Since Grace Tame was first allowed to speak out in 2019, there's been a major shift in Australians' attitudes towards sexual assault survivors.
Key points:
- Australia Talks data shows 55 per cent of people now believe sexual assault allegations are almost always true, with women more likely to agree than men
- NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics also show a spike in reports of sexual assaults in March 2021
- Australian of the Year Grace Tame says public opinion is shifting, but there is more work to do
But the Australian of the Year says there's still a lot of work to be done to reckon with a culture that protects perpetrators of abuse.
Extensive research shows that the prevalence of false sexual assault allegations reported to police is very low. Despite this evidence, a myth that victims (most commonly women) lie about sexual assaults has persisted.
Data from the Australia Talks National Survey 2021 has revealed a significant increase in the proportion of people who believe survivors: 55 per cent of Australians now agree that allegations of sexual assault are almost always true.
That has risen 14 percentage points since the last Australia Talks survey in 2019 — the same year Ms Tame spoke publicly about her own abuse and Tasmanian laws that prevented survivors of sexual assault from self-identifying.
The laws have since been changed.
Ms Tame described the shift in public opinion as "a huge symbol of progress".
"It's incredibly hopeful and encouraging," she said.
"What we've seen is a stark increase in the value of speaking up, using our voices to call out injustice, and through that, we've seen an increase in awareness and an understanding of these issues, which clearly, as the metrics prove, produces change in attitudes.
"To actually have metrics to quantify that change is incredible. It's powerful.
"We're still only at 55 per cent, which shows that there's a lot of work to be done in this space."
The Australia Talks data showed 18 per cent of the population felt neutral or didn't know where they stood on the topic, but 22 per cent still disagreed that allegations of sexual assault were almost always true.
"I think that is indicative of the remaining victim-blaming cultures that are a product of systemic injustices that continue to protect perpetrators," Ms Tame said.
"[Those views] are hard to shift. But change is a marathon effort, it's one step at a time. In two years, to see that increase, it shows we have the capacity to change."
It's a culture Ms Tame has been working to dismantle since she began her fight to speak about her own abuse. She has continued to be a public advocate for fellow survivors, and inspired many to share their own stories of assault and abuse.
Brittany Higgins credited Ms Tame's powerful Australian of the Year acceptance speech as part of what galvanised her to come forward with the allegation that she was raped in Parliament House while working as a staffer for a senior government minister.
Their stories, and their bravery in recounting them publicly, acted as a lightning rod that sparked nationwide protests against sexism and gendered violence, and encouraged many others to speak up.
Criminologist Bianca Fileborn, who specialises in researching sexual violence and harassment, said it was this sustained conversation that has contributed to changing attitudes picked up in the Australia Talks survey, which was fielded in early March, just before the March4Justice protests.
"It's a reflection of quite a sustained conversation over a number of years, particularly since the Me Too movement took off, and the fact that we're hopefully having a more nuanced and accurate conversation about the realities of sexual violence as a country," she said.
There's been a spike in sexual assault reports since survivors spoke out
In the same month Ms Higgins spoke out, there was a historic spike in the number of reports of sexual assault being filed with New South Wales police, according to data published today by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCSAR).
There was a 61 per cent surge in women reporting sexual assaults in March this year, compared to the monthly average of reports in 2020, which BOCSAR executive director Jackie Fitzgerald has linked to the national discussion around sexual violence.
"I really have never seen anything like this before and I've been working with data for 20 years in this criminal justice space," Ms Fitzgerald told the ABC's The World Today program.
"The increase in sexual assault reporting synchronises almost perfectly with that increased public discussion of sexual violence."
Ms Fitzgerald said the increase amounted to about 300 more sexual assaults being reported than in the previous month of February 2021.
Chanel Contos, the former Sydney school student who began an online movement of current and former students discussing sexual assault, said the news of the spike filled her with mixed emotions.
"I'm obviously so sad that this has happened to so many people, but I'm also so happy that it's it's been reported people are feeling empowered to tell their story to authorities," she told The World Today.
