Disrupting Patriarchal Illusio to Reduce Violence Against Women and Girls

Violence Against Women in Australia

VAWG is one of the most pervasive and expensive problems in Australia, costing the Australian economy at least A$22 billion annually, with violence against vulnerable women costing an additional A$4 billion (KPMG, 2016; PwC, 2015). Yet, in 2021 the Federal Australian Government announced a comparatively minuscule A$7.8 million to be spent on a “Respect Matters” campaign, half of which has been spent on a highly critiqued, largely nonevidence-based resource “the Good Society” for use in schools (DESE, 2021; Landis-Hanley, 2021).

International and Australian evidence consistently demonstrates that men are more likely than women to perpetrate violence against both women and men. Men are more likely to be assaulted or killed by strangers than by people known to them, and in public places (AIHW, 2018). Women are more likely to be assaulted or killed by men who are known to them, most commonly by men who are current or former intimate partners, and in their own home (AIHW, 2018). The prevalence and severity of VAWG are highest among those women and girls living with intersectional disadvantage, for example, “Indigenous women are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence than non-Indigenous women” (DSS, 2018, p. 9). Similarly, women with disabilities experience violence at higher frequencies, over longer durations, in a greater diversity of settings and by a broader range of perpetrators, all of which are compounded where there are intersectional factors at play (Our Watch & Women with Disabilities Victoria, 2022). VAWG remains a major social, legal, health, and well-being issue in Australia, occurring across all socioeconomic and demographic groups (AIHW, 2018).

Experiencing IPV at a young age leads to higher than population incidence of poor mental and physical health, lower educational attainment, and higher alcohol and drug use (Banyard & Cross, 2008; Exner-Cortens et al., 2013). The last two Australian Personal Safety Surveys found that young women aged 18−24 years were the most likely age group of women to have been subjected to violence in the last 12 months, with 12% reporting violence in the 2016 survey compared to 4.7% across all female age groups (ABS, 2017). Young women aged 15−19 years report the highest rates of sexual assault (AIHW, 2018).

In Australia, despite this evidence, and a decade since The National Plan to reduce violence against women and their children 2010−2022 and associated Action Plans (National Plan) was launched, attempts to raise awareness and change culture at institutional and community levels have failed. Surveys of attitudes toward IPV have found little change among young people and understanding of differential gender-power relations has decreased (AIHW, 2018). Moreover, Australian public awareness campaigns over the past decade have failed to decrease IPV perpetrated against women (ABS, 2017; DSS, 2018).

Changing community attitudes toward rejecting violence against women is one of the National Plan's approaches to reducing the prevalence of IPV (Webster et al., 2018). International and Australian evidence has found that adolescent attitudes of acceptability of violence in family or intimate partner relationships are strong predictors of both victimization and perpetration of IPV (McDonell et al., 2010; Politoff et al., 2019). In Australia, the National Community Attitudes toward Violence Against Women Survey (NCAS) seeks to improve understanding of concepts underlying attitudinal support for gender inequality and violence against women (Webster et al., 2018).

Both the 2013 and 2017 NCAS surveys found more young people (16−24 years) supported or excused VWAG than older people; and were less likely to recognize nonphysical forms of control (Harris et al., 2015; Politoff et al., 2019; see Table 1 for a summary). In 2009, 75% of young people recognized that mainly men commit acts of IPV compared with 60% in 2017 (Politoff et al., 2019). Similarly, 90% of 2009 respondents recognized that women were more likely to suffer physical harm from IPV than men, whereas 75% recognized this in 2017. These statistics mirror the emergence of a male entitlement culture among young men alongside a global trend of moving away from the ideal of gender equality at least in private domains (e.g., see Pierotti et al., 2018; Scarborough et al., 2019; Sills et al., 2016).

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Table 1.

Young People's Knowledge of VAWG.

Year	2013	2017
Young people's knowledge of VAWG	Total %	Women16–24 years (n = 794)	Men16–24 years (n = 964)	Total % (n = 1,761)
% Agree
Mainly men commit acts of IPV	71	67	52	60
Women are more likely to suffer physical harm from IPV	87	-	-	75
Levels of fear from IPV are worse for women	54	-	-	40
Many women tend to exaggerate the problem of male violence	-	18	31	24
Many women exaggerate how unequally women are treated in Australia	-	37	52	45
Women are more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger	57	66	60	63
Rape results from men not being able to control their need for sex	40	28	29	28
Knowledge of IPV: IPV includes following behaviors (% always, usually, or sometimes)
Repeatedly keeps track of location, calls, activities using phone/technology without consent	84a	93	79	86
Stalking by repeatedly following/watching at home/work	94	94	87	90

Note. VAWG = violence against women and girls; IPV = intimate partner violence. Source. Politoff et al. (2019); Harris et al. (2015).

a

2013 question differs slightly from 2017.

