Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697630285666.pdf (Australia)
22 April 2016 Committee Secretariat Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 To whom it may concern Thank you for your invitation to Our Watch to provide a submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee’s inquiry into domestic violence and gender inequality.

Our Watch is an independent, not for profit organisation established by the the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments in 2013.
All States and Territories have been invited to join, and since establishment the South Australian, Northern Territory, Tasmanian and Queensland Governments have also become members.

Our Watch works to drive nation-wide change in the social norms, structures, attitudes and practices that underpin and support violence against women and their children.
I congratulate the Australian Parliament for initiating this important inquiry, and its determination to address the underlying drivers of violence against women.

This intent aligns strongly with Our Watch’s mandate, and we look forward to continuing to work with all Australian political parties in the years to come to prevent violence against women and their children before it starts.
Yours sincerely, Mary Barry Chief Executive Officer Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 OUR WATCH SUBMISSION TO THE SENATE FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT: INQUIRY INTO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND GENDER INEQUALITY Contact Dr Lara Fergus Director, Policy and Evaluation GPO Box 24229 Melbourne VIC 300 ourwatch.org.au 2 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Contents Contact About Our Watch About this submission Note on language Summary of Recommendations Response to Terms of Reference a) The role of gender inequality in all spheres of life in contributing to the prevalence of violence against women b) The role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which support violence against women cont.
The role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which i. support domestic violence, in messages conveyed to children and young people 2 4 4 6 7 9 9 13 16 ii.

Messages conveyed to children and young people in the marketing of toys and other products 21 iii.

Messages conveyed to children and young people in education iv.
Messages conveyed to children and young people in entertainment c) The role of government initiatives at every level in addressing the underlying causes of domestic violence, including the commitments under, or related to, the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children i.

How governments should prioritise action and investment ii.

How governments should frame implementation for the greatest impact iii.

The four interlocking parts of implementation iv.


What change looks like over time Recommendations 23 24 27 28 29 35 36 37 Overarching recommendation: A national Primary Prevention Strategy, based on Change the Story, within the Third Action Plan 37 1.
Systematise, scale up and embed proven practice for universal reach Support innovation to build evidence and ‘scale-able’ practice models in specific 2. settings and geographical contexts, and for population groups where less evaluated practice exists 37 41 3.
Build a ‘prevention infrastructure’ to support a collaborative, sustainable, high-quality 42 and multi-faceted work program, from national to local levels 4. measure whole-of-population change Improve evaluation, monitoring and reporting to demonstrate long-term progress and 43 3 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 About Our Watch Our Watch is an independent, not for profit organisation established by the the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments in 2013.
All States and Territories have been invited to join, and since establishment the South Australian, Northern Territory, Tasmanian and Queensland Governments have also become members.

Our vision is shared with the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022 (the National Plan), namely an Australian community free from violence against women and their children.

The specific mandate of Our Watch is to focus on the prevention of violence against women and their children.
We aim to provide leadership at national, state, regional and local levels to drive change in the social norms, structures, attitudes and practices that underpin and support violence against women and their children.

Our Watch has four key areas of work: 1.

Design and deliver public campaigns that engage and educate individuals and the community 2.

Promote a sustained and constructive public conversation 3.

Enable organisations, networks and communities to effect change 4.
Influence public policy, systems and institutions As an organisation focused on prevention, Our Watch is extremely encouraged to see that the aim of this inquiry is to improve understanding of the underlying causes and drivers of violence against women.

We are also pleased to see the specific focus of the inquiry on gender inequality and gender stereotypes, as the evidence on this issue shows that addressing these gendered drivers is fundamental to the prevention of gender-based violence.
About this submission The alignment between this inquiry and Our Watch’s aims, objectives and organisational position is evident in the detailed submission Our Watch provided1 to the previous (2015) Senate Inquiry into domestic violence.
This explicitly pointed to the role of gender stereotypes and gender inequality in creating the social and cultural conditions and individual attitudes and beliefs that drive, condone or support violence against women, and argued that challenging harmful gender stereotypes is critical to effective prevention work.
This submission builds on that previous 2015 submission, in particular by: 4 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66  providing updated evidence from Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women, developed by Our Watch in partnership with Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth, and launched in November 20152  drawing on the significant expertise Our Watch has developed from our leading work on Respectful Relationships Education in schools, both at an implementation level in Victoria, and as part of our engagement with policy development in several Australian jurisdictions  drawing on our experience in delivering (and conducting research to inform) The Line, a primary prevention behaviour change campaign for young people aged 12 to 20 years, to offer insights into the role of gender stereotypes in shaping the messages conveyed to children and young people, including in product marketing and entertainment.
This submission covers all the issues outlined in the Inquiry’s terms of reference, namely: a) the role of gender inequality in all spheres of life in contributing to the prevalence of domestic violence; b) the role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which support domestic violence, including, but not limited to, messages conveyed to children and young people in: i. the marketing of toys and other products ii.

education iii.
education iii.

entertainment c) the role of government initiatives at every level in addressing the underlying causes of domestic violence, including the commitments under, or related to, the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.
5 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Note on language Our Watch understands the Inquiry’s remit is ‘domestic violence,’ however this submission consciously adopts the term ‘violence against women’ as a conceptualisation that overlaps with ‘domestic violence’ – and is at once both broader and narrower.
Broader, because it includes forms of violence against women that happen outside the ‘domestic’ context (such as non-partner sexual assault, or violence experienced in a ‘dating’ context, particularly by younger women), and narrower, because the term ‘domestic violence’ can be understood to include forms of intimate partner violence that are not defined by male perpetration and female victimisation, such as violence in same sex relationships and female-perpetrated partner violence (and sometimes non-partner violence that happens in a domestic context, such as elder abuse or adolescent violence against parents).
While we recognise the importance of addressing these other forms of violence, our reason for using the terminology of ‘violence against women’ is to align with and accurately reflect the international evidence base that we draw on.

Globally, the bulk of individual studies in this field have examined factors correlated with male intimate partner violence against women and/or male sexual assault of women (partner and non-partner), and the effectiveness of strategies to prevent this kind of violence.
The international analyses reviewing such literature have recognised the significant overlap between the factors found to drive men’s intimate partner violence and those found to drive, for example, non-intimate partner sexual assault,1 and frequently collated the evidence under the broader term of (men’s) violence against women.1 Further, the vast majority acts that fall under the definition of ‘domestic violence’ are committed by men against their female partners (or former partners), meaning the use of the term ‘violence against women’, helps foreground the highly gendered patterns of perpetration and victimisation.
6 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Summary of Recommendations The recommendations contained in this submission speak to the role of the Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments as they develop and finalise the Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022 (the National Plan).
Our Watch believes the Third Action Plan should aim to address the specific gendered drivers of violence against women and their children (which include rigid adherence to stereotypical gender roles and identities) and its reinforcing factors, as identified in Change the Story, through a specific Primary prevention Strategy within the Plan.
Broadly, we recommend that such efforts be accompanied by a long-term and cross-jurisdictional gender equality strategy, addressing structural gender inequalities more broadly through an intersectional approach.

Below is a summary of our key recommendations, which include four key areas of investment for the Primary Prevention Strategy.

Further detail can be found on page 37.

1.


Systematise, scale up and embed proven practice for universal reach   Education - The Third Action Plan should support schools cross-jurisdictionally to embed whole-school approaches to Respectful Relationships Education and ensure the full benefits of the new Australian Curriculum reach every child.
Early childhood education and care - Commonwealth Government leadership should employ a system-based ‘path’ to test and scale up work to promote gender equality and challenge stereotyping, discrimination and violence-supportive attitudes through the National Quality Standards and the Being, Belonging and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework.
 Media - The Third Action Plan should build on the National Media Engagement Project established in the Second Action Plan (managed by Our Watch), to continue to support the media to shape and influence positive and non-discriminatory social norms, and support media organisations themselves to become equal and respectful workplaces.
 Social marketing - Increase funding for The Line, Australia’s long-term primary prevention initiative for young people aged 12 to 20 years, through to 2018-19, in order to support activities that target the different attitudinal segments of young people identified by current campaign research, as well as raise broader awareness of The Line and support the COAG campaign.
 ‘Big reach’ organisations - The Third Action Plan should provide technical assistance to businesses, public institutions, sporting and other organisations that reach a large number of people – either through their workforces or services or both – to promote 7 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 gender equality and empower bystanders to act in cases of violence or discrimination.

2.
2.

Support innovation to build evidence and ‘scale-able’ prevention of violence against women and their children practice models in specific settings and geographical contexts, and for population groups where less evaluated practice exists  Investigate appropriate modalities and funding mechanisms though which to support innovation and evidence building in primary prevention.

 Undertake a mapping exercise of existing practice and evaluations in order to develop a staged program of work for the above.
3.

Build a ‘prevention infrastructure’ to support a collaborative, sustainable, high-quality and multi-faceted work program, from national to local levels  Establish a National Primary Prevention Steering Group, chaired or co-chaired by Our Watch, to guide the development, implementation and monitoring of the national Primary Prevention Strategy.
 Provide sustained funding support for Our Watch and strengthen its national mandate to enable the organisation to provide effective assistance, support and advice to all governments nationally.

 Develop a National Workforce Development and Professionalisation Strategy, led by our recommended Primary Prevention Steering group, to cater to different levels of expertise and roles in prevention, and ensure it is adaptable for different settings and sectors.
 Establish a COAG National Plan oversight mechanism involving lead ministers.

4.

Improve evaluation, monitoring and reporting to demonstrate long-term progress and measure whole-of-population change  Ensure evaluation is built into all prevention initiatives.

 Build evaluation rigor and consistency.

 Invest in longitudinal research of Respectful Relationships Education in schools.

 Improve measurement of progress at project and population levels.
8 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Response to Terms of Reference a) The role of gender inequality in all spheres of life in contributing to the prevalence of violence against women International evidence points very strongly to a clear association between gender inequality and the prevalence of violence against women.
This evidence was reviewed in 2015 as part of the extensive work Our Watch undertook to inform the development of Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women.

The findings of this review provided the foundation for the explanatory model of violence that is contained in the framework, one that comprises a detailed analysis of the role of gender inequality and gender stereotypes in contributing to the prevalence of violence against women.
What follows is an edited summary of that explanatory model, which can be found in full in Element 1 of Change the Story.

Gendered patterns in violence perpetration and victimisation Violence can be perpetrated or experienced by anyone, and regardless of gender, it is unacceptable.