Men are less inclined to agree sexual assault allegations are almost always true
The Australia Talks data showed a considerable divide in how women and men perceived allegations of assault.
While nearly 70 per cent of women agreed that allegations of sexual assault were almost always true, just 40 per cent of men did.
Dr Fileborn said this split reflected the broader perceptions of rape culture and stereotypes.
"Whether or not people believe survivors is itself often tied to rape myths and misconceptions," Dr Fileborn said.
"Research has very consistently shown gendered differences in terms of the extent to which people blame survivors for their own experiences or minimise the attitudes of perpetrators."
The survey also showed age was a factor. Agreement was strongest among young women, with 83 per cent of 18-24s and 81 per cent of 25-29s saying they believed sexual assault allegations were almost always true.
Ms Tame observed that part of the reason for the split could also be attributed to personal experiences of abuse.
"This is a crime that affects both men and women, both men and women are victims of sexual abuse, but survivors are predominantly women, and perpetrators are more often than not, men," she said.
"So I think this data shows women are more likely to relate to the experience of being a survivor."
According to the Australia Talks survey, 30 per cent of women said they had experienced sexual assault and 8 per cent of men said the same.
Women were also more likely to say they had experienced sexual harassment (52 per cent) and discrimination on the basis of sex (51 per cent).
Those who were disinclined to believe assault allegations made up 1 in 5 Australians, according to the survey.
Dr Fileborn said in reality, false allegations were rare.
"It is much more likely that survivors won't disclose or report than for them to make a false report or false allegation," she said.
The figure varies across studies, but on average, around 5 per cent of reports made to the police are deemed false. Dr Fileborn said even that figure was problematic.
The vast majority of sexual assault survivors don't report to the police, and Dr Fileborn said there were also issues in terms of how allegations were labelled as false.
"So even that 5 per cent figure isn't necessarily false reports that are flagrantly made up, or wild accusations that have no basis in reality. They reflect the process of police decision making."
Tame says we still don't understand how assault really works
Ms Tame said Australia still had a lot of work to do to address the gap in our collective understanding about sexual violence.
She said victim-blaming stereotypes that represented sexual assault as cases of 'he said, she said' created a false impression that perpetrators and the people they abuse were equal.
"It feeds into this idea that there are these two equal characters. It's really not like that," she said.
"It's two characters, one of whom has a clear power advantage over a target. They manipulate that power, psychologically, in order to abuse their target.
"Less is understood about the psychological manipulation that underpins a lot of these crimes. It's the stuff that you don't see.
"There's also a lack of understanding about how much coercion is involved in taking advantage of someone and that imbalance of power."
Ms Tame said she wanted to prioritise teaching Australians about these less understood facets of sexual abuse, like grooming, coercive control and gaslighting, through refocusing conversations in the media and changing sexual education.
Beyond that, she said institutional change was required. She said inconsistency across state and territory jurisdictions around the definitions of consent and sexual assault was undermining progress.
"Unless you've got a solid concept of something, how can you properly educate around it and understand it?" she said.
Ms Tame said she wanted states to get together and work towards a standardised uniform approach to sexual assault laws.
"Let's get a uniform definition of consent. Let's get a uniform definition of sexual assault. Let's get a uniform definition of sexual intercourse. Let's get a uniform definition of what it means to be a child," she said.
"There's all these grey areas that perpetrators of crimes are often aware of and will use, they'll capitalise on any ambiguity to perpetuate unhelpful victim-blaming stereotypes."
Ms Tame said her focus was on supporting other survivors of sexual assault to continue speaking out where they feel safe and comfortable to do so, and changing the systemic injustices that protect perpetrators.
"It's incredibly encouraging and hopeful. But I'm never one to stop and rest on their laurels. I'm always looking for ways that we can improve," she said.
"So we've still got a lot of work to do."
The Australia Talks National Survey asked 60,000 Australians about their lives and what keeps them up at night. Use our interactive tool to see the results and how your answers compare.
Editor’s note (September 9, 2021): This story has been edited to clarify that it refers to research examining the prevalence of sexual assault allegations reported to police which were established to be false.