Young men are more likely than young women to mistrust women's accounts of men's violence, which may be partly attributable to information gained from online communities (Sills et al., 2016). Online communities are highly accessible through the development of new digital technologies including social media, social networking, and instant messaging applications that can be accessed on multiple personal devices (Zweig et al., 2013). Young people (16−24 years) are the most frequent users of new digital technologies (Reed et al., 2016, Zweig et al., 2013). These have amplified a permissible environment that promulgates regressive gendered values. Moreover, they encourage pervasive and inescapable forms of coercive control because of the built-in features of “constant access to their dating partners and the ability to monitor their partner's every move and activity” (Reed et al., 2016, p. 1557). Digital intimate partner abuse is both widespread and under-studied (Harris & Woodlock, 2019 2022; Hellevik, 2019; Powell et al., 2019; Reed et al., 2016; Zweig et al., 2013). Recent research during the COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced an intensification of this process (Carrington et al., 2021; Smyth et al., 2021).

Preventing IPV Among Adolescents

We need explanatory theories of causation because the ineffectiveness of prevention programs on behavior cannot be explained away by measurement difficulties (Fellmeth et al., 2013; Stanley et al., 2015; Walden & Wall, 2014). Systematic reviews of prevention programs suggest that youth relationship education does not reduce future IPV perpetration or victimization (e.g., see Fellmeth et al., 2013).

Long-term curriculum-based interventions can increase students’ understanding and awareness of IPV and where to seek support, but cannot by themselves change behavior. One explanation for the lack of behavior change among young men following VAWG programs is that they distrust information about the gendered nature of violence, dismissing it as “sexist” or viewing it as “unfair” toward men (Fox et al., 2014; Pierotti et al., 2018; Scarborough et al., 2019).

When we understand theories of the everyday; specifically, “everyday sexism,” “everyday resistance” and “everyday violence” we can explain why young people resist education campaigns and deny the evidence about IPV (Bourdieu, 1990, 2001; Powell & Sang, 2015). The term “everyday sexism” refers to the “mundane sexism directed at women and girls” across their multiple everyday life domains (Calder-Dawe & Gavey, 2016, p. 1). Everyday resistance includes the everyday techniques and practices young men may undertake to resist progressive change, for example, to adhere to cultural and peer-based norms instead of adopting new norms that challenge understandings of masculinity. Everyday resistance among young women speaks to their acceptance of their own subjugation as “normal,” as sexism not being “a big deal” and excusing rather than critiquing men's sexism and violence (Calder-Dawe & Gavey, 2016; Uhlmann & Uhlmann, 2005).

We know that “young people are socialized into a patriarchal culture that normalizes and often encourages male power and aggression, particularly within the context of heterosexual relationships” (Hlavka, 2014, p. 339). In Australia, children are exposed to and adopt gendered stereotypes from birth and Australian fathers are less concerned than mothers about the effects of these stereotypes on their children (Our Watch, 2018). There is little community or political will to prevent children from being socialized into the adoption and performance of heteronormativity and harmful homosocial behaviors. Further, harmful sexual behavior tends to commence before prevention programs are introduced, often around 11 years old (McKibbin et al., 2017). Thus, these behaviors are internalized well before interventions are introduced (Hlavka, 2014; McKibbin, 2017; Our Watch, 2018).

Theoretical Framework

A Bourdieusian understanding of VAWG is well suited to explain how gender operates and intersects with other forms of social stratification through material bodies, reproduced in everyday social practices, and may provide greater nuance than that of hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Wykes & Welsh, 2009). For Bourdieu, social order is historically constituted and reproduced materially through habitus in a dialectical relationship between individual everyday practices and society (made up of fields) (Bourdieu, 1990; McNay, 1999, 2003). Bourdieu (1990, p. 56) defines habitus as “embodied history, internalised as a second nature and so forgotten as history—is the active presence of the whole past of which it is the product.” Thus, habitus internalizes socially inscribed practices and dispositions through which all knowledge and experience are in turn interpreted (Bourdieu, 1990). Fields are where social practices (including power/capital struggles) take place and within which social norms are practised and reproduced according to an understanding of particular fields as “second nature” or “a feel for the game” (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 66).

Social transformation is possible when habitus and field becomes misaligned “and doxic assumptions are raised to the level of discourse, where they can be contested” (Crossley, 2003, p. 44). This is when illusio—belief in the game—is suspended. We extend this idea to conceptualize “patriarchal illusio”—the commonsense belief in, and reproduction of, masculine domination via a range of techniques and practices, including symbolic violence. For Bourdieu, suspension of illusio is temporary during times of crisis, however, Crossley (2003) has argued that using the example of social movements, disruption of illusio can be maintained. For the purposes of this paper, the international #metoo movement is a salient example of the ongoing disruption of the dominant patriarchal illusio (Copland & Serisier, 2018).