However, at the population level, interpersonal violence is a highly gendered phenomenon.
For example:  Women are far more likely than men to experience sexual violence and violence from an intimate partner, and with more severe impacts.3  Women are more likely than men to be afraid of, hospitalised by, or killed by an intimate partner.4  95% of all victims of violence – whether women or men – report experiencing violence from a male perpetrator.5 It follows that any explanation of violence must account for these gendered patterns, and must understand and analyse violence against women within the broader social context of gender inequality in which it occurs.
Clear association between gender inequality and violence against women There is a strong and consistent association between gender inequality and levels of violence against women.
A 2015 study in medical journal The Lancet found that particular factors relating 9 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 to gender inequality consistently predict the population prevalence of intimate partner violence across 44 countries, and further that the strong negative association between current partner violence and gross domestic product per person becomes non-significant when compared with these factors relating to gender norms.6 A United Nations review also found significantly and consistently higher rates of violence against women in countries where women’s economic, social and political rights are poorly protected, and where power and resources are unequally distributed between men and women.7 Gender inequality as the social context for violence against women Gender inequality sets the necessary social context in which violence against women occurs.
There is now consensus in the international research that examining the way in which gender relations are structured is key to understanding violence against women.

Gender inequality is a social condition characterised by unequal value afforded to men and women and an unequal distribution of power, resources and opportunity between them.
It often results from, or has historical roots in, laws or policies formally constraining the rights and opportunities of women, and is maintained and perpetuated today through structures that continue to organise and reinforce an unequal distribution of economic, social and political power and resources between women and men.

Gender inequality is also is reinforced and maintained through more informal mechanisms, many of which are strongly characterized by their reliance on gender stereotypes.
These include, for example, social norms such as the belief that women are best suited to care for children, practices such as differences in childrearing practices for boys and girls, and structures such as pay differences between men and women.8 Such norms, practices and structures encourage women and men, girls and boys to adopt distinct gender identities and stereotyped gender roles, within a gender hierarchy that positions men as superior to women, and masculine roles and identities as superior to feminine ones.
In Australia the pervasiveness of these ideas is illustrated for example, by a recent survey showing more than a quarter of Australians think men make better political leaders, and one in five think men should take control in relationships and be the head of the household.9 One useful way of understanding both the operation of gender inequality and its impact on individual behaviour, including violence against women, is to map it across the social ecology, as shown in Figure 1 below: 10 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Figure 1.
A socio-ecological model of violence against women.

Source: Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and Vic Health (2015) Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children.
As this diagram illustrates, the norms, structures and practices that reproduce gender inequality operate at multiple levels, from the societal to the system or institutional level, in organisations and communities, and in individuals’ everyday lives and interpersonal relationships.
This mutually reinforcing relationship between the many different dimensions of gender inequality helps explain both why it is so entrenched, and how it creates a social context in which individual acts of violence against women are not only common, but often normalised or excused.
Furthermore, as the examples on this diagram show, gender stereotypes, and rigid ideas about gender roles and identities clearly underpin the kinds of structures, norms and practices that increase the probability of violence against women, at every level of the social ecology.
11 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Gender inequality intersects with other forms of inequality and discrimination While gender inequality is always influential as a driver of violence against women, it cannot be considered in isolation, nor is it experienced in the same way by every woman.
Other forms of systemic social, political and economic inequality, discrimination and disadvantage influence and intersect with gender inequality in complex ways, and at all levels of the social ecology.

In some cases they can increase the frequency, severity and prevalence of violence against women.
This means that while gender inequality is a significant factor, it needs to be considered and addressed alongside and together with a range of other significant factors, such as racism, colonisation or discrimination against women with disabilities, for example.
The gendered drivers of violence against women Research has found that a particular series of factors associated with gender inequality are the most consistent predictors of violence against women, and explain its gendered patterns.10 These can be understood as the ‘gendered drivers’ of violence against women.
They arise from within the broader social context of gender inequality described above, comprising an interrelated and mutually reinforcing series of gender discriminatory institutional, social and economic structures, social and cultural norms, and organisational, community, family and relationship practices that together create environments in which women and men are not considered equal, and violence against women is tolerated and even condoned.
Within this context, the following particular expressions of gender inequality have been shown in the international evidence11 to be most consistently associated with higher levels of violence against women: 1.

Condoning of violence against women 2.

Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in both public life and relationships 3.

Rigid gender roles and stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity 4.
Male peer relations that emphasise aggression and disrespect towards women.

Gender stereotypes strongly underpin each of these drivers, and, because they are so often taken for granted, and uncritically reproduced in many contexts both public and private, they play a significant role in keeping these drivers entrenched in society.

In this way, gender stereotypes directly contribute to the creation and maintenance of cultural conditions that support violence against women, as discussed below.
12 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 b) The role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which support violence against women How gender stereotypes contribute to the perpetration of violence against women Gender stereotypes are preconceived, culturally ingrained beliefs about the roles, characteristics, or appropriate behaviours of men and women.
As noted above, rigid ideas about gender roles and stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity are themselves one of four gendered drivers of violence against women named in Change the Story, and also underpin and help entrench the other drivers.12 There is strong evidence to support the assertion that gender stereotypes play a significant role in contributing to the cultural conditions that support violence against women.
A clear correlation has been established between the prevalence of violence against women and societies, communities and relationships that emphasise rigid and stereotypical distinctions between male and female roles, such as the assumption that men are the primary breadwinners whilst women are responsible for child-rearing,13 and between masculine and feminine identities, or what an ‘ideal’ man or woman is.14 Men’s adherence to stereotypical beliefs about gender roles has been shown to be more influential than other factors often attributed as ‘causes’ of violence against women (such as men with lower socio-economic status).15 The role of gender norms and stereotypes in explaining why more ‘gender equal’ countries still have high rates of violence against women An understanding of the powerful influence of gender stereotypes, and the highly gendered social norms they support, can help explain the continued prevalence of violence against women, even in countries that have made significant progress in advancing structural gender equality.
Without this normative level analysis, the continued high rates of violence against women in countries (like Australia) where women have formal equality, equal political rights, and improving levels of political and economic representation can be difficult to explain – and can even be used by some to argue that improving gender equality will not reduce violence against women.
The first point to make here of course is that reported prevalence is not the same as actual prevalence, and that in fact reported levels of violence may be higher in more ‘gender equal’ countries because higher levels of general awareness, understanding and public discussion about 13 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 violence against women, and a normalisation of public discourse about women’s rights in general means women feel more able and supported to disclose their experiences.
Putting questions about the difference between reported and actual prevalence aside however, the powerful influence of gender stereotypes, and the highly gendered social norms they support, can help explain the continued high levels of violence against women in countries that have otherwise made relatively good progress towards advancing structural or formal gender equality.
Even in these countries gender inequality persists at this less obvious normative level, exerting a strong influence on people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.

The harmful influence of gendered social norms has certainly been documented at the individual level.
Various research has found that men who hold traditional, hierarchical views about gender roles and relationships are more likely to perpetrate violence against women.16 For example, men who use violence report a greater sense of ownership of or entitlement to female partners, and more rigid ideas about what behaviour is appropriate or acceptable for the women with whom they form relationships.17 Research and analysis from psychological, public health and other fields suggests that ideas about gender roles may influence the perpetration of violence against women in a number of ways:  The sense of entitlement associated with the traditionally masculine gender role may result in the use of force (including forced sex) by some men, particularly in intimate relationship;18  Violence may be used to reinforce role divisions or ‘punish’ women when they do not conform to expected gender roles19; and  The gendered division between the public world of work and the private world of the home can isolate women and make them dependent on men.20 Rigid constructions of, and a strong belief in, gendered personal identities or what it means to be ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ have a similar effect.
People who see men and women as having specific and distinct characteristics are more likely to condone, tolerate or excuse gender-based violence.

This applies to notions of both masculinity and femininity.
Notions of masculinity associated with dominance and control are significant, but ideal feminine identities related to sexual attractiveness also play a role, casting women as targets for objectification, sexual exploitation and – if not perceived as meeting such standards – hostility and denigration, increasing the acceptability of violence against women.21 Sexist and stereotypical ideas about masculinity and femininity may increase the probability of violence against women because they:22 14 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66  define masculinity as callous and insensitive, or suggest that men are ‘naturally’ more violent than women and are driven by uncontrollable sexual urges;23  contribute to gender hierarchies based on men having power over women, supporting male entitlement to sex and control in relationships;24  may valorise male violence in general, and sexual aggression towards women in particular; can cast women as targets for exploitation,25 based on the idea that women are ‘naturally’ passive and submissive, combined with objectified and sexualised identities; and   can support disrespect and violence towards women through negative identities of women as inherently deceitful and unfaithful, and needing to be controlled.26 Furthermore, gender identities do not have to be negative to predict violence.
For example, where ideal femininity is associated with ‘moral’ standards of behaviour, rape of women who are seen to transgress such standards is more likely to be condoned.27 Interaction between gender and other stereotypes drives different forms of violence against women Just as gender inequality intersects with other forms of inequality and discrimination, so too do gender stereotypes vary as they intersect with other stereotypes, such as those that underpin racism or inform discriminatory attitudes to and treatment of women with disabilities for example.
This in turn creates the kind of cultural conditions that drive different forms of violence against different groups of women, and that influence different women’s experiences of violence.
As Frohmader points out in a paper28 commissioned to inform the development of Change the Story for example: Women with disabilities are at high risk of gendered disability violence based on social stereotypes and biases that attempt to dehumanise or infantilise them, exclude or isolate them, target them for sexual and other forms of violence, and put them at greater risk of institutionalised violence.
Similarly, Murdolo and Quiazon point to the ways in which racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequality and gender stereotypes to contribute to violence against immigrant and refugee women.
They argue that stereotyped representations of ethnic culture and communities generally, and immigrant women in particular, both contribute to the ways in which the broader community thinks about and values immigrant women, and impact on men’s perpetration of, and immigrant and refugee women’s experiences of, gendered violence.29 15 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 i. cont.
The role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which support domestic violence, in messages conveyed to children and young people As suggested by the Terms of Reference for the Inquiry, one of the specific ways in which gender stereotypes contribute to cultural conditions that support violence against women is in messages conveyed to children and young people.
The importance of considering the impact of gender stereotypes and gender inequality on children and young people is explicitly recognised in Change the Story, which highlights this group as a critical consideration for national approach to prevention.
This section again draws on the evidence and analysis contained in Change the Story, as well as other research, to discuss the role and impact of gender stereotypes in messages conveyed to children and young people, and to respond to the three specific questions outlined at item b) in the Terms of Reference.
The impact of gender stereotypes on children and young people Children and young people’s views, skills and attitudes to gender, power, violence and relationships are influenced by many factors, including the role models in their lives, family and friends, the wider community, and the messages they are exposed to in numerous settings and contexts, including education, the media, entertainment and popular culture, advertising and marketing.
Gender stereotyping in particular has significant impacts on young people’s lives.

