About 80 per cent of people agreed that it was hard to understand why women stayed in violent relationships. Photo: Supplied
An alarming number of Australians believe that violence towards women and rape can be excused and blame the victim, particularly if she is drunk, a new report shows.
About one in five Australians agree that a woman is partly responsible for rape if she is intoxicated, and one in six agree with the notion that when women say "no" they actually mean "yes".
A nationwide VicHealth survey of 17,500 people about their attitudes towards violence against women discovered that although most people understood that family violence was a crime, a sizeable proportion believed there were circumstances in which it could be excused.