There have been moments when the patriarchal illusio has been suspended across Australian communities following highly publicized “newsworthy” IPV-related homicides (Lee & Wong, 2020). After Rosie Batty's ex-partner killed their son, she campaigned against domestic violence and was subsequently awarded the 2015 Australian of the Year. Patriarchal illusio was also suspended following the February 2020 killing of Hannah Clarke and her three children by her ex-partner—the children's father. Before Hannah Clarke and her children's murders, IPV—much less IPV-related homicide—was rarely represented by the media as an outcome of coercive control. More recently, patriarchal illusio has been disrupted following the naming of Grace Tame, a sexual abuse survivor, Australian of the Year. Rape and sexual harassment allegations have been raised in Australia at the highest political level following Brittany Higgins’ allegation that she was raped in an Australian Parliament minister's office. This disruption was marked by over 100,000 people (mainly women) joining March4Justice rallies across Australia revealing starkly the effects of masculine domination (Wirsu, 2021). Grace Tame has called on Australians to keep fighting beyond these demonstrations. According to Crossley (2003, p. 59), this is necessary “to keep the movement illusio alive” and, we suggest, to avoid the disillusionment of sexual abuse survivors if (or when) patriarchal illusio is reinstated.

How we make sense of such events, then, can lead to a temporary suspension of illusio, or to social transformation. Yet, history tells us that much of the sense-making following each of the more than weekly domestic violence homicides (if they are reported in the media at all) avoids focussing on unequal gender–power relationships. Instead, dominant representations of IPV homicide reproduce the belief that perpetrators are not “like us.” IPV homicide tends to be represented as a dramatic, physical spectacle with the perpetrator portrayed as either a monster, or as a “good man” acting out of character. The latter representation is an individual explanation sympathizing with the perpetrator, for example, by highlighting their poor mental health and/or rationalizing the killing by blaming the woman victim for separating—even if that was to escape violence. This distances the “spectacle” of IPV from everyday IPV and reinstates patriarchal illusio (Easteal et al., 2019; Lee & Wong, 2020; R. Taylor, 2009; C. A.Taylor & Sorenson, 2002).

Resistance to adopting progressive ideals of nonviolence and gender equality is framed as “backlash,” which is generally understood as referring to “a dynamic process that occurs in response to threats to the interests of the powerful” (Dragiewicz, 2018, p. 36). Backlash is both resistance to progressing women's rights and gender equality and a strategy to maintain intersecting forms of social stratification including sexuality, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and marital status (Dragiewicz, 2018). Antifeminist men's rights activist (MRA) groups mobilize to fuel backlash to feminist-informed evidence, policies, and gender equality gains (Dragiewicz, 2018). By doing so, they represent public resistance to challenges directed toward male privilege and this resistance, we argue, contributes to young men's everyday resistance (and mistrust) of women's accounts of VAWG (Gotell & Dutton, 2016). MRAs provide (often strong and successful) avenues for undermining attempts to reduce VAWG and work to undermine the transformative potential of disrupting patriarchal illusio.

Symbolic violence is, “that violence which is not perceived as such because it is nothing other than the application of a social order, a vision of the world rooted in the habitus of the dominated and the dominant” (Krais, 1999, p. 215). MRA strategies include symbolic violence; using both materials (e.g., physical violence, property destruction) to demonstrate that their threats are “real” through to discursive techniques (e.g., denigration, humiliation, deflection). We suggest that symbolic violence contributes to sustaining masculine domination and is resistant to current educational approaches (Bourdieu, 2001; Dillabough, 2004; Krais, 1999).

It is often the “less visible and more subtle forms, including rhetorical strategies” that frame discursive contests and legitimize backlash (Naples, 2013, p. 136). When referring to young people, we suggest that “everyday resistance” is a more appropriate term than backlash, because “everyday sexism” may simply be embodied and therefore misrecognized (in the Bourdieusian sense), rather than being wielded as an intentional strategy of the powerful (Bourdieu, 2001; Powell & Sang, 2015; Reay, 2004; Uhlmann & Uhlmann, 2005).

Ferree (2005) uses an ecological framing to identify everyday techniques and tools of “soft repression” including microlevel ridicule, mesolevel stigma, and macrolevel silencing. Those supporting masculine domination mobilize these tools early in relationships to maintain “boundary policing” where “stepping out of line brings interpersonal retaliation in the form of name-calling at any age” (Ferree, 2005, p. 143). Advocates for gender equality and social transformation can use an appreciation of how socio-ecological systems reproduce inequalities to develop new approaches to shift boundaries, challenge established patterns of social reproduction and disrupt patriarchal illusio.

