About sexual violence

Prevalence, nature and impact of sexual violence

Violence against women in Australia, including sexual violence, is an epidemic (footnote 1). It can be challenging to quantify the full extent of sexual violence in Australia using service data, as it is under-reported (9) and the cases which progress to a court only represent a small proportion of the true volume and spectrum of sexual violence that occurs (10). Research indicates at least one in five women in Australia have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15 (11), two in five young people aged 14 to 18 have had unwanted sex (12), and 9 in 10 women have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lifetime (11). In addition, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data indicates that 11% of girls and 3.6% of boys are sexually assaulted as children in Australia (11).

Sexual violence occurs along a continuum of harmful behaviour. This can include a range of behaviours, such as sexual harassment that makes someone feel uncomfortable or afraid; unwanted touching or remarks; coerced sexual activity; and rape with physical violence or threat to life (13). Sexual violence can also be perpetrated in a range of contexts. While women are most likely to experience sexual violence perpetrated by a man they know, such an intimate partner, friend, or co-worker, they may also be assaulted by a stranger (11). The settings in which sexual violence occurs are evolving quickly, often outpacing the capacity of our legal system to respond. Technology and online spaces have created new sites for the promotion and perpetuation of sexual violence and harassment (14).

Victim-survivors of sexual violence face devastating and potentially life-long physical, emotional, social, and financial harm as a result. These adverse impacts of sexual violence are often compounded by barriers to disclosing their experience and poor justice responses. The barriers experienced by victim-survivors in relation to disclosing sexual violence are complex and varied. Victim-survivors may be discouraged from discussing their experiences if they believe disclosing could affect their safety, in addition to uncertainty around whether others will disbelieve, judge or criticise them (15). Victim-survivors may also falsely believe they are to blame for the violence they have experienced or the consequences experienced by people who used violence against them and, as a result, hold feelings of shame and embarrassment that stop them from disclosing (15). Without access to safe disclosure pathways, victim-survivors are denied access to formal justice responses, and the supports and services they deserve.  

For victim-survivors who are supported to disclose their experiences and pursue justice responses, many describe their involvement with the justice system as retraumatising (2). Such experiences include victim-survivors having their accounts disbelieved or minimised by police, undergoing an invasive forensic medical examination by a stranger after being physically violated, facing cross-examination designed to impugn their character or present them as somehow to blame for the violence they experienced, and having to recount terrifying and/or denigrating experiences in a public courtroom with their perpetrator watching.  

The adverse impacts of sexual violence, the presence of barriers to disclosing, and experiences of poor justice responses are all amplified for those who experience additional and intersecting forms of structural inequality, including women with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, migrant and refugee women, people within the LGBTIQA+ community, and women living regionally or remotely (15). This is because each of these factors shape the ways that violence is enabled, perpetrated, responded to, and experienced by different people in the community.  

Drivers

The gendered drivers of violence

Australia’s national framework for the prevention of violence against women, Change the story (3), represents a robust synthesis of available evidence, from Australia and internationally, on violence against women (including sexual violence) and what works to prevent it. This evidence demonstrates a strong and consistent association between gender inequality and levels of violence against women, and points to particular expressions of gender inequality that have been shown to be most consistently associated with higher rates of men’s violence against women, including sexual violence. These expressions of gender equality are known as the gendered drivers of violence against women. Change the story outlines the four main gendered drivers of violence against women (3), they are:

• attitudes, behaviours and actions that condone, minimise or excuse violence against women
• men’s control of decision-making and restrictions on women’s independence in public and private life
• rigid gender stereotyping and dominant forms of masculinity that hurt men, women and all people
• male relationships and cultures of masculinity that emphasise aggression, dominance and control.

These drivers are the factors that most consistently predict men’s violence against women at a population level and explain its gendered patterns. In practice, the gendered drivers arise from gender-discriminatory norms, practices, and structures, which together create environments where women and men are not considered equal and violence against women is more likely to occur, and more likely to be tolerated.

There are also additional, reinforcing, factors which may impact the probability, frequency, or severity of men’s violence against women in particular contexts (3). Resistance to or backlash against moves towards gender equality or other social change; condoning of violence in general; factors that weaken prosocial behaviour (e.g. natural disasters, substance use, stress); and prior experience of or exposure to violence can all influence the perpetration of violence against women in particular circumstances and parts of our society, if the gendered drivers are also at play (3).  

The additional, specific drivers of men’s use of sexual violence

In addition to the gendered drivers of violence against women outlined above, Change the story, articulates several factors which are specifically linked to men’s use of sexual violence (3). These include:

• adherence to forms of masculinity that commonly emphasise control and dominance
• performances of strength and toughness through violence outside the home
• peer pressure and social expectations that men should never say no to sex and should have many sexual partners
• peer pressure to pursue sex with women in coercive and aggressive ways, and talk about women as sexual objects  
• prior exposure to violence against a parent, or emotional, physical and sexual abuse during childhood  
• current exposure to violent pornography

Attitudes and beliefs of Australians towards sexual violence

Data from the 2021 NCAS highlighted that a significant proportion of the Australian population hold concerning attitudes around sexual violence and harm, including attitudes that reflect the gendered drivers of violence and serve to normalise, trivialise or excuse sexual and other forms of violence. Some key findings include (8):

• 35% of Australians agreed that it is common for sexual assault accusations to be used as a way of getting back at men  
• 25% of Australians agreed that a lot of times, women who say they were raped had led the man on and then had regrets
• 25% of Australians agreed when a man is very sexually aroused, he may not even realise that the woman doesn’t want to have sex  
• 14% of Australians agreed that many allegations of sexual assault made by women are false  

Contrary to these common assumptions, research demonstrates that sexual violence is under-reported, victim survivors continue to face significant barriers to reporting, and false reports of sexual assault are rare (16).

The 2024 Man Box Study demonstrated the association between attitudes to manhood and the behaviours of Australian men aged 18 to 45 (17). Using survey and focus group data, the research explored the extent to which Australian men perceive social pressure to conform to certain ‘rules’ (or stereotypes) about how a ‘real man’ man should think and act. It examined whether men personally agree with these social messages, and the relationships between men’s endorsement of Man Box rules and a range of behaviours and life outcomes. The study’s 2024 data found that the men surveyed who most strongly endorsed masculine stereotypes (such as self-sufficiency, rigid gender roles, hypersexuality, and aggression and control) were eight times more likely to report that they had used sexual violence against an intimate partner and 28 times more likely to report that they had used fear to coerce a partner into having sex (17).  

Further evidence demonstrating the complex and interconnected relationship between community attitudes and the normalisation, condoning and perpetration of sexual violence can be seen in Our Watch’s 2020 paper, Pornography, Young People, and Preventing Violence Against Women (18). This research explored the relationship between young people’s experiences with pornography and their attitudes and beliefs related to violence against women. It found that “... more frequent consumption of pornography was associated with victim blaming attitudes, such as the belief that if a woman is affected by alcohol or drugs, she is at least partly responsible for whatever happens to her” (18).

As the justice system is designed and operated by people within our communities, it is not immune to the impact of these prevalent but harmful attitudes and beliefs about sexual violence, and violence against women more broadly. Addressing and transforming social norms and practices that normalise, minimise, justify or excuse violence against women is essential if we are to deliver safe, just and trauma-informed outcomes for victim survivors of sexual violence, hold perpetrators to account, and ensure the proper administration of the law.