Section 3: Understanding sexual harassment in the workplace Responses to a simple legal definition of sexual harassment can provide a useful indicator of the level of community understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment.18 These results can be directly compared across surveys, as the questions asked have not changed. In the 2018 National Survey, before being asked about their experiences of sexual harassment ‘behaviours’, all survey respondents were provided with a simplified legal definition of sexual harassment and asked to indicate whether they had experienced such harassment at any time or anywhere (lifetime sexual harassment). In response, 43% of respondents said they had been sexually harassed on the basis of the legal definition. In contrast, 28% of respondents said they had been sexually harassed at some point in their lifetime on the basis of the legal definition in the 2003 survey, 20% in the 2008 survey and 21% in the 2012 survey.19 These results suggest an increase in 2018 of levels of awareness in the community of sexual harassment and increased understanding of what constitutes it. There are a number of possible reasons for the markedly higher prevalence rate in response to the legal definition of workplace sexual harassment in 2018 compared to previous years. 98 As the 2018 National Survey findings suggest an increased level of community understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment, the higher prevalence rate may be at least partly related to greater awareness of the issue more broadly, rather than an increase in the behaviour. As the Commission observed in 2018 National Survey report, there was a substantial increase in media coverage of sexual harassment in the period between the 2012 and 2018 surveys, especially in the months leading up to the 2018 National Survey, as a result of the ‘#MeToo’ movement. It is possible this increased media coverage contributed to greater community awareness of sexual harassment, reflected in the higher rates noted above.20 (iii) Importance of large-scale surveys in understanding sexual harassment Surveys, such as the 2018 National Survey, are an important data source for understanding complex social policy issues such as sexual harassment. The ABS explains that surveys are a tool to collect information from some or all units of a population and compile the information into a useful form. In a sample survey, only part of the total population is approached for information on the topic under study. The data collected from this ‘sample’ of the population are then ‘expanded’ or ‘weighted’ to make inferences about the whole population.21