A materialist feminist epistemology enables us to see how dominant discourses and institutional practices stratify everyday life through the habitus (McNay, 1999; Naples, 2013; Smith, 2005). As Calder-Dawe and Gavey (2016, p. 2) have noted, from a poststructuralist perspective, “young people's capacity to perceive, describe and challenge sexism depends on the discursive resources available to them.” There is always a tension, however, between understanding the normative social structures within which we all live and the extent to which we identify and resist them (McNay, 2003).

Few Australian studies have examined young people's experiences and perceptions of IPV in light of the national survey data outlined in the literature review above that might increase understanding of why VAWG campaigns have produced limited effects. The research questions that this paper, therefore, seeks to answer are: (a) Why, after 10 years of Australian VAWG prevention and campaigning, a large proportion of young men maintain attitudes that are unsupportive of gender equality and condone VAWG? (b) Why do young women demonstrate acceptance of gender inequality and IPV? In answering these questions, we make suggestions for ways to disrupt the reproduction of patriarchal illusio, beyond its mere suspension whenever a high-profile IPV spectacle is reported widely in the media. Indeed, it is evident that disrupting the “everydayness” of harmful homosocial behaviors is key.

Young Women

Author one conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with seven women aged 16–32 years old about their perceptions about and experiences of IPV. Interview length ranged between 30 and 120 min. Four interviews were face-to-face and three by telephone (participants’ preference). Interview questions were designed to ensure that relevant contemporary forms of control and abuse among young people could be discussed if these were part of the women's experience.

Three of the youngest women, aged 16–18 years, were experiencing homelessness at the time of their interviews. Two women, aged 21 years, were living with their current intimate partners. Four of the women described experiencing IPV and one described her friend's experience of IPV. The women currently or previously lived in regional South Australia.

Young Men

Author two conducted two focus groups with male secondary school students to gain their perspectives about a VAWG prevention program and made observations at two follow-up events at high-profile sporting venues. Focus groups participants were recruited from one regional and six metropolitan state high schools. Focus Group 1 comprised eight year 10 (14–15 years) students who had recently completed the VAWG program and Focus Group 2 comprised five year 11 (16–17 years) participants who had completed the program the previous year.

We used interviews with the sample of young women because we anticipated that they may have experienced IPV and may feel more comfortable speaking one-to-one. By contrast, we used focus groups plus observations with the young men because they had participated together in the VAWG program and because previous studies have found that adolescent boys are more comfortable talking about masculinities with peers (Kelly et al., 2013). While using the different methods could pose limitations to this study, for example, the young men may have felt pressure within the group to reproduce dominant sexist and proviolence discourses, or conversely may have felt that they should reproduce what they learned in the VAWG program, our findings are consistent with those of other studies which used interviews with young men of the same age (e.g., see Calder-Dawe & Gavey, 2016). The sample sizes are also small, which we mitigate by the use of theoretical rigor; that is, by integrating the concepts and arguments with study design (Ezzy, 2005) and by ensuring that the sample produces “the type of knowledge necessary to understand the structures and processes within which the individuals or situations are located” (Popay et al., 1998, p. 346).

Interview and focus group questions were designed to be open-ended and conversational to enable us to capture the complexity of the young people's experiences and perspectives (Flick et al., 2007; Kvale, 1996). Interviews were transcribed by a professional transcriber and coded using the qualitative data analysis software program NVivo 12. Focus groups were audio recorded in addition to observations and note-taking. During analysis, fieldnotes were compared to recordings to ensure in-depth exploration of the data. We used Framework analysis, an analytical method that provides insights for theory and policy development (Ritchie et al., 2003).

The thematic framework included a priori research questions and emergent themes. We examined and discussed critically potential structural elements embedded in the young people's talk (e.g., internalized gendered practices and perspectives) (Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1997). We obtained ethics approval from a nationally approved human research ethics committee prior to commencing each study. Participants gave written and verbal consent at the time of their interviews and focus groups. We used pseudonyms to maintain participant confidentiality.

Young Women's Constructions of IPV

Young women constructed IPV in terms of everyday sexism, articulating normalized constructions of masculinity and femininity, including the extent to which women and men are able to control responses to strong emotions such as jealousy. Their experiences revealed internalized acceptance of their own subjugation and of male dominance in relationships, and their own sense of responsibility for being subjected to violence. The young women also recognized violent, controlling behaviors, demonstrated by their discomfort and identification of such behaviors as “not ok.” These findings are similar to those of Calder-Dawe and Gavey's (2016) and Baker's (2010) New Zealand and Australian studies of young people's perspectives on and experiences of sexism, whereby the young women identified instances of personal experiences of sexism, while at the same time speaking about sexism as being “no big deal.”

