The candidates running to be the Women Officer in this year’s Guild election are Illuminate’s Cassidy Pemberton and Progress’ Emily Meagher.

The Women’s Department is one of the Guild’s Equity Departments aiming to create a better environment for students who identify as a woman and to seek equity for the women community.

Cassidy is a first-year Creative writing student and is passionate about collaborating with other equity departments to strive for better outcomes for students facing hardship due to their identity.

“I’d push for students to be able to attach their preferred names and pronouns to their student profile and have them be available on student rolls and similar, to help prevent dead-naming and misgendering,” says Cassidy.

As a queer woman, Cassidy is interested in pushing inclusiveness by creating a safe environment for everyone.

“I’d promote the inclusion of cultural and spiritual diversity on campus, as there is so many diverse cultures and religions present on campus that aren’t fully understood,

“I would begin doing this by aiming to create prayer spaces that the student body is more aware of, and is safe, quiet and accessible, and advocating to increase cultural awareness training for both staff and students,

‘’I’d also like to have sanitary hygiene bins and tampons or pads available in all bathrooms on campus so that trans men, non-binary people and any others needing these sanitary services will be able to access them with ease.”

Both candidates are fighting for better counselling and student wellbeing services.

Emily is in her third year of International Relations and International Business.

“The mental health facilities and services at Curtin are good but unfortunately waiting times during peak periods are too high,” says Emily.

“We are proposing to work with the University constructively to ensure that they are funded properly during these peak periods, perhaps through a joint SSAF proposal,

“Another issue is that only full-time students are bulk-billed for these appointments. Many parents are part-time and therefore will be paying out of pocket if they need mental health provided services during their time at university and this isn’t good enough,”

Emily also sees the need for establishing a Welfare Officer to address the importance of students as individuals.

“The Education vice president is also responsible for student welfare and is funded as a 4 day a week position,

“In recent years, we have seen the education side too heavily focused on. We believe that this portfolio should be split in two, creating two separate, two days a week positions, meaning our proposal is cost-neutral.”

While both candidates hope to create improvements for the student community, the decision is on you.

While both candidates fight for improvements on different services benefiting the women community around campus, the decision is on you.

Voting on campus will happen from 21-24 September 2020.