A YWCA report based on a survey of 1600 young women in Australia aged 15–30, found that 79 percent of young women felt that gender-based stereotypes affected their day-to-day life.30 As early as birth, children are exposed to stereotypes and rigid ideas about gender roles, gender identities and masculinity and femininity.
These can range from assumptions and judgments about what colour their clothes should be, how their hair should look or what toys they should play with, to expectations about how they should react to pain and other emotions.
While these assumptions or expectations may seem harmless, evidence suggests that gender stereotypes have real effects, shaping young people’s expectations of their roles in society, adversely affecting educational experiences and life opportunities, and contributing to the reproduction of broader conditions of inequality such as the gender pay gap.31 Perhaps of most concern, as discussed 16 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 above, adherence to stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity is a significant driver of violence against women.
Experiences in childhood and adolescence have a particularly strong influence and impact on people’s development and future life paths.

Well before their adolescent years and first sexual relationships, young people are forming skills, attitudes and knowledge related to gender, power, sex, respect and stereotypes from an early age.
Evidence from developmental psychology also suggests that young people are more likely than older age groups to internalise ideas and messages about traditional gender roles and binary constructions of masculinity and femininity, as they are less likely to have developed the critical capacity to question or contest such messages.32 While many of the social norms young people are exposed to from an early age are positive ones, they also receive a number of harmful messages that can support violence, discrimination and stereotypes.
Exposure to negative messages about gender, consent and violence has potential to compromise young people’s capacity to understand the dynamics of violence against women, and reject violence-supportive or victim-blaming attitudes.

From an early age, some young people witness or experience violence at home, and may come to see violence as normal, which may influence their later experience or even perpetration of violence in their own relationships.
Research on young people’s attitudes While the research base on young people’s attitudes towards gender stereotypes and violence against women is still developing, existing data presents a complex picture.
A 2013 national survey of young people aged 16-24 found that the majority (76%) believe that violence against women is common or very common in Australia.33 While this demonstrates a high level of awareness of the issue, the findings simultaneously suggest that young people aged 16-24 have greater attitudinal support for violence against women than the general population.34 Significantly it also found that one the strongest predictors of young people’s attitudes towards violence against women is their attitudes towards gender equality.35 Recent market research conducted by Our Watch also indicates a disturbing level of adherence to harmful gender stereotypes by young Australians.
In 2014, Our Watch commissioned qualitative and quantitative market research36 to gain insights into the attitudes, behaviours and needs of young people, and to inform the approach that our youth campaign The Line would take from 2015 to 2017.

Researchers surveyed 3,000 people, including 2,000 young people ages 12 to 24.
Researchers also interviewed violence and youth sector experts; conducted 33 focus groups with young people, parents and other influencers, 17 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 teachers and school counsellors; and conducted 16 focus groups and interviews with culturally and linguistically diverse and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and parents.
The research provided in-depth insight into young people’s attitudes, and the barriers they face in developing healthy, respectful and equal relationships.

It suggests that many young people are struggling to understand what healthy, respectful relationships look like.
Gender stereotypes – for example the idea that boys and young men are strong, emotionless, driven by their desires, and always ready for sex; and or the idea that girls and young women are emotional, and gatekeepers who are responsible for how far boys and young men can go – are having a significant negative impact on young people’s expectations and behaviours when it comes to sexual relationships.
These stereotypes, along with the growing influence of social media, pornography and porn- inspired popular culture, and the lack of positive and well-informed role models, are poor preparation for young people in learning to negotiate relationships.37 This 2014 research found significant variance in young people’s attitudes.

A positive finding was that around three-quarters of young people have, are developing, or can be supported to have, healthy, respectful and equal relationships.
However, it also found that the remaining quarter – that is, one in four Australian young people aged 12 to 24 years – hold attitudes that put them at risk of perpetrating, excusing or tolerating violence against women.

These young people are comfortable with coercive and disrespectful behaviours, are more likely to justify violence, and believe that being masculine means exerting power and control over their partners.
They are also less likely to understand that violence is not always physical, and less likely than other young people to call out violence-supportive attitudes and behaviours.
These young people are more likely to be male, in their mid-teens, have experienced or perpetrated bullying or violence, and be consuming a high amount of sexually explicit material (pornography).38 Some of the specific problematic attitudes to relationships and violence revealed by this research include:  1 in 3 young people do not think that ‘exerting control over someone else is a form of violence’;  1 in 4 young people do not think it is ‘serious when guys insult or verbally harass girls in the street’;  1 in 4 young people do not think it is ‘serious if a guy, who is normally gentle, sometimes slaps his girlfriend when he is drunk and they are arguing’; and  More than one quarter of young people think it is important for men to be tough and strong.39 In relation to sex and consent in particular, victim blaming attitudes persist:  1 in 4 young people think it is ‘pretty normal for guys to pressure girls into sex’; 18 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66  15 per cent of young people think it is ‘ok for a guy to pressure a girl for sex if they are both drunk’;  60 percent of young people believe it is ‘up to the woman to make it very clear if she doesn’t want to have sex’;  37 percent of young people agree that it is ‘hard to respect a woman when she is drunk’; and  27 percent agree that it is ‘hard to be respectful of a woman who wears revealing clothing’.40 These findings demonstrate how stereotyped and rigid ideas about gender roles can heavily influence young people’s behaviours and expectations when it comes to their intimate relationships.
For example, many young men believe that being ‘masculine’ means that they need to show physical strength, control others, particularly women, or tell their partner what to do.41 Such attitudes can be extremely harmful because they produce expectations of inequality in gender relations premised on stereotyped constructions of aggressive, entitled and dominant masculinity and subordinate or sexualised femininity.
These notions of gendered relationships can excuse or justify disrespectful, controlling and violent behaviours and lead to the normalisation of violence and sexual coercion.

Other market research commissioned by Our Watch in 201442 investigated the attitudes of young people and their ‘influencers’ (e.g.

parents and community members) towards gender stereotypes, relationships and communication.
Researchers surveyed 2,005 people (including 538 parents of 12-16 year olds; 728 12-20 year olds; 624 17-30 year olds specifically drawn from The Line Facebook page; older siblings and teachers).
The research suggests that men tend to endorse gender role stereotypes more than women:  55% of fathers agree that a man should fight if the woman he is with is insulted by another man, compared to 36% of mothers;  Fathers are more likely than mothers to agree that there is something wrong with a woman who does not want to marry and raise a family; and.

 60% of mothers thought that learning about gender roles was a very important topic, compared to 38% of fathers.
The findings suggest a pattern where males overall (regardless of age) are:  less likely to believe that respect is central to all good relationships;  more likely to think that it is important that men are tough and strong; and  more likely to excuse physical violence when alcohol or drugs is involved.
19 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 These findings are supported by other recent Australian research, which found that young men are more likely than young women to hold attitudes supportive of gender stereotypes, for instance:  19 per cent of young men believe that men are supposed to be the head of the household and take control of their relationship, compared to 4 per cent of young women;  15 cent of young men agreed that men were ‘usually better at more things than women’, as opposed to 3 per cent of young women; and  28 per cent of young men believed women liked men who were in charge of the relationship, compared to 11 per cent of young women.43 In 2015, Our Watch commissioned further market research to evaluate The Line’s impact and effectiveness.
The first wave of research was conducted in September 2015, with 1,710 online interviews conducted nationally with young people, parents and teachers.
The findings suggest that around two in 10 young people subscribe to a range of traditional rigid gender role stereotypes, for example:  24% believe males should be the head of the household (30% of males believe this, versus 17% of females);  22% believe girls prefer a guy to control the relationship (27% of males believe this, versus 17% of females);  21% believe guys who control a relationship get more respect from their friends;  17% believe women should not compete with men at work; and  17% believe it’s not manly for a guy to express his feelings (23% of males believe this, versus 11% of females).
The young people who held these attitudes were also more likely to hold attitudes that blame victims for violence, or excuse, justify, trivialise or downplay violence and disrespect against women.

Young people aged 15 to 17 years were significantly more likely to hold the above attitudes, as were those who had been, or were currently in a relationship.

Furthermore, 19% of young people said porn helps people understand what to do when it comes to sex.
This 2015 research also found that parents believe in traditional rigid gender role stereotypes in similar proportions to young people:  24% believe males should be the head of the household;  17% believe girls prefer a guy to control the relationship;  16% believe women should not compete with men at work; and  15% believe it’s not manly for a guy to express his feelings (23% of males believe this, versus 11% of females).
20 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 When it comes to the drivers of violence, the research indicated:  23% disagree that gender inequality is a driver of violence (47% agreed);  32% disagree that rigid gender roles and gender stereotypes are a driver of violence (36% agreed);  51% disagree that violence-supportive attitudes are a driver of violence (31% agreed);  Parents of girls are slightly more likely than parents of boys to agree that these factors drive violence against women; and  Mothers are more likely than fathers to agree that gender inequality drives violence against women.
Finally, the research revealed that when talking to children about the drivers, types and impacts of violence, parents were least likely to discuss gender roles, stereotypes, and pornography.

Parents are also less likely to agree that these are important topics to discuss with their children, and less likely to feel confident about discussing these topics.

ii.
ii.

Messages conveyed to children and young people in the marketing of toys and other products ‘Market segmentation’ is a well-established technique to increase diversity of goods and subsequent sales.

But segmentation on the basis of gender can have impacts that are far from benign, especially when the target is children and young people.
Many products marketed as ‘boy toys’ (typically transportation and construction toys, action figures and weapons) facilitate physicality, competition, dominance and construction, while many ‘girl toys’ (dolls, beauty- and domestic-themed toys) facilitate domesticity, concern with appearance and nurturance.44 Such segmentation reinforces negative gender stereotypes and social norms about girls and boys and men and women, thereby entrenching and exacerbating normative forms of gender inequality.
Such marketing is not merely ‘responding to demand’ but actively creating it.
Marketers of toys are aware of, and consciously exploit, the developmental stages at which children are receptive to gender stereotypes and are forming their ideas about their own gender identity.45 Children learn about gender and develop an early sense of gender identity through early childhood as they seek to explore and classify themselves as individuals.46 In contrast to this, gender stereotypes enforce categories of acceptance for certain values, aspirations and behaviours, and can lead to children developing their own stereotypes about those groups.47 21 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Studies have found that gendered toys shape children’s play preferences and styles, and limit the range of skills and attributes that both boys and girls explore through play.48 This may thereby prevent children from developing their full range of interests, preferences and talents.
While not the only source of gender socialisation in children’s lives, gendered marketing has potential to contribute to an unnecessary narrowing of children’s interests.

It relies on separate and homogenised messaging for boys and girls that fails to acknowledge children’s unique characteristics and individual interests.
Gender segregated toy marketing, and the gendered play it encourages, is also inconsistent with the overlap in social and occupational roles occupied by men and women, rendering invisible those roles and activities undertaken by both men and women that do not conform to gender stereotypes.
Gender stereotypes are inherently hierarchical in nature, and both underpin a host of well-documented biases against women in traditionally ‘masculine’ domains and roles, and hinder men from sharing more in the responsibilities and rewards of domestic life.
Used in marketing, rigid gender stereotypes convey limiting messages to children about what kinds of products and activities are suitable for girls or for boys, therefore potentially influencing the development of their personal identities and their future aspirations.