The women described many types of IPV including a range of nonphysical coercive control techniques and physical abuse (whether or not they had experienced it themselves). There was a consensus across the young women's accounts that they had insufficient knowledge about nonphysical forms of IPV until experiencing or witnessing it themselves, with Jessica's statement below being typical:

I didn’t know there was another side of domestic violence where it is that manipulative and controlling [nonphysical abuse] … or even kind of small things that lead to bigger things, you don’t pick up on, like the controlling-ness, the possessiveness. (Jessica, 21)

This supports NCAS survey data reviewed above that such limited knowledge is far more common among young people than among older cohorts (Harris et al., 2015). The young women described trying to adapt to their partners’ behavior and expectations, as described by Jasmine:

It made me feel like that maybe that's what guys are like further into the relationship, they’re just going to be like that—judgmental and put you down and whatnot. (Jasmine, 16)

The young women's accounts were thus consistent with population survey findings whereby nonphysical abuse was downplayed or normalized—as if it is just how (young) men normally behave in relationships (Harris et al., 2015). Their abusers most commonly used new technology to control their partners. This form of abuse is enabled by media owners’ strategies to ensure that social media, including tracking functions, is highly used by young people (Henry & Powell, 2018; Zweig et al., 2013). Further, abusers demanded control over the young women's accounts, including taking the liberty to “unfriend” their contacts, with Jasmine's account below being typical:

He had my passwords to everything … that's when I saw that a lot of my friends weren’t on any of my social media anymore. (Jasmine, 16)

This aligns with emerging evidence of the weaponization of technology by perpetrators as a means of digital coercive control (Harris & Woodlock, 2022). Social media is thus a tool for maintaining patriarchal illusio through the use of symbolic violence. Our findings show that online abuse is part of a pattern of control that has simply moved along with the communication tools of the time (Reed et al., 2016). Lauren's account below illustrates the same pattern where her abuser would check her mobile phone.

I was like, “you can go through my phone. You can go through my messages”. […] I just used to let him go through everything and he would just scan through my entire phone looking for evidence of me doing the wrong thing. That was planted in his head. And then he's like “oh you probably deleted it”. I couldn’t win. (Lauren, 28)

Jessica believed that she did not recognize IPV in her own first serious intimate partner relationship because she lacked knowledge about nonphysical forms of coercive control, such as those perpetrated with the use of technology. She felt that, had she realized, she may have sought help or attempted to find ways to stop the abuse; instead, she tried to behave the way that her partner was demanding by deleting friend requests:

I’m like, “okay fine, I’ll delete them”. So, I’d delete them and I’d delete all these other people because I wanted to stop an argument before it happens. (Jessica, 21)

Jessica's actions align with a victim-blaming discourse, assuming it is possible to prevent abuse through taking responsibility for, and changing, one's own behavior (O’Toole et al., 2007). Some women gave examples of where they sought, were offered, or denied support. This speaks to the complex ways in which symbolic violence operates to maintain illusio—it is not as simple as women being complicit in their own subordination as part of masculine domination. While they might recognize and resist abuse, at the same time they internalized the alienation resulting from the abuse. Lauren described feeling ashamed about returning to her violent partner when others had tried to support her to leave, and so stopped talking to her friends about the violence, as described below:

So sometimes, like I know personally I wouldn’t tell people about what's going on because I knew of that cycle, that I would probably go back and then they wouldn’t support me. “Cos I’d already done it a couple of times so I knew what the process was and yeah, I just knew that I was too weak to actually leave-leave and then a lot of stuff went on without them actually knowing the severity of it.” (Lauren, 28)

Lauren's account illustrates how material and symbolic resources that need to be present before action can be taken to offset the effects of symbolic violence. As McNay (2008, p. 140) states, “there is huge difference between recognizing injustice, identifying systemic domination and common interests, devising strategies for action and, finally, feeling able to do it.” Thus, Lauren's account highlights that even when there is personal recognition, the structural factors working to prevent women leaving are overwhelming and exhausting. One technique perpetrators used was keeping women occupied, exhausted, and sleep-deprived. Jessica describing the lengths she went to, including screenshotting every message she sent and received, attempting to prevent her partner from accusing her of wrong-doing:

