I will call you out.

Article | Updated 2 months ago

"Two women standing side by side. They are mother and daughter."
Caption: Deanne Fitzgerald with her mum.
Image courtesy Deanne Fitzgerald

Deanne Fitzgerald - Senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisor

Caption: Deanne Fitzgerald with her mum.
Image courtesy Deanne Fitzgerald 

As a child, what career path did you want to take?

Nursing. This is what I wanted to do when I was leaving high school at 15.

It was something my mum wanted me to do, and being the good girl that I am, I listened to my mother. But of course that’s not where I ended up.

Once I realised that you would have to clean up sick, blood and other bodily fluids I didn’t pursue career in nursing.

Is that where you ended up? If so why, or why not?

I ended up enrolling in the Bachelor of Arts (BA) Cultural Heritage course at Curtin University. This was a new course, and we were the first lot of students to go through it.

The course covered a number of areas such as history, anthropology, architecture, a bit of design, photography, and some museum studies, among other units.

After my BA I enrolled to do an Honours degree. From this, my line of work saw me working in culture and heritage: mainly working on Aboriginal heritage, both in the government sector and in the mining industry.

Do you have a female role model?

My female role model is my mother. She was a member of the Stolen Generation. She was a strong woman and refused to be told by authority what she could and couldn’t do.

When she was in the home at Moore River, she told us when she was young, she pulled the nun’s habit off her head because the nun was being rude and bossy! She was put in the “boob” or the small shed for naughty children for the night for that.

Mum defied the authorities by waiting to turn 21 before marrying my father because she didn’t want to get permission from the government to do so.

Seeking permission to marry was part of the control of Aboriginal people under the WA 1905 Act; one of many forms of control of Aboriginal people.

When Mum had her third child in the early ‘60s, a son, she and Dad were living in Wagin, a small town in the Wheatbelt area. When she arrived at the hospital ready to go into labour, they told her she had to go around the back of the hospital through that entrance as she wasn’t allowed through the front doors because she was Aboriginal. She told them she was going to walk through that front door and have her baby… and she did!

These were just some of the things she did to make people see her as a human and not to look at her as an Aboriginal. She always told us kids that we are human first, and then Aboriginal.

She used to say: “If you close your eyes and touch someone’s skin, you can’t feel their colour, you only notice it when you open your eyes.”

She used to have some great sayings like that. She was, and still is my role model. I like to think I get my strength from her.

How has the workplace changed, if it all, in regards to the treatment and level of respect shown to women?

Being a young Aboriginal woman trying to break into the work force for the first time was a challenge. It’s a challenge for women in general, but when you have another layer on top, it just makes it even harder. Thankfully having that piece of paper from university made a big difference. I have been fortunate to be in jobs where I’m the only person doing the job, so people had to listen to what I was saying.

Being the holder of knowledge can be very powerful. I made sure that I didn’t let this get to me and I always kept a level head.

Having said that, I was always nervous when explaining things to people, especially men; I found men in the mining industry were the most challenging. They usually saw me as a young woman who didn’t know much. But when I started explaining things to them and mention money, they realised that I knew what I was talking about, so they had to listen, so I was getting the respect that I was deserved.

While I didn’t personally face any sexual harassment, I saw my other fellow female staff being harassed by some male workers.

I usually stood up for the women who didn’t feel strong enough to say anything, or were too scared to say anything.

I don’t think as a woman we need to be coming to a place of work to be harassed in any way, shape or form. If I see it happening, I will call you out on it!

What is one of your proudest work-related achievements?

This is a tough one for me because being in a job is an achievement. There are people who don’t have work, and I’ve been there, so to secure a full time job, that’s an achievement in itself.

Other people might say that I have achieved things in my work, but I don’t see it that way. I prefer to get on and do the work, and not worry about the accolades and the pats on the back.

I prefer to keep low key, do my job and know that I’m doing it right.

More Stories