Miss Universe Maria Thattil slams Nossal High School over toxic masculinity claims

Students from an elite Berwick school have shared harrowing experiences about “ingrained sexism” after a model made a disturbing find on social media.

Miss Universe Australia has named and shamed an elite Melbourne school for creating a vile social media chat.

Miss Universe Australia has named and shamed an elite Melbourne school at which students have created a vile social media chat group degrading young women – after she was accidentally added to it.

Current and former male pupils of Nossal High School in Berwick, which is one of the state’s top selective schools, are part of the group chat on Instagram and Snapchat that shames young women.

Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil, who lives in Melbourne, called out the group on Instagram, after she was “accidentally” added to it.

Ms Thattil shared dozens of screenshots on Instagram from students who spoke publicly about the school’s culture, saying it was “toxic” and there was a “blatant disrespect for women”.

“I had a look at the kind of conversation they were having … I asked them, ‘Did you realise you’ve added me to a chat where I can see you talking in a sexist, misogynist way about other women?’” she said.

The group is run by about a dozen current and former Nossal male pupils. In one vile message, a female pupil is called a “mole rat” and other explicit and degrading content is shared among the boys.

Abhishek Kumar, a former student, said he witnessed “ingrained sexism” across the selective school’s year levels.

Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil shared dozens of screenshots on Instagram from students who spoke publicly about the school’s culture. Picture: Rob Leeson.

“It’s a problem that goes down through the year levels,” Mr Kumar said. “Some of my friends have suffered this. We should be striving for better.”

A female pupil, who asked to remain anonymous, said the vile chat group was just one of the incidents in which male students targeted their female counterparts online. “There were a few instances that I’ve been seeing that started when I was in year 9,” she said.

The Herald Sun has been told male students in the past also made an Instagram account that posted pictures of female pupils and rated their appearance and sexual appeal.

“They were degrading us,” she said. The female student also pointed to a closeness between male students and teachers that saw instances of blatant sexism go unpunished.

“It was like the teachers were ‘one of the lads’,” she said.

Ms Thattil said boys had not changed in the decade since she left high school.

“The boys that I went to high school with are exactly the same, where women were talked about like they were nothing more than sexual objects who existed for the sick satisfaction of perverts like this,” she said.

Nossal High School Berwick is one of the state’s top selective schools. Picture: Andrew Batsch

Nossal High School principal Roger Page said the school had zero tolerance for any disrespectful attitudes towards women and girls.

“We continue to deliver strong equality and consent education that will produce respectful, compassionate young adults,” he said.

“We are investigating this incident, and we have reached out to Ms Thattil.”