Let Toys Be Toys,49 a UK- based campaign focused on eliminating the gendered labelling and marketing of toys makes this point, stating: ‘the stereotypes we see in toy marketing connect with the inequalities we see in adult life.
By late primary age, research … shows that children already have very clear ideas about the jobs that are suitable for boys and girls; ideas that are very hard to shake later on.’ As outlined earlier, evidence shows that people who support gender inequality and rigid and hierarchical gender roles and stereotypes are more likely hold attitudes that condone or excuse violence against women.
By reproducing and reinforcing such gender stereotypes in the messages conveyed to children and young people, the gendered marketing of toys and other products can therefore be understood as having great potential to contribute to the cultural conditions that support domestic violence.

There is however evidence of support for challenges to gendered marketing of toys and other products to children.
In 2015, Our Watch commissioned research50 on gendered marketing of toys that found two thirds of parents interviewed believed that children should be able to choose toys based on their interests and passions, not on gender stereotypes.

One-third believed that toy marketing that reinforces gender stereotypes imposes limits on children’s interests and ability to fulfil their potential.51 22 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 iii.
Messages conveyed to children and young people in education The education system is a central part of children and young people’s everyday lives.

From the formal curriculum to the organisation, structure and navigation of playground and extra curricula activities, schools and the wider education system play a key part in the socialisation of children and young people.
Without intervention, education settings are commonly reflective of the broader social and cultural status quo – one that is characterised both by structural gender inequality (reflected for example in the unequal distribution of women and men in employment in the education system) and by rigid and hierarchical gender stereotypes and norms.
Research and work led by the Council of Europe shows that gender stereotyping influences the behaviour and practices of school personnel – despite government legislation and policies that attempt to prevent this.52 The education system can perpetuate stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity and the production of normative gendered identities.53 For instance, despite the fact that all areas of the curriculum are generally available to all students, students are not encouraged to choose subjects in a way that is gender neutral.
Perceptions that particular subjects or career paths are more ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, or more suited to girls or boys are common.

Studies also show that teachers typically interact differently with male and female students, including for example, the percentage of time they give to girls and boys, the questions they ask of each and the way they respond incorrect answers.54 Curriculum and accompanying resources for children often also reflect dominant gender norms and stereotypes.
For example, international studies have found that women feature less than men in textbooks and classroom resources, and less often as central characters in children’s books.55 A study examining the differences between Australian and Hong Kong (English) textbooks, showed that despite having a substantially longer women’s and gender equality movement, Australian text books were no more gender neutral or empowering of women.56 This research noted decades of previous research from Australia that showed depictions of women are largely restricted to domestic and nurturing roles and typically show women as passive, dependent, weak and physically attractive, while men are depicted in a wide range of social and occupational roles and shown as active, independent and strong.
This skewed perspective on gender offered through curriculum and accompanying resources presents a ‘male-centric’ view of the world in which the experiences, perspectives and achievements of women are overlooked.57 Because students view official education resources and textbooks as credible and authoritative, such depictions can be particularly influential.58 As discussed previously, even in the early years, children are exposed to stereotyping that impacts on their social, emotional and intellectual development.59 23 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Change the Story recognises the potential for working both in primary, secondary and tertiary education settings, as well as early childhood education and care sector (including working with parents and carers).
iv.

Messages conveyed to children and young people in entertainment A rapidly changing social context As social norms around sex, marriage and relationships evolve, every generation of young people faces a different social context.

While young people today face many of the same issues as their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, they must also navigate challenges emerging from fast- paced technological change.
Market research conducted for the Our Watch The Line campaign60 has found that social media is playing a central role in young people’s relationships; actions are being played out publicly, and behaviours that would be unacceptable offline become common online.

This is giving young people even less opportunity to learn to understand and negotiate respectful, healthy and equal relationships.
Young people’s ‘flirting’ interactions have shifted to a significant degree onto social media – from the first indications of being singled out, flirty talk, moving things onto more sexual flirting, and then the official declaration of a ‘relationship’ on Facebook to the drama of the ‘coupling’ and ‘break up’ phases.

This is all not only creating a lot of pressure for young people, it potentially erodes, rather than promotes, good relationship norms.
This becomes even more problematic when our research indicates that young people are not getting the guidance and information they need from their parents, teachers and others they trust.

Parents rarely talk about healthy relationships, especially to boys, and many lack the language and communication skills to do so.
Healthy, respectful and equal relationships are not consistently taught within the education system, and many role models – including community leaders – are not addressing these issues adequately or appropriately.

As a result, young people are being left to figure it all out for themselves from other sources – their friends, their ‘heroes’, the media, pornography, and popular culture.
Stereotypes and sexualised imagery in the new media landscape The contemporary context in which young people live includes the rise of new media in which objectifying and sexualised imagery of women is commonplace.61 Sexualisation and gender stereotyping are closely related, with sexualised messages embedded within broader gender 24 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 norms and dependent on hegemonic constructions of masculinity and femininity.
Many young people access pornography (including violent pornography) before their first sexual experience and this may be their only or primary source of information on sexuality and sexual relationships.

This, along with exposure other negative influences such as unwanted sexting, revenge porn and gender-based bullying online can have a significant impact on the development of violence supportive attitudes, and limit young people’s ability to see alternatives to unhealthy relationships.
Market research commissioned by Our Watch in 2014 to inform The Line campaign62 found that while social media use is common for both genders, boys and young men are much more likely to be accessing porn and viewing the way it represents male and female sexuality as normal and realistic.

The research found that 72 per cent of 16-24 year old males had ever accessed ‘sexually explicit images and video’, with 14 per cent accessing porn at least once a day.
Boys described first accessing porn as young as 9 or 10 years of age.

Many young people see porn as real people in real situations having real sex, with only 14 per cent of 12-17 year old males knowing that porn is not a good reflection of real life.

The direct influence of stereotyped representations of men and women – not only in porn but in other forms of media, popular culture and entertainment – is difficult to measure.
However, they clearly play a role in the socialization of young people and in contributing to the formation of their attitudes, values and beliefs – about gender, sex, sexuality and relationships.
The link between sexist and gender stereotyped media content and violence against women Gender inequality and attitudes to gender, women and sexuality are central to understanding the perpetration of violence against women as well as community responses to violence against women.63 A consistent finding across a broad range of research has identified strong associations between traditional attitudes towards gender and acceptance of violence against women.64 The way in which gender stereotypes influence the media’s representation of and public debate about violence against women is demonstrated in recent research jointly funded by Our Watch and Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), as part of the Our Watch National Media Engagement Project.65 This review of the best available contemporary evidence on the way news and information media portray violence against women found that in representing this issue, media reporting tended to rely on and reproduce a number of gendered myths and misconceptions about violence against women, which in turn are strongly dependent on gender stereotypes.66 Conversely the report found that it was rare for media reports to 25 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 challenge stereotypical ideas and gendered social and cultural norms about men and women and violence.67 The specific link between children’s exposure to sexist and gender stereotyped imagery in the media, entertainment and popular culture, and the development of attitudes and behaviours that support, condone or perpetuate violence against women can be challenging to demonstrate.
These are highly complex social and psychological processes that occur over long periods of time, in interaction with numerous other factors.
While exposure to the media does not have a deterministic effect on people’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, it is clear that, as Flood and Pease explain, the various forms of media to which people are exposed are “effective teachers of gender-stereotyped and violence-supportive attitudes”.68 However, reviews of research evidence suggest that children’s exposure to pornography and sexual imagery is becoming more frequent and that routine exposure may contribute to children and young people’s adherence to sexist attitudes toward women, sex and violence.69 There is also evidence that media and advertising that perpetuates gender norms and sexism may affect children’s development, experiences and understandings of gender roles.70 A comprehensive review of the literature on the sexualisation of young people undertaken for the British Home Office in 201071 found that repeated exposure to gender-stereotypical ideas and images contributes to sexist attitudes and beliefs; stereotyped perceptions of men and women, discriminatory behaviour, sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women.
26 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 c) The role of government initiatives at every level in addressing the underlying causes of domestic violence, including the commitments under, or related to, the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children The last decade has seen greatly increased awareness of the issue of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women, and the development of widespread community support, and expectation, for action.
The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022 (the National Plan) provides a supportive, bipartisan and cross-jurisdictional policy that goes beyond electoral cycles to establish a long-term and transformative vision of an Australia where all women and their children live free from violence, in safe communities.
The National Plan’s First and Second Action Plans have built evidence on what works to prevent violence, including through multi-million dollar grants programs for Community Action and Respectful Relationships Education.
The current challenge – and opportunity – for governments at all levels, is to scale up and systematise proven and promising, yet still small-scale, programs to the population level – enabling them to reach and impact far greater numbers of people, and create the potential for the kind of whole-of-population change that is needed.

Such an effort will also enable a return on prior investment in pilot programs that could save the economy billions.
For example, if comprehensively supported Respectful Relationships Education programs were undertaken across government schools alone in Australia, an estimated 7-12,000 future experiences of violence against women could be avoided (based on evaluations of similar American programs).
This amounts to savings of up to $3.6 billion in avoided costs.72 Recognising that more research and consultation was needed to determine how the lessons learned from previous work could be scaled up to the national level, the Second Action Plan supported the development of Change the Story.
As our shared national framework, Change the Story should now guide the future commitments of all Australian governments and their civil society and private sector partners and help us deliver results to turn the corner on this complex – but preventable – social issue.

The role of gender inequality – and in particular gender stereotyping – in driving violence against women has been outlined earlier in this submission.
It also stresses that gender inequality must always be considered in the context of other forms of discrimination and disadvantage, and that a range of factors can reinforce such inequality to exacerbate violence against women in some cases.

Change the Story outlines a range of essential and supporting actions that governments and other stakeholders should take in order to address the complexity of these factors.
The implication for how governments should implement these actions, and prioritise action and investment, is outlined below.

27 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 i.

How governments should prioritise action and investment Change the Story outlined five essential and five supporting actions to address the factors that drive and reinforce violence against women – to be undertaken across the nation by a diverse range of stakeholders.
Experience from other areas of social change, such as efforts to reduce smoking and road accidents, shows that by taking this kind of shared, consistent and coordinated national approach we can measurably lower the probability of violence against women and decrease future occurrences.

Addressing the specific and gendered drivers of violence against women must be the priority if we are to reduce levels of violence against women in a significant and sustained way.
Essential actions 1- 4 should comprise the bulk of investment and activity of governments and key partners in implementing Change the Story, and in the Third Action Plan.
To be truly inclusive and reach everyone across the diversity of the Australian populations, all such activity should take into account the range of ways differently positioned groups experience gender inequality, discrimination and violence; and actively seek to involve people from all cultural backgrounds, abilities, socio- economic groups, genders, sexualities and ages in design, implementation and evaluation.
The full implementation of essential action 5 – ‘promote and normalize Supporting action 10 – like essential action 5 – is broad in scope and outcomes, gender equality in public and private life’ – will have numerous social, health while being crucial to prevent violence against all women.

