8. Predictors of attitudinal support for violence against women

Having a low level of support for gender equality is the strongest predictor of attitudinal support for violence, followed by having a low level of understanding of violence against women, holding prejudicial attitudes towards people based on other attributes, and having a high level of support for violence in general.

Attitudes ‘denying gender inequality is a problem’ and ‘promoting rigid gender roles, stereotypes and expressions’ have the first and second strongest influence on attitudes towards violence against women, after the influence of the other themes was taken into account.

The six strongest predictors of attitudes towards violence against women, and the influence of gender equality themes in predicting attitudinal support for violence are in the figure below:

Demographic factors are relatively weaker predictors of attitudes towards both gender equality and violence against women. However, of the demographic factors, age (being 65 years plus) and education level (not having a tertiary education) are the two strongest demographic predictors of attitudes towards violence against women.

When investigating which of the gender equality themes most strongly predicts people’s intention to act as bystanders, the 2017 NCAS found that attitudes in the theme of ‘condoning male peer relations involving aggression and disrespect towards women’ are the strongest.

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