It’s a blockbuster report that has shamed a powerful organisation into instant action. But today’s research exposing widespread sexism, harassment and “an entrenched culture of sexism and misogyny” in Victoria Police is hardly a surprise.

It mirrors anecdotal evidence and previous findings of widespread sex discrimination across the Australian workforce and business.

It supports women’s experience and previous inquiries into industries as varied as the armed forces, medicine, fire services, academia, racing and the law.

It highlights the importance message equality advocates have been trying to get through — that women’s safety and their progress towards a level playing field and promotion on merit is jeopardised in environments where sexism is tolerated.

It proves Julia Gillard was right. Sexism and misogyny are widespread and we need to acknowledge this and break it down.

Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission was asked by Victoria Police to do an independent investigation into sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the force. It landed today and was damning.

A whopping 40 per cent of women said they had been harassed — a higher percentage than reported in the Defence Force.

Many were too scared to report harassment, and there was a high prevalence and tolerance of sexual harassment as well as “substantial evidence of sexual discrimination and gender inequality”.

Former detective, Sue, called morning radio host Neil Mitchell today to say the report was a true reflection of her 14 years in the force, during which a popular male superior sexually assaulted her and broke her nose.

She said she quietly had her nose straightened and sucked it up knowing that there would be career consequences if she called him out: “I knew the word would get around (and) I wouldn’t have a chance of becoming a detective,” she said.

Sue retired from the force, but the women interviewed for today’s report were talking about work life in the last five years. They had plenty in common with young female doctors whom it was revealed this year are being advised to “just give a blow job” to senior surgeons if they asked for sex in return for advancement.

The inquiry into those revelations was also shocking: 49 per cent of surgical fellows, trainees and international medical graduates experience discrimination or sexual harassment. To its credit, like Victoria Police, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons vowed to act quickly.

As we know, it’s a similar scenario in another big employer, the ADF. The 2014 Defence Abuse Response Taskforce report noted sexual assault in the Australian military was “persistent and widespread” with 1110 accused perpetrators still on the public payroll.

It found sexual abuse was so entrenched and widespread that “the only responsible course of action” was to launch a royal commission to investigate … but do we really need another inquiry to tell us what we already know: Australia lags behind other developed nations in the way women are treated in public and business life. Our tolerance of everyday sexism is way too high.

Can’t we just acknowledge that for too long, the lived experience of victims of sex discrimination and harassment at work has been downplayed, justified or ignored and turn to ways of addressing that?

There are some promising signs: “Playing the gender card”, the put-down of choice for women calling out sexism in the Gillard years (and a favourite way to shut women down among those doing fine as things stand), has been exposed by these reports to be the furphy that it is. We have enough evidence that sexism is real.

Many senior business leaders have come out to warn of the risks of “wasting female talent” by allowing hostile work cultures to persist.

Speaking for an Ernst & Young report into gender equality in the corporate world, Coca Cola Amatil chairman David Gonski, Telstra chief executive David Thodey and Qantas boss Alan Joyce all lifted the lid on a culture of sexism they said was “wasting female talent”.

David Fodey named “macho culture” as the reason there are so few women making it to the top: “I think it is partly the Australian culture, a little bit of a macho Australian male dominance,’’ he said.

David Gonski said “I think there are some men who fear having to compete with women.”

There were echoes of this in Victoria’s equal opportunity commissioner, Kate Jenkins opinion piece today: “This problem (discrimination) is not just a Victoria Police one but exists across a range of professions, arguably especially in traditionally male-dominated careers.

“In other words, despite 40 years of anti-discrimination laws, we clearly still have a problem accepting women as equals.”

Let’s hope this is day one of change.