Again, separate policy and economic benefits in addition to preventing violence against women.
and investment frameworks will be necessary at all levels to fully implement this For this reason, and because of the significant scope and range of activity it action.
Further, because of the intersectional nature of the drivers and reinforcing implies, separate policy and investment frameworks at National, factors, collaborative approaches with those experienced in working on different State/Territory and Local levels should be envisaged to measurably address forms of discrimination and disadvantage, and with particular population groups all forms of structural, normative and practice-based gender inequality.

In and communities, are critical.


These collaborations should guide the co-design of other words, specific strategies to prevent violence against women should specific and tailored activities for particular groups, supporting a greater intensity of be adopted in addition to (and aligned with) broader or more general gender joined-up effort and investment to addresses the complex combinations of factors equality strategies.

contributing to violence for women in particular groups and communities.
Addressing the reinforcing factors entails a new way of working that brings together specialist violence prevention and gender equality expertise with those working across other areas of social policy, advocacy and practice (such as child protection, or alcohol harm minimisation).

Investing in ways to support these sectors to collaborate better, learn from each other, and jointly develop (and finance) shared programs of work, will be more effective than ‘siloed’ investment in isolated initiatives.
28 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 ii.

How governments should frame implementation for the greatest impact Change the Story reviewed the international evidence on what works for greatest impact in the implementation of prevention activity internationally.

This evidence points to the need for implementation across four main ‘streams’ of work.

What Change the Story told us Implications for implementation Some initiatives have proven effective and should be expanded to reach everyone.
Others have shown promising results and are ready for further testing, with a clear 'path' to scale- up.

•Systematise and scale up proven work to reach everyone, and use longitudinal evaluation to ensure quality and measure outcomes (e.g.

respectful relationships education).

•Further test promising work through staged expansion and systematisation/scale-up (e.g.

early childhood, media).


SYSTEMATISATION Prevention is a relatively new field, with significant evidence gaps - for different population groups, and in particular settings and contexts •Significantly increase investment in collaborative place- and/or community-based models for communities experiencing multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage.

•Support innovative new approaches to build evidence; to develop and test work in 'untried' settings; and to respond to emerging issues.
INNOVATION Isolated initiatives are not enough to prevent violence against women - we need a collaborative, multi- faceted and long-term program for change •Bring all the above work together, through mechanisms for a collaborative and high- quality approach to prevention, across sectors and locations.

• Train an expert workforce to deliver the above initiatives.
INFRASTRUCTURE We need to stage initiatives and measure progress over time, as well as at the whole population level • Implement a consistent and staged approach at all levels.

Evaluate in a way appropriate to the stage of activity with a view to building evidence for sustainability and scale up.

• Start measuring short to mid-term change at the population level, and ensure we’re ‘going in the right direction’.
MEASUREMENT 29 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 a. Systematisation Some prevention initiatives have proven effectiveness and have a clear path to scale-up.
A number of initiatives internationally have now been subject to rigorous and long-term evaluations and have proven effectiveness in reducing future perpetration and victimization.73 Governments have a clear role to play in systematising and scaling up such proven work to reach everyone, and in applying longitudinal evaluation to ensure quality and measure outcomes.
In addition to building system support (such as policies, training and human resources), this may also require particular attention to tailoring of material and approaches to ensure ‘hard to reach’ groups receive the benefit of initiatives.

Government departments in areas such as social and community services, education and early childhood, health, sports and recreation, are all critical to a comprehensive approach to violence prevention through system and policy development.
Such initiatives might include curriculum development, teacher training and regional support for respectful relationships education in schools; or integrating positive and equal parenting programs into early childhood or community services statewide.

Effort must be undertaken on a whole of government basis built on a shared understanding of the purpose of prevention, and with joint responsibility and accountability for delivering government commitments.
Examples of prevention work ready for systematisation or scale-up include respectful relationships education in primary and secondary schools, and media engagement.

Work that requires more testing but has a system-based ‘path’ to scale up includes integrating prevention into early childhood education and care, and working with parents.

b.
b.

Innovation Governments at all levels have a role to play in system strengthening and reform, not only for scaling up and embedding proven practice, but also to support emerging practice.

Many initiatives have shown promise on a small-scale or in local contexts, but more work is needed to develop and test models to see if they are appropriate for scale-up to the national level, and if so how.
Areas where there are significant evidence gaps on what is effective include prevention work:    in some settings – such as faith groups, film and television, or advertising – where a solid rationale for prevention exists, but little evaluated practice has so far been undertaken in Australia; for particular population groups or communities – such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and some culturally and linguistically diverse communities – who may be experiencing multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage, and therefore would benefit from more holistic and strengths-based community models for prevention, in collaboration with those working towards related goals/reinforcing factors; and in different geographical settings and contexts – especially rural/regional and remote areas – where the relative influence of local communities on norms, structures and practices (compared 30 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 to that of more formal structures) may be higher, and therefore require a different approach to prevention than one relying on ‘reach through settings’.
To maintain relevance and reach across a diverse and rapidly evolving Australian society, governments also need to be able to identify and respond to emerging issues as they arise.
A mechanism is required to fund the development, implementation and evaluation (through action research methodologies) of:    transferable practice models in settings where promising evidence and practice already exists, prior to full scale up; innovative new approaches to build evidence for primary prevention in settings such as film, TV and advertising, public transport, or faith-based organisations; collaborative place- and community-based models for prevention in rural/regional and remote communities, and/or with particular population groups; and  approaches to respond to emerging issues and a changing environment.
Significant funding for evaluation (around 20 percent of project budgets) should be a feature of investment in the innovation stream, where the emphasis is on building evidence through participatory methodologies.

Program design and development should draw on all available evidence, prioritising formal evaluations, but also incorporating lessons from research, practice and consultation and advice from those with relevant expertise.
Examples of work that would benefit from piloting through a national innovation program might include: place-based action research pilots with communities experiencing multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage; working with disability services and institutions to prevent violence against women; or working with advertising, film and television industries to challenge gender stereotypes.

c. Infrastructure We cannot prevent violence against women ‘project by project’.
While isolated initiatives have demonstrated impact for participants, they are not enough to create lasting change.

A stand-alone schools-based program, for instance, may well change participating students’ attitudes and behaviours around gender and violence, but if they receive sexist and/or violence-supportive messaging from the media, broader peer groups or in their home environments, that change is less likely to ‘hold’ over time.
On the other hand, the effectiveness of a prevention initiative is reinforced and strengthened when it is carried out in concert with initiatives occurring in other settings (e.g.

where a schools-based program is accompanied by a social marketing campaign, community initiative, and/or sports-based program).
This effect is known as ‘mutually-reinforcing.’ Broad and sustainable change can only be achieved where prevention efforts are planned and implemented to go ‘wide and deep’ – across the numerous settings where people interact and that influence them, such as schools, local communities, the media, workplaces, residential care settings, sporting clubs and faith institutions – and in a coordinated way.74 This coordination of effort also allows us 31 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 to reach a much larger number of people than a stand-alone initiative, and so begin the process of population-level change.
But it requires collaborative planning, implementation and monitoring.

Change the Story explains how a collaborative national approach in turn requires a strong ‘prevention infrastructure’ to drive broad, deep and sustainable social change, including:  mechanisms for coordination and quality assurance  an expert workforce  political, sector-specific and civil society leadership  policy and legislative reform  shared monitoring, reporting and evaluation frameworks.
Such an infrastructure is the key that unlocks the potential for every sector, institution, organisation and community to play their role in preventing violence against women through a collaborative effort.

It also allows us to ensure that prevention activity at all levels - from national, through to the state/territory, the regional and the local – can benefit from evidence-based support.

As such, a good infrastructure is not just ‘nice to have’ but a crucial driver of all other prevention activity.
Governments have a clear role to play in building and/or supporting a prevention infrastructure that should include:  A National Primary Prevention Steering Group  A National Workforce Development Strategy  A mechanism and process for engaging leaders across different sectors and communities  A gender equality strategy shared across jurisdictions and linked to the National Plan, with actions aiming to ‘close the gender gap’ (e.g.
against the ABS’ gender indicators), and an emphasis on promoting women’s independence and decision-making in public life and relationships.
 Civil society-led mechanisms for increased collaboration and collective impact on ‘common causes’ and/or shared goals, for example to: o Challenge the normalisation of violence o Building pathways to positive futures for children, young people and adults who have experienced or been exposed to violence o Address the intersections between social norms related to alcohol, gender and violence o Work towards shared social equality goals in a collective way.
d. Measurement While many primary prevention of violence against women initiatives have taken place in Australia over the last decade, most have not been comprehensively evaluated, and guidance is lacking on what sorts of evaluations, measuring what sorts of change, are most appropriate in different contexts and a different ‘stages’ of prevention practice.
Our Watch is developing a Guide to Implementation and Evaluation under Change the Story, that will be able to inform staging of practice and evaluation, but its uptake nationwide 32 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 will require the development of systems and workforce capacity across sectors (see ‘infrastructure’ above).

Evaluation methods should be designed and funded in such a way as to be appropriate to the stage of the initiative being evaluated.
For example:  An innovative new approach should be evaluated at around 20 percent of total budget, using participatory and action-research methodologies to measure shifts in the underlying drivers and reinforcing factors, but also the strengths and weaknesses of processes.
 Where initiatives have demonstrated initial success, their first stage of scale-up should also be evaluated, this time for the appropriateness of the approach to new sites or environments, and to develop and refine a transferable model for the next stage.

 Once such transferrable models have been developed, tested and refined, they are ready for full scale-up or systematisation.
For this stage, longitudinal and – in some cases – randomised control trials – would enable testing of future impact on levels of violence.

In Australia, while shorter-term evaluations for many initiatives have shown a positive impact on participants in relation to the drivers of violence (e.g.

in the attitudes, practices or power differentials known to contribute to violence),75 and produced tested models for scale up (e.g.
in Respectful Relationships Education), no initiative has yet been subject to robust longitudinal evaluation.

Evaluations typically report on the immediate impacts on student attitudes and school cultures.

While such measures are important, further research is necessary to categorically demonstrate the effectiveness of shifting gender inequality and stereotypes and subsequent changes to future rates of perpetration and victimisation.

