Pathways associated with violence-supportive attitudes: Companion brief

The majority of Victorians do not hold violence-supportive attitudes and recognise the importance of gender equality, but harmful attitudes and limited community understanding are a barrier to progress.

Among the factors included in the model, attitudes towards gender inequality had the strongest association with violence-supportive attitudes.

Victorians with a greater understanding of gendered violence are less likely to support or excuse it. Knowledge of what counts as violence (UVAWS) disrupts the link between inequality-endorsing beliefs and violence-supportive attitudes (AVAWS).

When people view violence against women as an issue affecting other communities rather than their own, it becomes easier for people to dismiss or ignore the prevalence of violence locally. This minimises the issue, dilutes the sense of urgency and need for action, and diffuses responsibility to act.

Men are more likely to distance and hold violence-supportive attitudes. However, women with inequality-endorsing beliefs, especially on private matters such as home duties, relationships and intimacy, are also more likely to minimise violence against women, even if they support gender equality in public domains such as work, politics, and society.

The structural equation model (SEM) that considers attitudes towards gender inequality (AGIS), understanding of violence against women (UVAWS), distancing, and demographics confirms that tackling gender inequality is essential to reducing violence-supportive attitudes (AVAWS).

Attitudes that deny gender inequality and uphold rigid gender roles are strongly linked to violence-supportive views. This highlights the need to challenge these beliefs, ensuring that tackling gender inequality and working to improve violence-supportive attitudes across the board remains central to reducing violence against women. Effectively reducing these attitudes requires a coordinated approach that raises the salience of gender inequality, addresses structural drivers, and advances progress across all interrelated attitudes that inform acceptance of violence.

Understanding the range and complexity of violence against women, and how gender and power sustain it, weakens the link between inequality-endorsing beliefs and violence-supportive attitudes. While education alone might not eliminate these attitudes, improving community awareness through local, place-based awareness campaigns will highlight how violence affects the local community, making the issue more immediate and relatable. Such campaigns may help reduce violence-supportive attitudes by emphasising the local impact of violence and bridging the gap between awareness and action.

While overt victim-blaming is becoming less acceptable in Victoria, subtler gender biases persist, reinforced through myths about violence and the value placed on traditional gender role. These beliefs reinforce rigid gender stereotypes, justify violence and undermine women’s experiences.

Some men and women may support gender equality in public domains, such as politics or in the workplace, but continue to value traditional gender roles in private settings, believing men should be dominant in the home and in intimate relationships. These inequality-endorsing beliefs contribute to violence-supportive attitudes and reflect the need to examine and address attitudes to gender inequality across both domains to reduce acceptance of violence against women.

Since violence will not be eliminated in a society that sees it as acceptable, multidimensional policy responses that address the broader attitudes and societal norms that block progress on attitudes to gender inequality are needed.

The strong relationship between inequality-endorsing attitudes and violence-supportive attitudes reinforces the value of policy levers that embed gender equality at every level of society.

People who don’t acknowledge persisting inequality are most likely to hold violence-supportive views. However, greater awareness of inequality and violence against women weakens this link, signalling the importance of policy responses that broaden recognition of all forms of gender inequality and gender-based violence. Public education, in particular, could serve as an essential buffer that reduces the strength of these harmful beliefs.

Distancing – viewing violence as a problem that affects others, rather than one’s own community – is linked to violence-supportive attitudes. To effectively disrupt this link, there is a need for localised policy responses and clear communications that make violence relevant to people where they live. Tailored messaging that presents violence as a local issue, rather than one that only affects distant or marginalised groups, could enhance efforts to reduce violence-supportive attitudes

Developing multidimensional policy responses to advancing and building support for gender equality across public systems and in private life. Since the endorsement of equality at work or in politics does not automatically translate into equitable attitudes in households and intimate relationships, policies that support progress in both spheres are needed to reduce violence-supportive attitudes.

Attitudes to gender equality have a significant influence on attitudes toward violence against women. This confirms that primary prevention efforts to reduce gender inequality and the attitudes that maintain it are central to addressing the underlying biases that sustain violence against women.

This reinforces the importance of challenging deeply held beliefs (held by a minority with entrenched inequality-endorsing attitudes) to reduce acceptance of violence against women.

The importance of making persisting gender inequality visible and tangible is underscored by the fact that people with lower awareness of persisting gender inequality and violence against women are more likely to hold violence-supportive attitudes. This confirmation that limited understanding strengthens violence-supportive attitudes aligns with programmatic approaches aimed at increasing community understanding of violence in all its forms, including non-physical violence such as coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse.

Building recognition of violence in people’s immediate community, including non-physical forms of violence, will mitigate minimisation and acceptance of violence against women. There is an opportunity to address ‘distancing’ (believing violence is a problem elsewhere) and make violence an immediate concern for individuals by emphasising its local impact, building issue salience across suburbs, towns and communities.

Violence-supportive views are grounded in inequality-endorsing beliefs across all settings. However, NCAS shows that support for equality in public does not reliably translate into equitable attitudes in private. It is therefore important to prioritise primary prevention efforts in public settings (workplaces, schools, civic life) and private settings (households, intimate relationships, domestic gender roles).

Attitudes denying or minimising gender inequality are the strongest predictors of violence-supportive attitudes.

This confirms the importance of robust research exploring how inequality-endorsing attitudes are formed and sustained, and evaluating which levers are most effective in disrupting those pathways.

Improving community understanding and awareness is a protective factor that weakens, though does not entirely sever, the link between inequality-endorsing attitudes and violence-supportive attitudes. As individuals who endorse gender inequality are more likely to have a limited understanding of violence against women, there is an opportunity to measure and reinforce the value of community education and awareness building as a protective factor against violence-supportive attitudes.

When measuring and tracking shifts in attitudes to gender equality, researchers could consider looking more closely at where support in public and private domains aligns and diverges. As support for gender equality in public does not guarantee support in private, researchers could examine how each domain relates to violence-supportive attitudes to inform interventions that address both spheres.

Reducing the perception that violence happens elsewhere and to other people is important. Encouraging people to recognise violence as a local issue may buffer – but not completely counteract – the influence of patriarchal attitudes on violence-supportive beliefs. Further research could measure the impact on violence-supportive attitudes when distancing is reduced and potentially reveal a stronger mediating effect between recognition of violence (of all forms) as a local issue and decreased violence-supportive attitudes