Attitudes towards gender equality and family violence are slowly improving, according to Australia’s (and the world’s) longest-running snapshot of public assumptions on violence against women and gender equality. However, many people still hold concerning views on issues like sexual consent and male entitlement to sex. The National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey has taken place every four or so years since 1987. Graphic: Jamie Brown Credit: Overall, the majority of Australians now have a good understanding of violence against women and support gender equality, and this has increased on previous surveys.

Men aren’t wild animals who can’t control their basic desires. They are people, and some of them choose to rape women. Saxon Mullins Most believe both men and women can play a range of roles in life, and only 15 per cent still think men make better political leaders than women. Graphic: Jamie Brown Credit: Knowledge of the nature of family violence has improved, the survey shows. Only a small and declining number of people believe that domestic violence can be excused by alcohol, or that it should be a private, family matter. There is clear support for removing violent perpetrators from the home. But the realities of violence against women are still not widely understood. For example, one in three people are unaware women are most likely to be raped by someone they know, rather than a stranger.

Graphic: Jamie Brown Credit: The survey also reveals a trend in those who believe women exaggerate problems of violence and inequality, says Anastasia Powell, one of the chief survey investigators and an associate professor of criminology at RMIT. “It is possible that with all of the focus on gendered violence and family violence [in the past few years] there are some in the Australian community that don’t agree with that. Their views are coming through in a substantial minority”. Graphic: Jamie Brown Credit: Saxon Mullins was at the centre of one of Australia’s most controversial rape trials when she accused Luke Lazarus of raping her in an alleyway behind a NSW nightclub in 2013.

Mr Lazarus was found guilty but later acquitted when a court found his belief in her consent was reasonable. An appeal court subsequently found this decision failed to have regard as to how Mr Lazarus obtained consent, but declined to order another trial. Graphic: Jamie Brown Credit: Ms Mullins, who describes herself as a sexual assault survivor, says it was heartening the survey showed the vast majority of people wouldn’t justify non-consensual sex, regardless of whether the participants were married or had just met. “This clearly shows that the issues we’ve been talking about, and how we have structured the conversation around consent, is working,” Ms Mullins says. That a third of people believe rape is about men “not being able to control their need for sex” is disturbing, she says.