Another ‘measurement issue’ is that of whole-of-population change.
While we measure prevalence of violence against women at the population level through the Personal Safety Survey,76 and attitudes towards gender and violence through the National Community Attitudes Survey,77 we know that primary prevention is a long-term endeavour, and we would not expect to see significant changes against such indicators until a comprehensive (and national) primary prevention program has been delivered for at least a five to ten year period.78 Furthermore we do not yet have a consistent approach to the measurement of short to mid-term change at the population level – against the drivers and reinforcing factors of violence – to know if we are ‘going in the right direction’.
Our Watch is also developing a Guide to National Prevention Monitoring that will inform this effort, but again its uptake will require training and system support at the national level, and likely further adaption at the State/Territory level.
Achieving a measurable decrease in violence against women at the population level is arguably the culmination of numerous smaller changes at the practice level, but it also requires agreed population- level indicators, and a process for data collection, analysis and reporting.
The current challenge, then, is to determine what short to mid-term indicators can help us assess our progress at the state (and ideally regional and local) level, and to ensure that our data collection methods are robust enough to provide meaningful learnings.
This might entail identifying and measuring reductions in the drivers of violence 33 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 against women against high-level indicators such as measures of structural gender equality in economic, social and political terms, as well as ‘normative’ measures that might include shifts in attitudes towards women and violence, levels of street and workplace harassment, representations of women and violence in popular culture, and so forth.
Initial actions required to improve measurement of progress at project and population levels include:  Developing a national baseline of data against which progress in prevention over the course of the National Plan can be measured.

This should include detailed and precise measures across the structures, norms and practices that drive and reinforce violence against women, as identified in Change the Story.
 Developing a 2018 and 2022 ‘Progress in Prevention Data Reports’, demonstrating progress against the baseline indicators during and at the end of the National Plan implementation period.

 Releasing annual qualitative Thematic Reports on issues such as what the data tells us about socio-economic disadvantage and violence against women in the Australian context.

34 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 iii.
The four interlocking parts of implementation = a significant and sustained reduction in violence against women across the population Reductions in future perpetration and victimisation Shifts in norms, structures and practices Improved processes t n e m e r u s a e M Innovation Innovative practice is evaluated against process indicators as well as impact on the drivers and reinforcing factors (e.g.
measuring bystander preparedness to speak up, or practice and structural changes in workplaces towards greater gender equality) Systematisation and scale up is of initiatives that have already shown effectiveness against the drivers of violence, and should now be longitudinally evaluated for their impact on future perpetration and victimisation Systematisation Infrastructure Infrastructure development is evaluated against process indicators (e.g.
number of people trained to implement quality prevention practice) 35 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 iv.

What change looks like over time Full implementation of Change the Story will, towards the end of the current National Plan in 2022, begin to show significant and measurable gains.
Continued bipartisan support and investment from all levels of government – working in partnership with civil society and the private sector – will be crucial to ensure prevention activity is embedded into systems, institutions, organisations and communities across sectors and across the country.

Such a collaborative national approach will take Australia to the next stage of significant and population-level reductions in violence against women and their children.
This graphic envisages the evolution in population-level indicators of progress in prevention of violence against women.
Reading from the bottom upwards: 1) Increased investment in prevention systematisation, innovation and infrastructure through the Third Action Plan (3AP), 2) Leads to short to mid-term increases in indicators of gender equality and improvements against the drivers and reinforcing factors (RFs) of violence against women 3) Which, over the mid to long-term leads to a decrease in 12-mth prevalence measured by the Personal Safety Survey Source: The Equality Institute 2016 36 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Recommendations We will not prevent domestic violence – or any violence against women – without addressing the gender inequality that has been definitively demonstrated in the international research to underlie and drive it.
Certain expressions of such inequality have been shown to more consistently and significantly predict higher levels of violence against women than others, and we should focus our efforts on these.

One of these is adherence to rigid or stereotypical gender roles and identities.

So while addressing gender stereotyping alone will not prevent violence against women, it is a critical component of a broader prevention effort.
Our recommendations below go to the role of the Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments as they develop and finalise the Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022.

This Plan should aim to address the specific gendered drivers of violence against women and their children (which include rigid adherence to stereotypical gender roles and identities) and its reinforcing factors, as identified in Change the Story.
We recommend that such efforts be accompanied by a long-term and cross- jurisdictional gender equality strategy, addressing structural gender inequalities more broadly through an intersectional approach.
Overarching recommendation: A national Primary Prevention Strategy, based on Change the Story, within the Third Action Plan The Federal and State/Territory Governments should develop a national Primary Prevention strategy, within the Third Action Plan (and through associated jurisdictional plans), that reflects the framework for action outlined in Change the Story.

The Primary Prevention Strategy should include commitments across four main areas of investment and action: 1.
Systematise, scale up and embed proven practice for universal reach 1.1 Education – The Third Action Plan should support schools cross-jurisdictionally to embed whole-school approaches to Respectful Relationships Education and ensure the full benefits of the new Australian Curriculum reach every child.

The actions required to enable the scaling up and systematisation of this proven approach include: 37 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 a.
Establishing a cross-sector and cross-jurisdictional expert steering group that advises on planning, development, implementation and evaluation strategies of Respectful Relationships Education across each jurisdiction; b.
Develop an ongoing school support and quality assurance mechanism for a whole school approach to gender equality and respectful relationships education; c. Establish State and Territory level coordination points between departments of education; d. Develop curriculum guidance and teacher resources from Foundation to Year 12, to support good practice delivery of Respectful Relationships Education through the Australian Curriculum; e. Develop and deliver a professional learning and capacity building strategy for teachers, principals, other school staff and education departmental staff; f. Develop guidance for schools to respond to students, staff and family members experiencing or perpetrating violence; and g. Conduct ongoing evaluation and continual improvement, including collection of longitudinal data on future rates of victimisation and perpetration.
This work would build on the foundations established by previous Action Plans, which ensured the inclusion of Respectful Relationships Education in the Australian Curriculum, piloted a range of respectful relationships education initiatives and supported research for the development of good practice standards.
1.2 Early Childhood Education and Care – The Third Action Plan should recognise that, even in the early years, children are exposed to stereotyping that impacts on their social, emotional and intellectual development.79 Change the Story recognises the potential for working in early childhood, by working with parents and carers and through the early childhood education and care sector.
The current National Quality Standards and the seven quality areas that exist for this sector in Australia, do not address gender stereotypes or the promotion of gender equality and respectful relationships.

At the service level there have been discreet examples of Early Childhood Education and Care services working to integrate early intervention and primary prevention strategies within their operations.
While work in this sector will require more testing, a solid rationale exists for Commonwealth Government leadership to a system-based ‘path’ to scale up this work, in particular through the National Quality Standards and Being, Belonging and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework, including through: 38 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 a.
Coordinating and connecting existing stakeholders, including Early Childhood Australia, Our Watch, ACEQA, state based regulatory bodies and departments of early childhood education, through a national experts groups; b.
Developing whole-service approach for Early Childhood Education and Care Services and pilot in different service types and locations; c. Developing support and training for educators including a professional development strategy; d. Developing further guidance for Early Childhood Education and Care to respond to children, staff and family members experiencing or perpetrating violence building on existing mandatory reporting requirements.
; and, e. As work in this area is in its formative stages, investing in extensive evaluation, monitoring and continual improvement.

1.3 Media – Media have an important role to play in preventing violence against women as it has wide reach and significant influence in shaping and maintaining social norms.

Media organisations themselves may also have potential to develop into workplaces that actively support equal and respectful relationships.
The Third Action Plan should support this work to move into its next stage, through a long-term national media engagement strategy to promote broad-based attitudinal change.

This should include: a. Curriculum, training materials, reporting guidelines and website portal for professional and student journalists to ensure ethical reporting and establish the role the media can play in preventing violence against women; b.
The implementation of a national survivors’ media advocacy project to empower and support women with lived experience of violence to speak to the media.
In particular, grants to State/Territory agencies would be required to enable crisis service peaks in each jurisdiction to train and support advocates; c. Tools for the violence against women sector and ‘first responders’ to help communicate with the media for the purposes of primary prevention; d. Ongoing support for Annual Our Watch Awards for exemplary reporting to end violence against women (with Walkley Foundation), which serve as an incentive for journalists to produce high quality, ethical reporting; e. An authoritative evidence base and framework to inform this work; and f. A media advisory group, bringing together key journalists from television, radio, print and online media, as well as media academics, to review materials created through the project and act as ambassadors within the industry.
39 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 This work builds on the National Media Engagement Project established in the Second Action Plan and managed by Our Watch.

1.4 Social marketing – Provide adequate funding for the next stage of The Line, Australia’s long-term primary prevention initiative for young people aged 12 to 20 years.
Additional funding through to 2018-19 would enable Our Watch to implement a suite of new campaign activities to specifically target the different attitudinal segments of young people identified by current campaign research, as well as raise broader awareness of The Line and support the COAG campaign.
The additional activities that would be made possible with increased funding would specifically:  educate and empower young people to become social change catalysts and positive bystanders;  provide guidance on behaviours that ‘cross the line’ and reinforce positive attitudes/behaviours for young people; and  challenge the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that can lead to violence, inspire young people to pursue healthy relationships, and provide pathways for young people to get help to change their behaviour.
The Line is an initiative under the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022, and was identified as a priority initiative in the First and Second Action Plans.

This expansion of The Line campaign would reaffirm the importance of this behaviour change initiative under the Third Action Plan, and enable Our Watch to build on the campaign’s successes to date.
1.5 ‘Big reach’ organisations – the Third Action Plan should provide technical assistance to businesses, public institutions, sporting and other organisations that reach a large number of people – either through their workforces or services or both – to promote gender equality and empower bystanders to act in cases of violence or discrimination, including: a.

Practice models with accompanying standards; b.


Training for workplace gender equality ‘champions’; and c. Access to resources that can support workplace/organisational initiatives.

40 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 2.
Support innovation to build evidence and ‘scale-able’ practice models in specific settings and geographical contexts, and for population groups where less evaluated practice exists 2.1 Investigate appropriate modalities and funding mechanisms though which to support innovation and evidence building in primary prevention.
The modality and mechanism should have the potential to source contributions from governments, the corporate sector and philanthropic trusts, while ensuring support to a program of work that is aligned with the principles of Change the Story, and ensures coordination, quality assurance and technical assistance, across multiple levels and in multiple settings.
It would support the development, implementation and evaluation of: a. transferable practice models in settings where promising evidence and practice already exists, prior to full scale up; b. approaches to build evidence for primary prevention in ‘new’ settings where there is a strong rationale for prevention activity but little current practice exists, with subsequent development of evidence-based standards and transferrable models; c. collaborative place- and community-based models for prevention in rural/regional and remote communities, and/or with particular population groups; and d. approaches to respond to emerging issues and a changing environment.
2.2 Undertake a mapping exercise of existing practice and evaluations in order to develop a staged program of work for the above.

Priority projects would be determined by the mapping exercise and the advice of the National Primary Prevention Steering Group (see Recommendation 3.1 below), but might include providing funding to support: a.
A collaboration between advertising industry stakeholders and those working on gender stereotyping and prevention of violence against women to develop guidelines and improve codes of practice to promote diversity, gender equality and eliminate stereotyping in advertising; b.

