Exactly a year ago today,the Australian Human Rights Commissiondelivered a landmark report on sexual harassment to Minister for Women Marise Payne. Overwhemingly,the commission found,systems to address sexual harassment in Australia were “complex and confusing” for victims and employers and placed a heavy burden on individuals to make a complaint.

The report cited evidence that in the five years prior to 2018,39 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men had experienced workplace sexual harassment. Payne announced $2.1 million in last year’s budget “to help prevent sexual harassment in Australian workplaces” but,a year on,the Morrison government has not responded to the report’s 55 recommendations.

Of all the events of the last two weeks,Contos’ call for better consent education in schools has had the most immediate,on-the-ground impact. The nation’s private schools have gone into a tailspin,with guest speakers being rushed in to give talks about consent and we’ll-do-better letters to parents. “[The] accounts were individually shocking and cumulatively harrowing,” wrote Newington College headmaster Michael Parker. “In articulating their experiences,[these women] have forced us to acknowledge that the answer to the question ‘Is what we do enough?’ is a simple ‘no’.”

Of course misogyny from private school boys is nothing new. In 2019,a female tram passenger captured boys from St Kevin’s College,a prestigious Melbourne Catholic boys’ school,shouting the lyrics:“I wish that all the ladies/ Were holes in the road/ And if I was a dump truck/ I’d fill them with my load.”

But,thanks to Contos,there seems a real opportunity here to open up the conversation about consent. That begins with some basic things:pressuring women into sex is not consensual sex. If women fear they are going to be attacked,they will try to minimise the physical risk to themselves. There are well-understood,well-studied psychological reactions to traumatic situations that mean that women may not speak out or struggle,such as the “freeze reponse” where they become immobilised when subjected to sexual violence or the “fawn response” (placating the attacker to avoid escalation of violence).

But changing attitudes is going to take more than just better consent education. Maree Crabbe is the author ofIn the Picture,a sexuality education resource for secondary schools that includes video clips,class notes and guidelines for teachers and principals to help teenagers deal with the influence of pornography. This week she’s had several private schools on the phone seeking her expertise.

When Crabbe read the testimonies on Contos’ site she saw clear evidence of the influence of pornography – the coercion,the language,the focus on male pleasure,the failure to negotiate free and full consent. She says the problem is widespread – not just in private schools - but we need to look beyond pornography at all of the cultural influences on young men,from gendered messages in the family home to sport,media,video games,YouTube clips and action movies.

“Whether it is in Parliament House or people’s bedrooms,in universities or whatever setting,we have a real problem with gender inequality and that’s the driver of violence against women. So you can’t just talk in the school classroom about equality and respect and need for consent in sexual contexts. We need those messages to be conveyed right across our culture,” says Crabbe.

“The cultural context doesn’t always nurture young men to be healthy,whole,respectful and generous human beings. Young men talk about the pressure from their peers to keep silent,to live up to expectations around being sexually experienced and being tough.

“Meanwhile,young women bear the brunt of all of this and while society suggests that they just say ‘No’,we need to remember their cultural context and the messages given to them about being agreeable and pleasing and not ‘difficult’ and ‘frigid’ in a sexual context.”

Crabbe is calling for a national conversation about “enthusiastic consent”:which means more than just agreeing or acquiescing to pressure or expectations. It means engaging in sexual acts because the participants really want to. “We need to help young people aspire to a model of sexuality that is positive,fulfilling and joyful because the priority for everybody involved in a sexual interaction is to ensure the enthusiasm and enjoyment of everyone else.”

Although the criminal justice system continues to fail sexual crimes complainants,it is important to note there have been significant improvements. Police in some states now have specialist teams dealing with rape allegations,there are one-stop shops set up for victims,and complainants nationally can choose to give evidence via video. Judges are allowed to direct juries on some stereotypes and misconceptions about sex crimes.

When I asked the Victorian and NSW Police about what their message to victims was this week,they encouraged people to come forward. “Our message to victims is that you will be listened to,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said. The NSW police encouraged victims to keep reporting,even if they didn’t want to continue with a complaint,pointing to a recent case of one alleged rapist,now before the courts,who was only charged because police joined the dots between five similar but separate complaints.

But advocates such as Burgin are pushing for changes to how the law deals with consent. Tasmania,says Burgin,is the only state with the “gold star” standard of affirmative consent embedded in law. This means that if an alleged rapist wants to rely on the defence that he reasonably believed he had consent,he must prove steps were taken to ascertain consent.

Victoria has these steps in its laws but they are not compulsory,and a recent NSW Law Reform Commission report failed to recommend that the law be changed in that state for embedded affirmative consent. ”We can tinker at the sides of the criminal justice system forever but we won’t see any substantial change or reform until we shift the focus to what the accused did to ensure they had free consent,” says Burgin.

Besides Uncle Vernon,this week I was also thinking about Helen Garner,who so enraged feminists when she fretted about the actions of University of Melbourne sexual harassment victims in her 1995 bookThe First Stone. What did she make of all of this?

She emailed me that she felt deeply for the women. “I know from what certain women dear to me have told me that though a woman may be a ‘survivor’ of rape,in the depths of her psyche she is irreparably wounded. And as for allegations that surface decades later which some people would prefer to brush aside,I can’t help thinking about a very old saying:‘The mills of the gods grind slow,but they grind exceeding small’.”

Women won’t just pack up their placards and return peacefully to their lives. Each woman like “Sarah” - and there are thousands - is at her own point in dealing with the past. She is peeling away the shame that is not hers and finding her own reserves of courage to bring these things to the surface - or to let them lie.

Some women are seeking justice. Some just want to be heard. But all want to take back the power - to make the story their own.