Australians tend to express high levels of victim-blaming attitude about cases of girls and young women who experience disrespectful and aggressive behaviour from men, a new study reveals. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull describes the findings to be showing “a disturbing picture” that people ignore the violent behaviour of males and blame the victim.

The study, released by the Turnbull government, was commissioned by the Department of Social Services. It shows that despite strong community support to end violence against women, victim blaming in Australia is “firmly entrenched” in the attitudes of many adults and children, which might also promote the behaviour against women.

The findings come from the analysis of the attitude of 255 people. The research firm TNS, conducted workshops with the participants for 400 hours in August.

TNS said that there could be significant challenges to achieve community change due to pervasive automatic responses of Australians, such as minimising the behaviour of men and boys, while blaming the victim, the Guardian reported.

For the study, researchers provided hypothetical scenarios of gender inequality, physical and verbal aggression to the participants, and imposed that the male and female characters did not know each other.

“Despite this, when asked their perception on why the behaviour had occurred, the response from the majority of influencers (male and female) was to automatically question the role of the female before rebuking the behaviour described,” researchers said.

Results show that boys and young men quickly externalised the behaviour by blaming others, particularly the female, which is an attitude already present among boys at the age of 10. In fact, the researchers were told by one boy from the 15- to 17-year-old category that the girl may not be giving the boy “attention.”

Girls and young women consistently internalised quickly, or “blame themselves when presented the identical scenarios.” A young participant said that the victim “might have done something wrong to him in the past.”

Researchers also analysed the hidden beliefs of influencers that prevent them from talking to young people about gender inequality and disrespectful behaviour.

Fathers were worried about the risk that such a conversation would affect their relationship with the child or they would appear as a hypocrite. While concerns that getting involved would promote a threat, and cause embarrassment and elevate fear among daughters were found in mothers.

“Males were frequently given the benefit of the doubt, where females were given the burden of proof to establish no provocation had occurred,” the report stated.

The prime minister said the findings were “utterly unacceptable” as many people tend to diminish the behaviour, while blaming the victim. “Not all disrespect of women ends up in violence against women, but all violence against women begins with disrespecting women.”

Social Services Minister Christian Porter explains that the parents were also asked about a scenario where their son was throwing a bottle at a girl in a fit of rage. Mothers said that the case “is not such a huge deal” and “it’s just a thing teenage boys do,” while fathers responded that “boys will be boys” and “it’s tough being a kid.”

A jointly funded $30-million national campaign to fight violence against women is set to start in early 2016, according to Minister for Women Michaelia Cash. The campaign is supported by the Council of Australian Governments.

The Labor also is set to announce a policy for a five days paid domestic and family violence leave in the National Employment Standards. Labor leader Bill Shorten said that workplace and financial uncertainty could contribute to the trauma in women.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au or tell us what you think below