A series of multi-site, place-based pilots for community-led prevention, guided by prevention specialists, to work with population groups or communities experiencing multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage.
These should include as a priority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and be developed through strengths-based participatory approaches, led by a specialist organisation in prevention in collaboration with community groups and researchers; c. A partnership between violence against women organisations, disability advocates and disability services to prevent violence against women with disabilities, with a 41 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 focus on the particular forms of violence that occur in institutional, residential or other formal care settings; and d. Support to local government peak bodies and other peak bodies for organisations working directly with local communities, for them to drive and coordinate prevention activity across member councils and organisations and equip them to create change in their communities.
3.

Build a ‘prevention infrastructure’ to support a collaborative, sustainable, high- quality and multi-faceted work program, from national to local levels 3.1 Establish a National Primary Prevention Steering Group.
The development, implementation and monitoring of the national Primary Prevention Strategy should be guided by a high-level National Primary Prevention Steering Group, chaired or co-chaired by Our Watch, comprising representatives from each jurisdiction and key prevention stakeholders and experts, and assuring reporting and communication channels both ‘up’ to ministerial level, and ‘down’ through member organisations of peak or lead bodies.

The Steering Group’s initial tasks would be: a.


Advising on the development of the Primary Prevention Strategy within the Third Action Plan, aligned with Change the Story; b.

Overseeing the development and implementation of a National Workforce Development strategy (see Recommendation 3.3 below); c. Guide the broader collaborative implementation of Change the Story.
While the Third Action Plan would outline the committed actions of the Federal and State/Territory Governments, a broader shared program of work should be developed through which nongovernment organisations, the private sector and other key partners commit to agreed activities and goals.

Our Watch could act as the ‘backbone organisation’ supporting and coordinating this work; and d. Developing a comprehensive data collection, monitoring and reporting framework for primary prevention.
3.2 Provide sustained funding support for Our Watch – established by the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments in 2013, Our Watch has since progressively earned the support of the majority of State/Territory Governments.

To enable the organisation to transition from this establishment phase and provide effective assistance, support and advice to all governments nationally, a more strengthened national mandate for the organisation is required, together with a more robust secure funding mechanism.
We recommend: 42 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 a. that this be endorsed by COAG with funding commitments to Our Watch for the life of the National Plan (as a minimum), similar to that recently made to ANROWS; and b. all remaining jurisdictions join Our Watch as members.
3.3 Develop a National Workforce Development Strategy – The Third Action Plan should include funding to support the development of a comprehensive workforce and leadership development strategy catering to different levels of expertise and roles in prevention, and adaptable/modular for different settings and sectors.

The National Primary Prevention Steering Group (see Recommendation 3.1 above) could lead this effort.
3.4 Establish a COAG National Plan oversight mechanism involving lead ministers – the Federal Government should nominate a COAG mechanism through which lead ministers (such as ministers for women) are able to examine, and collectively authorize coordinated action on violence against women and their children throughout the implementation of the Third Action Plan.

4.
4.

Improve evaluation, monitoring and reporting to demonstrate long-term progress and measure whole-of-population change 3.5 Ensure evaluation is built into all prevention initiatives – resources should be consistently dedicated to ensure the comprehensive evaluation of all prevention initiatives, ideally ‘built in’ to program design.
Evaluations should: employ a range of research methods; collect both qualitative and quantitative data; assess processes as well as impacts and longer-term outcomes; collect and analyse data disaggregated by factors such as ethnic/Aboriginal identity, sexual orientation, disability and age to assess potential differential outcomes; and include appropriate feedback and communications mechanisms for continuous improvement (taking an action research approach).
All evaluation findings should be made publically available to contribute to the broader primary prevention.

3.6 Build evaluation rigour and consistency a.

Developing a shared national evaluation framework of specific outcomes against which the efforts of organisations and systems working in the prevention of violence against women can be measured.

b.
b.

Make available a suite of evaluation tools including survey questions aligned with the PSS and NCAS that can be delivered in local communities to inform local and 43 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 regional policy and programming – either as a ‘stand alone’ or for inclusion in other survey instruments.

c. Continuing regular implementation Personal Safety Survey (PSS) and National Community Attitudes Survey (NCAS) – ideally at three year interviews aligned to national Action Plans.
d. Ensure future iterations of the PSS and NCAS are resourced to recruit statistically significant numbers of people from different groups, to enable policy and programming to respond appropriately to particular issues of relevance to these groups.

e. Commit to ongoing biannual delivery of the ABS’ gender indicators survey, and support delivery of a renewed Tracking Equity report to align with the end of the Second Action Plan in 2016.
3.7 Invest in longitudinal research – of Respectful Relationships Education in schools, with a particular focus on the impact of tackling gender inequality and stereotypes through the school curriculum.

Investment in a longitudinal study would provide policy makers with a definitive study of respectful relationships education in schools in the Australian context and the longer term return on investment that this program can have for young people in their future relationships.
3.8 Improve measurement of progress at project and population levels – including: a.

Developing a national baseline of data against which progress in prevention over the course of the National Plan can be measured.

This should include detailed and precise measures across the structures, norms and practices that drive and reinforce violence against women, as identified in Change the Story.

b.
b.

Developing a 2018 and 2022 ‘Progress in Prevention Data Reports’, demonstrating progress against the baseline indicators during and at the end of the National Plan implementation period.

c. Releasing annual qualitative Thematic Reports on issues such as what the data tells us about socio-economic disadvantage and violence against women in the Australian context.
44 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Endnotes 1 Submitted under our former name; the Foundation to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children.

2 Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety and VicHealth, Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia, Our Watch, Melbourne Australia.
The framework turn draws on substantial background research undertaken in 2015, including a detailed literature review exploring the evidence for what drives violence against women, and a series of specially commissioned ‘think pieces’.

Change the Story, and the two ‘Framework Foundations’ papers that contain this background research can all be found on the Our Watch website: http://www.ourwatch.org.au/What-We-Do-(1)/National-Primary-Prevention-Framework.
3 See Cox, P. (2015) Violence against women: Additional analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey (2012), Horizons Research Report, Issue 1, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, Sydney, http://anrows.org.au/publications/horizons/PSS.

4 Women are three times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner, according to Cussen, T. and Bryant, W. (2015) Research in Practice No.
38: Domestic/family violence homicide in Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology, http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/rip/rip38/rip38.pdf.

Also Statistics Canada (2003), Statistics Canada (2003) Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile 2003, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Ministry of Justice, Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224- x/85-224-x2003000-eng.pdf.

5 Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013) Personal Safety, Australia 2012, Cat.

No.
No.

4906.0, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ abs@.nsf/mf/4906.0.

Survey extrapolated to population figures on the basis of 3.8% of all women surveyed reporting having experienced physical or sexual violence from a non- partner in the past 12 months (and approximately 9 million women over the age of 18 in Australia).

This includes physical or sexual assault, or threats.

6 Heise, L. and Kotsadam, A.


(2015) Cross-national and multi-level correlates of partner violence: An analysis of data from population-based surveys, Lancet Global Health, 3, pp.

332–340, see ‘The gendered drivers of violence against women’ in this section; Our Watch, ANROWS and VicHealth (2015) Framework Foundations 2: Think pieces, stakeholder consultations, issues, implications and approach.

.
.

7 United Nations Women (2011) In pursuit of justice: Progress of the world’s women, http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/%20library/publications/2011/p rogressoftheworldswomen-2011-en.pdf.
8 Our Watch, ANROWS VicHealth (2015) Framework foundations 1: A review of the evidence on correlations of violence against women and what works to prevent it, citing Flood, M. (2009) Bent straights: Diversity and flux among heterosexual men, Intimate citizenships: Gender, sexualities, politics, E.H. Oleksy (ed), Routledge, London, pp.

223–240.

9 Webster, K., Pennay, P., Bricknall, R., Diemer, K., Flood, M., Powell, A., Politoff, V. and Ward, A.
(2014) Australians’ attitudes to violence against women: Full technical report, Findings from the 2013 National Community Attitudes towards Violence Against Women Survey, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne, https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/2013-national- community-attitudes-towards-violence-against-women-survey.
10 Including literature reviews undertaken for Change the Story (see note 2), and for VicHealth (2007) Preventing violence before it occurs: A framework and background paper to guide the primary prevention of violence against women in Victoria, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne, Australia; World Health Organization and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2010) Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: Taking action and generating evidence, World Health 45 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 Organization, Geneva, http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9789241564007/en/.
European Commission (2010) Factors at play in the perpetration of violence against women, violence against children and sexual orientation violence: A multi-level interactive model, http://ec.europa.eu/justice/ funding/daphne3/multi-level_interactive_model/understanding_perpetration_start_uinix.html; Heise, L. (2011) What works to prevent partner violence – An evidence overview, STRIVE, http://strive.lshtm.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/What%20works%20to%20prevent%20partner%20viol ence.pdf; Ellsberg, M., Arango, D.J., Morton, M., Gennari, F., Kiplesund, S., Contreras, M. and Watts, C. (2014) Prevention of violence against women and girls: What does the evidence say?, The Lancet, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61703-7/fulltext; Michau, L., Horn, J., Bank, A., Dutt, M. and Zimmerman, C. (2014) Prevention of violence against women and girls: lessons from practice, The Lancet, 385(9978), pp.
1672–1684.

11 For a review of this evidence, see Our Watch, ANROWS VicHealth (2015) (see note 10) for Our Watch, ANROWS and VicHealth, Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia, Our Watch, Melbourne Australia, http://www.ourwatch.org.au/What-We-Do- (1)/National-Primary-Prevention-Framework.
12 Our Watch, ANROWS, VicHealth (2015) Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia, p. 8, https://www.ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/1462998c-c32b-4772-ad02-cbf359e0d8e6/Change-the-story- framework-prevent-violence-women-children.pdf.aspx.

13 Flood, M. and Pease, B.

(2006) The Factors Influencing Community Attitudes in Relation to Violence Against Women: A Critical Review of the Literature.
Melbourne: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.

14 Ibid; Sanday, P.R.

(1981) The socio-cultural context of rape: a cross-cultural study, Journal of Social Issues, 37 (4), pp.

5–27.

15 True, J.

(2012) The political economy of violence against women, Oxford University Press, New York; Weissman, D.M.

(2007) The personal is political – and economic: Rethinking domestic violence, Brigham Young University Law Review (2007) (2), pp.

387–450; Atkinson, M.P., Greenstein, T.N.

and Lang, M.M.
and Lang, M.M.

(2005) For women breadwinning can be dangerous: Gendered resource theory and wife abuse, Journal of Marriage and Family, 67 (5), p. 1137.

16 Atkinson, M.P., Greenstein, T.N.

and Lang, M.M.

(2005) For women breadwinning can be dangerous: Gendered resource theory and wife abuse, Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(5), p. 1147.

17 Foran, H.M. and O’Leary, K.D.


(2008) Problem drinking, jealousy, and anger control: Variables predicting physical aggression against a partner, Journal of Family Violence, 23 (3), pp.

141–148; Gage, A.J.

(2005) Women’s experience of intimate partner violence in Haiti, Social Science and Medicine, 61 (2), pp.