He’d be like, “what are you messaging your friends about?” […] I was like “look, I’ve got nothing to hide”. [So], every single message I’d message him, I’d screen shot it, send it to him. And he’d go, “sure you deleted the messages didn’t you, you deleted everything”. So I’d screen shot my messages of who I was messaging and send it to him. Even without him asking because I knew he would probably turn around, “who have you messaged today?” […] I’d continuously do this to prove to him that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was trying to justify myself. (Jessica, 21)

Jessica had stopped participating in activities she previously enjoyed in part because of the amount of time she dedicated to trying to justify her everyday communication. The women who had experienced IPV gave a range of reasons why they found it difficult to leave, to stay away from, or be safe from their abusers. Further, the women blamed themselves, as if being unable to leave was a personal character flaw or failing, demonstrating their internalizing of centuries of woman-blaming and a culture of victim-blaming more generally (O’Toole et al., 2007) which is implicit to the social reproduction and maintenance of patriarchal illusio.

The younger women were unsure how to access domestic violence services and expressed concern about potential repercussions of seeking services; concern about repercussions for both themselves (i.e., reprisals) as well as for their violent partner, for example, if it meant he would go to prison. Again, such accounts illustrate the power of symbolic violence, whereby the recognition of violence outweighs the recognition that the perpetrator's violence is against the law, representing a maintenance and resigned acceptance of social order that privileges hegemonic male domination.

The women gave mixed accounts of support from police—some found police helpful, however, this seemed to be only if there was evidence of severe physical abuse, and then only if there were witnesses. Jasmine's account, below, was particularly disturbing because she found that the police did not believe she had been abused.

He had me on the ground so I couldn’t really get up or anything like that… There was no one there to witness it and I tried to go to the police about it but he denied everything and his best mates stuck up for him and said he’d never do that so it completely backfired for me really, cos no one believed me… I thought “well no one else would believe me. If the police don’t believe me, who else is going to believe me” …That's when it kind of all went downhill was when the police said, “oh we can’t do anything because it didn’t happen”. … [and], “oh [the bruising] is probably just from some random injury. Stop trying to make up lies. It's a serious matter.” (Jasmine, 16)

Domestic and family violence-related assaults constitute close to half of all assaults reported to police, and it is well established that IPV remains under-reported. Yet, Australian studies suggest that levels of police inaction in response to IPV are unacceptably high (Goodman-Delahunty & Crehan, 2016). This is particularly the case where police make a subjective assessment that the incident is not serious, or based on the perpetrator or victim's behavior (Dowling et al., 2018). Jasmine's account aligns with evidence that police are not immune from internalizing dominant discourses that women's reports of violence are not to be trusted (Politoff et al., 2019). This is despite significant evidence that women rarely falsely accuse men of violence (Politoff et al., 2019). Moreover, there is evidence that police help tends to be sought only when an IPV survivor fears “permanent harm or imminent death” (Augustyn & Willyard, 2022, p. 1080). This is a contributing factor to the “spectacle” response to IPV—where it attracts momentary significance because of the acuteness of the risk or the actual harm cause, particularly if a case attracts media attention. Thus, in the absence of the spectacle, the reluctance to overturn the “belief in the game,” and the police officers’ own everyday sexism, trumps evidence.

Young Men's Constructions of IPV

The young men in our study generally demonstrated a limited understanding of how IPV is linked to unequal gender–power relationships. Moreover, their accounts reflected dominant backlash discourses that deny or contradict evidence. The young men's responses to the VAWG program suggest that, despite being receptive to elements of the program such as “positive bystanding,” they had internalized dominant discourses that resist evidence that women experience IPV at much greater levels than men, illustrated by the following when discussing gendered representation within IPV data:

Even though it does say, […] end violence against women, it's still not okay for a woman to hit a man, even, like, speak to someone that will, you know, harass [them] and hurt their feelings. Because it's not okay, even though a man is a bit more like intimidating in some ways. But yeah, I feel like everyone should get an equal, what's the word: punishment. Yeah, depending on what they do. (Participant 8, Focus Group 2)

While the account above downplays the differential effects of IPV on women and men, it also indicates that the 16–17 age group participants were able to recognize that IPV includes nonphysical violence, potentially as a result of having participated in the program. The 14–15 age group, by comparison, tended to speak about IPV as being restricted to physical violence. Further, their accounts reveal internalized backlash arguments that the evidence that women experience higher rates of IPV is simply that women's violence against men is not reported. Such comments reflect the dilemma of male rejection of antiviolence messages based on feelings of men subjected to violence being unheard (Flood, 2019), as expressed in the following statement:

Domestic violence is about men beating the shit out of women, you never really hear about it the other way around. (Participant 2, Focus Group 1)

The young men's focus group conversations also demonstrated internalized resistance in their sense of indignation that young women did not participate in the same (or similar) sessions, as described below:

It's always been that they [female students] get kicked out of the room, and we have to have to talk about this domestic violence thing. There are guys, believe it or not, who live through that sort of thing. (Participant 4, Focus Group 1)

When told that the VAWG program was exclusively delivered to boys, one of the participants stated: “of course.” When asked to expand, the student said: “we’re trying to sort equality here, why don’t the girls do this?” Left unchecked without constructive measures, these sentiments represent embryonic everyday sexism with potentially damaging outcomes, such as sabotaging the social transformation goals of the VAWG program (Fox et al., 2014).

