances of aggression, intimidation, misogyny, discrimination and bullying could go unrecognised and unwritten.
It is a painful truth to reckon with- that our student union, a place where equity and progression ought to be championed, has a misogyny problem.
There are men seeking to build careers by using the MSA to show their capacity to ‘lead’. That’s all well and good, but the fact remains that manipulation is not leadership; aggression is not leadership; misogyny is not leadership. And if you have to resort to those things to keep a hold of your power, then it is not power you ever deserved to start with. After all, how fragile must it be if the only way you can keep hold of it is by clinging so desperately as through intimidation?
Here’s what they really do not want you to know; these men manipulate and intimidate their way into power. If they actually had a natural gift for leadership, or if they were truly as big and tough as they want everyone to think, then they would not have to try so hard to make everyone else feel small.
I have thought long and hard about how I could possibly conclude this piece. I do not know what else the bottom line could possibly be but this: these students deserved better. They still do. We all do.
In solidarity, with love,
Not-So-Shrinking Violet 💜