343–64; Garcia-Moreno, C., Jansen, H.A.F.M., Ellsberg, M., Heise, L. and Watts, C.H.
(2006) Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence, The Lancet, 368(9543), pp.

1260–1269; VicHealth (2007) Preventing violence before it occurs: A framework and background paper to guide the primary prevention of violence against women in Victoria, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne, Australia, https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media- and-resources/publications/preventing-violence-before-it-occurs.

.
.

18 Gilgun and McLeod (1999), see note 57; Hill, M.S.

and Fischer, A.R.

(2001) Does entitlement mediate the link between masculinity and rape-related variables?, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48 (1), pp.

39–50.

19 Antai, D. and Antai, J.

(2009) Collective violence and attitudes of women toward intimate partner violence: Evidence from the Niger Delta, BMC International Health and Human Rights, 9 (1), p. 12; Koenig, M.A., Stephenson, R., Ahmed, S., Jejeebhoy, S.J.

and Campbell, J.
and Campbell, J.

(2006) Individual and contextual determinants of domestic violence in north India, American Journal of Public Health, 96 (1), pp.

132–138; York, M. (2011) Gender attitudes and violence against women, LFB Scholarly Pub, Texas.

46 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 20 Stockl, H., Heise, L. and Watts, C. (2011) Factors associated with violence by a current partner in a nationally representative sample of German women, Sociology of Health and Illness, 33, pp.
694–709; and Jeyaseelan, L., Kumar, S., Neelakantan, N., Peedicayil, A., Pillai, R. and Duvvury, N. (2007) Physical spousal violence against women in India: Some risk factors, Journal of Biosocial Science, 39 (5), pp.

657–670.
657–670.

21 American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2010) Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf ; Papadopoulos, L. (2010) Sexualisation of young people review, Home Office, United Kingdom.
22 Flood, M. (2007) Background document for Preventing violence before It occurs: A framework and background paper to guide the primary prevention of violence against women in Victoria, VicHealth unpublished paper; European Commission (2010) Factors at play in the perpetration of violence against women, violence against children and sexual orientation violence: A multi-level interactive model, http://ec.europa.eu/justice/funding/daphne3/multi-level_interactive_model/bin/review_of_research.pdf.
23 Hlavka, H.R.

(2014) Normalizing sexual violence: Young women account for harassment and abuse, Gender and Society, 28 (3), pp.

337–358.

24 Connell, RW & Messerschmidt, JW 2005, Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept, Gender and Society, vol.

19, no.

6, pp.

829–859.

25 American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2010), see note 21; Papadopoulos, L. (2010), see note 21.

26 European Commission (2010), see note 22.


27 Whatley, M. (2005) The effect of participant sex, victim dress, and traditional attitudes on causal judgments for marital rape victims, Journal of Family Violence, 20 (3), pp.

191–200.

28 Frohmader, C., Dowse, L. and Didi, A.

(2015) Preventing violence against women and girls with disabilities: Integrating a human rights perspective, paper prepared for Our Watch.
29 Adele Murdolo and Regina Quiazon (2015) ‘How do different forms of discrimination intersect with gender to contribute to violence against women and their children and what are the implications of this for developing inclusive prevention strategies?’ paper prepared for Our Watch.

Available in Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth (2015), see note 12.
30 Baffour, B. et al (2015), She Speaks Survey 2014, YWCA Australia and The University of Queensland, Australia,http://www.ywca.org.au/sites/ywca.org.au/files/docs/She%20Speaks%20Survey%202014%20Fin al.pdf.
31 Bohan, M. (2015) Combatting gender stereotypes in and through education: Report of the 2nd Conference of the Council of Europe National Focal Points on Gender Equality,https://www.coe.int/t/DGHL/STANDARDSETTING/EQUALITY/03themes/gender%20stereotypes% 20and%20sexism/Report%202%20NFP%20Conference%20Helsinki%20-%20Education.pdf.
32 Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Shrout, P. E., Bornstein, M. H., and Greulich, F. K. (2009) The acquisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for sex-typed play.

Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 688–701, http://doi.org/10.1037/a0014053.
33 Harris, A, Honey, N, Webster, K, Diemer K & Politoff, V. (2015) Young Australians’ attitudes to violence against women; Findings from the 2013 National Community Attitudes towards Violence Against Women Survey for respondents 16–24 years, Melbourne: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Our Watch (2015) The Line campaign: summary of findings, Hall and Partners: Melbourne.

37 Ibid.

47 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.


42 Empirica Research (2015), unpublished research for Our Watch.

43 Cale, J. and Breckenridge, J.


(2015) Gender, Age and the Perceived Causes, Nature and Extent of Domestic and Dating Violence in Australian Society, Gendered Violence Research Network, UNSW Australia, http://www.whiteribbon.org.au/uploads/media/Schools_and_Youth/Youth_survey_results_release/WR_Y A_Youth_Survey_Gender_Age_and_the_Perceived_Causes_Nature_and_Extent_of_Domestic_and_Dating _Violence_in_Australian_Society.pdf.
44 Blakemore, J.E and Centers, R.E ‘Characteristics of Boys' and Girls' Toys’ Sex Roles Journal, Volume 53, Issue 9-10 , pp 619-633 http://opus.ipfw.edu/psych_facpubs/9/.

45 Shaw, M. (2015) Science shows gender neutral toys empower children, and possibly society at large; Quartz (2015) http://qz.com/494673/science-shows-gender-neutral-toys-empower-children-and-possibly- society-at-large/.
46 Halim, M.L & Lindner, N.C (2013) Gender Self-Socialization in Early Childhood, entry in Encyclopaedia on Early Childhood Development; cited in Brown, C. (2014), Parenting beyond Pink and Blue.

47 Brown, C. (2014), ibid.

48 Shaw, M. (2015) Science shows gender neutral toys empower children, and possibly society at large: http://qz.com/494673/science-shows-gender-neutral-toys-empower-children-and-possibly-society-at- large/ citing Sweet, E (2014).
‘Toys Are More Divided by Gender Now Than They Were 50 Years Ago.’ The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/toys-are-more-divided-by-gender-now- than-they-were-50-years-ago/383556/, and Auster, C and Mansbach, C (2012) ‘The Gender Marketing of Toys: An Analysis of Color and Type of Toy on the Disney Store Website’, in Sex Roles, Oct 2012, Volume 67, Issue 7, pp 375-388 49 Let Toys Be Toys campaign, http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/ .

50 Empirica Research (2015), see note 42.


51 Ibid.

52 Council of Europe, Gender Equality Commission (2015) Combating gender stereotypes in and through education Report, Belgium, https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=0900001680 590ff0.

53 Ellis, J.

(2008) Primary Prevention of Domestic Abuse Through Education.

In Humphreys, C. Houghton, and Ellis, J.

(eds).


Literature Review: Better Outcomes for Children and Young People affected by Domestic Abuse – Directions for Good Practice.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

54 Council of Europe, Gender Equality Commission (2015), see note 52.
55 UNESCO (2015) Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2015, Eliminating gender bias in textbooks: pushing for policy reforms that promote gender equity in education, ED/EFA/MRT/2015/PI/24, Paris.

56 Lee, Jackie F. K. and Collins, P. (2010) Construction of Gender: A Comparison of Australian and Hong Kong English Language Textbooks, Journal of Gender Studies 19(2):121-137.

57 Bohan, M. (2015), see note 31.

58 Lee, J. and Collins, P. (2010) see note 56.


59 Our Watch, VicHealth and ANROWS (2015), see note 12.

48 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 60 Our Watch (2015), see note 36.

61 Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety and VicHealth (2015), p.37, see note 12.

62 Our Watch (2015), see note 36.


63 Flood & Pease, 2011; Heise & Fulu, 2014; VicHealth, 2007; Wall, 2014, cited in Campo, M., 2015, ’Conceptualising children in a prevention of violence against women and children framework’, paper prepared for Our Watch.

Available in Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth (2015), see note 12.

64 Ibid.
64 Ibid.

65 Further information on the National Media Engagement Project can be found on the Our Watch website: http://www.ourwatch.org.au/What-We-Do-(1)/National-Media-Engagement-Project.

66 Sutherland, G., McCormack.

A., Pirkis., J., Easteal., P., Holland.

K., and Vaughn, C. (2015) A state of knowledge review of the evidence on media representations of violence against women and their children.

67 Ibid., p.21.

68 Flood, M. and Pease, B.


(2009) Factors influencing attitudes to violence against women Trauma Violence and Abuse, 10 (2) p. 135.

69 Flood, M. et al (2009); Papadopoulos (2010), cited in Campo, M. (2015), see note 63.

70 American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2010), see note 21; Papadopoulos, L. (2010), see note 21.

71 Ibid., p. 10.
71 Ibid., p. 10.

72 PwC, Our Watch and VicHealth (2015) A High Price to Pay: The economic case for prevention violence against women.

73 For example, a longitudinal evaluation of a school-based program aiming to prevent dating violence in the United States (called ‘SafeDates’) found the program significantly reduced psychological, moderate physical and sexual dating violence perpetration at four follow-up evaluations (one immediately after the program, then at one, three and six years later).
Foshee, VA et al.

(1996) The Safe Dates Project: theoretical basis, evaluation design, and selected baseline findings, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 12 (5 ): 39 – 47; Foshee, VA et al.

(1998) An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent dating violence prevention program, American Journal of Public Health, 88(1):45–50; Foshee, VA et al.

(2000) ‘The Safe Dates program: 1-year follow-up results,’ American Journal of Public Health, 90 (10):1619 –1622; Foshee, VA et al.
(2004) ‘Assessing the long-term effects of the Safe Dates program and a booster in preventing and reducing adolescent dating violence victimization and perpetration,’ American Journal of Public Health, 94(4):619–624; and Foshee, VA et al.

(2005) ‘Assessing the effects of the dating violence prevention program “Safe Dates” using random coefficient regression modelling,’ Prevention Science, 6: 245–258.
74 UN Women in cooperation with ESCAP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO (2012) Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls, Bangkok, Thailand, 17-20 September 2012, http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/Library/Publications/2012/11/R eport-of-the-EGM-on-Prevention-of-Violence-against-Women-and-Girls.pdf.
75 See, for example, VicHealth (2011), Sharing the Evidence Reports, outlining evaluation results for five initiatives funded through the VicHealth Respect, Responsibility and Equality program, https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/sharing-the-evidence.

76 Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012).


49 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66 77 Commonwealth of Australia and VicHealth (2009) National Community Attitudes towards Violence Against Women Survey, https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/national- community-attitudes-towards-violence-against-women-survey-2009.

78 Possibly longer.
78 Possibly longer.

We have no precedent for population-level change to prevent violence against women, and can only estimate these time spans based on experiences in other areas of primary prevention (such as smoking reduction).

79 Our Watch, VicHealth and ANROWS (2015), see note 12.

50 Domestic violence and gender inequalitySubmission 66