Participants also adhered to the everyday sexism discourse that some men are unable to control their violent behavior toward women because they are natural sexual predators. According to NCAS data, 40% of young men believe that rape is more likely perpetrated by strangers (see Table 1), despite clear and well-publicized evidence that women are most likely to be abused by men known to them. The following account illustrates the common misconception that VAWG is perpetrated by strangers:

You hear about it all the time [sexual violence], but it is always going to happen because people can’t control themselves. At the end of the day if you take one [perpetrator] off of the street there is always going to be three, four more … just waiting for someone to be there by themselves. (Participant 1, Focus Group 1)

The gender-neutral language “people can’t control themselves” denies that sexual violence is gendered. Again, the statement aligns with NCAS data that around a third of young people believe that “rape results from men not being able to control their need for sex.” Moreover, the statement suggests that nothing should be done about it because where one perpetrator is stopped, many more will take their place.

In both focus groups, young men often began statements with: “I’m not trying to be sexist, but….” The 14–15-year-old group, when reflecting on controlling behaviors that they had witnessed, identified commonplace dialogue about what women wear as follows:

Participant 2: “and I see a lot of stuff that goes on like,” oh, you can’t wear this because it makes you look …“ [another participant interjected] ‘like a tart’, [a further participant interjected] ‘that's putting it nicely.’”

Participants were asked to explore what it means to be a man. A number of participants expressed concern that “male things” were being feminized. This was articulated in several ways, from the division of domestic labor to the changing nature of contact sport, with the following exchange between two 14–15 year old participants being typical:

Participant 4: say, like guys, not trying to be sexist, but guys can sort of like, do more stuff in line of work sort of thing than…

One student in the older group, who was a positive supporter of the program, observed in the follow-up cohort's focus group that “men are taught not to show emotions … or you’ll be cut from the crop.” His statement reveals the masculine experience of “boundary policing,” where stepping outside the norm of a stereotypical man could mean being excluded and stigmatized (Ferree, 2005; Flood, 2019). In other words, the participant felt that change was possible, but that it is the boundary policing activities that need to be challenged, revealing implicit knowledge of the role of symbolic violence and that men are expected to maintain patriarchal illusio.

The program directly engaged participants to reflect on what it means to be being a man by drawing on the sporting term “manning up.” Outside this sport, the term is used to encourage or demand that an individual, who is usually male, to be more “manly,” meaning that their current behavior or demeanor does not measure up against a dominant societal notion of what it is to be a man. Participants provided explanations of what “man-up” meant to them and these included “being tough” or “strong and intimidating.” One participant suggested that manning-up could mean being “respectful.” With the exception of that outlier, physical strength was a central feature of manliness. In the younger focus group, “manliness” was given as a rationale for one of the participant's belief that IPV statistics are skewed because men are less likely to report it, as follows:

I think that we hear less cases about women committing domestic violence, because it's not manly to report such a thing. (Participant 8, Focus Group 2)

This participant's statement runs parallel with MRA claims that men who are accused of perpetrating IPV are victims of an oppressive feminist movement and changes to legal systems (particularly family law) (Durfee, 2011). MRAs promulgate misinformation such as: “‘husband battery … [is] one of the nation's most underreported crimes,’ and that men—not women—are the ‘real’ victims in cases of domestic violence” (Durfee, 2011, p. 316, citing Kimmel, 1997, p. 301). This MRA promulgation represents an intensification of an underlying sentiment reflected in focus groups; a sentiment that is a socially reproduced at an everyday level.

To summarize, we found that the young women were able to identify everyday sexism and everyday violence. Yet, while they viewed such behavior as wrong or inappropriate and provided multiple illustrations from their own experience, they avoided critiquing men's sexism and violence as a broad or systemic pattern, preferring to speak of individual problem men (Calder-Dawe & Gavey, 2016).

The young men's accounts revealed their struggle to challenge social and peer-based norms, performing everyday resistance rather than adopting new norms that challenge dominant understandings of masculinity. They described avoiding the wrath of their peers—being “cut from the crop”—and internalizing the dominant culture of (re)producing hegemonic masculinity through the practices of everyday sexism.

