Women essential to research on Indigenous languages

Her father was an academic and her mother a drama teacher, which may explain her fascination with linguistics.

“They did actively discourage me from being an academic,” Professor Meakins laughs.

“I was very fortunate to have parents who didn’t think that gender was a barrier to doing particular things, even though a lot of people of my generation certainly did.”

Professor Meakins first encountered gender differentiation at primary school when a decision was taken to prevent girls from wearing shorts.

“Not being allowed to wear shorts like the boys was one thing, then starting to play soccer and finding out I could train with the boys, but not being allowed to be on the team made me think, ‘Oh okay, these are interesting barriers,’” Professor Meakins said.

“I think even at that age I railed against it, it didn’t make sense to me, and I didn’t understand.”

“I do a lot of fieldwork which involves driving 4WDs, pulling vehicles out of bogs, and changing tyres,” she said.

“It never occurred to me that I can’t do that.”

It’s that sort of confidence, which has allowed the linguistics expert to travel to remote communities to study Indigenous languages and led to her last year being awarded an Australian Museum Eureka Prize – the “Oscars” of scientific research.

She says it was fellow linguist, UQ’s Dr Mary Laughren who convinced her to study Indigenous languages in Australia.

“It was (Dr Laughren) who sent me up to the Northern Territory so that’s an example of female mentorship that I’ve really valued,” Professor Meakins said.

She said being a woman has been extremely helpful in being able to document the language of the Gurindji people.

“The older women would be perfectly happy working with a male linguist, but the younger women would only work with a female linguist for cultural reasons,” she said.

“So, their stories, their way of speaking would not have been documented if there hadn’t been a female linguist who was interested and willing to do that work.”

Professor Meakins acknowledges there has been progress in achieving gender equality over the decades but said there was still a long way to go.

“I’m very grateful to the women who came before me, without them, female students don’t see themselves in those positions.”

“We’ve got some fantastic women in senior levels at UQ and I think that’s going to make a real difference to encouraging and supporting women to be promoted,” Professor Meakins said.

“In the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, we have a female Executive Dean, Professor Heather Zwicker, and there’s also the Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Terry, along with Deputy Vice-Chancellors Professor Joanne Wright and Professor Bronwyn Fredericks.”

Image left: Professor Felicity Meakins. 

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