My mother embedded in me to be a strong, black, independent woman – to want respect, you’ve got to earn respect. So, when I was at the hands of domestic violence, I couldn’t understand with all the love that I gave out, that I was getting treated so bad. I didn’t deserve to be treated like that and neither does anyone else. So, you need to put a stop to it right at the start. My name is Keelen Mailman. I’m a Bidjara woman and I’m the manager of Mount Tabor Station, Augathella, and I’ve been in that position for 26 years. So, we’re working with organisations in town. We have a lot of children’s trips out onto the property. We’re bringing them out to hopefully break down the barriers and give them a bit of hard yakka and teach them all about respect. I sit down and do a lot of mentoring with them and speak to them about what it is growing up to have respect for mum and dad, to have respect for their siblings and to each other.
The importance of culture and respect to me, is the handing down of continuity and connection to country. Knowing where you come from, knowing your survival on land, because then it gets passed onto the next generation and there’s always respect for your Elders.
My advice to parents is talk to your children, teach them. Because they’re not going to know any different if you don’t teach them. If it starts inside the home and you’re bringing your children up to show respect, that’s embedded in them because from when your children are starting to walk, they’re starting to learn.
My son’s seen the domestic violence that his mum went through. But I continued to teach him that you don’t disrespect a woman or anyone. Show respect to your sister, show respect to your other siblings, your uncles, and aunties, and never be ashamed to talk about that sort of stuff. I also taught my daughters, you don’t deserve that, never accept that.
The saying that a lot of people have, “boys will be boys”, that’s not good enough. We need to teach them that you can be a better man. It doesn’t make anyone any lesser man or woman to take the shame away and speak out about respect. We’re only all visitors on this planet for one lifetime, so let’s bring up respect together and walk hand in hand and do this as one.