Misinformation and Backlash: Intentional Strategies to Maintain Patriarchal Illusio

The young women illustrated how they had internalized and normalized everyday sexism, in spite of feeling that it was unfair and wrong. Our findings show that women's ability to identify the (mis)use of power does not translate directly to the ability to disrupt it. When we understand the durability of illusio, we can explain why education has not changed young people's attitudes about IPV. In other words, “a critical awareness of injustice” should not be conflated with agency (McNay, 2008, p. 139).

The young men had internalized dominant, misinformed understandings of IPV and viewed the evidence as wrong—and as unfair. Our findings provide a stark illustration of why male-only prevention programs must be closely monitored and sexism challenged to protect against unintended consequences such as reinforcing regressive social norms and maintaining rather than disrupting patriarchal illusio. While expressing masculine identity in groups is important for adolescent boys (Kelly et al., 2013), our findings illustrate how ignoring internalized backlash risks thwarting efforts to increase young people's understanding of the drivers of gendered violence (Our Watch, 2018). Further, given that both the young women and young men (mis)recognized everyday sexism and everyday violence, our findings suggest that young women should indeed participate in VAWG programs.

Together, the young people's accounts reflect dominant messages translated through mainstream media and the success of backlash as a defense against disrupting social norms (Easteal et al., 2019; Stevens et al., 2017). The Australian government-funded “the Good Society” web-based resource for schools includes information about the social construction of gender. However, it does little to unpack the influence of power or contest dominant truth claims such as those espoused by MRA groups. While individual state and territory governments have provided evidence-based programs, federal government attempts to provide information about sexual consent for senior secondary school students obfuscate at best and reproduce false gender-blind evidence at worst (DESE, 2021; Landis-Hanley, 2021).

Policymakers and those designing prevention programs must understand how masculine domination is achieved through the mechanism of symbolic violence. Interpreting our findings using Bourdieu's theory of practice provides clear explanations for why current educational approaches are theoretically impoverished and, according to NCAS data, are yet to offer sustained change (Bourdieu, 2001; Dillabough, 2004; Krais, 1999).

New Technologies Expose Women and Girls to Everyday Sexism and Everyday Violence

The young women in our study illustrated the extent to which young men use new technologies to perpetrate coercive control over young women. Policymakers must take greater action in their responses to how new technologies are being used as powerful sites for symbolic violence. Policies and legislation must be introduced to prevent perpetrators dominating and controlling girls’ and women's online communication and activities. Studies that have examined the role of new technology in young people's lives are divided. One arm of research examines the risks to young people posed by new technology (e.g., sexual predators, cyberbullying, social isolation). Others argue for a precautionary approach whereby adults must accept that there is no way to avoid new technologies and therefore should support young people to develop skills to recognize and avoid risk, and to minimize harm (Hellevik, 2019).

Neither of these addresses the central dilemma—that new technologies provide limitless avenues for the operation of symbolic violence and the maintenance of patriarchal illusio. While these new technologies were not available in Bourdieu's time, they provide the perfect avenue for the perpetration of symbolic violence because: “the relation between two people may be such that one of them has only to appear in order to impose on the other…which is all the more absolute and undisputed for not having to be stated” (Bourdieu, 1990, cited in McNay, 2008, p. 76).

Disrupting Patriarchal Illusio

Using a Bourdieusian theory of practice, all knowledge and experience is interpreted through habitus. Choices and decision-making processes occur within people's known frames of reference and within the limits of power and agency available to them. While young people could recognize unequal power relations, the durability of those relations were maintained and reproduced through the practices of everyday sexism and everyday resistance that together socially reproduce and maintain patriarchal illusio.

Our findings support arguments for moving beyond simplified, individualized, and victim-blaming responses to IPV toward collaborating to disrupt patriarchal illusio and transform the normative environment that reproduces gender inequalities and sustains the drivers of VAWG (Copland & Serisier, 2018; Easteal et al., 2019; Sills et al., 2016). This must include moving beyond responding to the “spectacle” of IPV. To achieve sustained disruption, there must be a material commitment to broad, whole of community, and whole of school responses to deliver transformation. Critically, such efforts must start earlier in young people's lives, before male entitlement is “internalised as a second nature” through the habitus and before the commencement of harmful sexual behavior (Bourdieu, 1990; McKibbin, 2017; McKibbin et al., 2017; Our Watch, 2018).

For transformation, there must be an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of unequal, intersectional power relations, including how these are maintained by powerful resistance such as MRA groups and paltry, misogynist, or sensationalist media reporting (Hawley et al., 2017; Naples, 2013). This endeavor requires power, money, and resources allied with deep and sustained community mobilization and engagement to maintain the disruption of patriarchal illusio, and bring about broader, durable social transformation.