Isis Downs cattle station helping to transform the male-dominated meat industry

For decades, cattle stations have largely been the domain of men but one cattle station in outback Queensland is helping to break that norm.

Transcript

00:00 Amongst the cattle and dust, there's nowhere else Lauren Brockhurst wants to be.

00:07 I love the diversity in that each day you get up and there's something different to do.

00:12 You're not doing the same thing every day.

00:15 The 21-year-old is a ringer at Isis Down Station in central west Queensland.

00:21 I think that women are capable of taking time to think about what needs to be done more,

00:26 whereas men just want to try and get the job done the quickest way possible.

00:31 Once considered a man's job, the number of women working on stations is increasing.

00:37 At Isis Downs, for the first time in its history, women make up half the staff.

00:43 There's been really that great sense of empowerment for women over the last 20 years.

00:47 But also with the increased mechanisation of agriculture,

00:52 there's nothing that women can't do on a station anymore.

00:55 But still, the job doesn't come without its stereotypes.

00:59 I remember when I first started ringing hearing that girls only come to stations

01:02 to wear nice neck scarves and take cute photos.

01:06 And because of that comment, I never wore a neck scarf until this year.

01:10 It's just the way the world's going now. It's not going to change.

01:13 If anything, it's going to grow, so either grow with it or get out.

01:16 Things might be starting to look different on stations across Australia.

01:21 But a report published earlier this year found only one third of meat workers globally were women.

01:27 Industry specialists are hopeful things will only improve.

01:32 It might take me a bit longer than it would a bloke because obviously lacking strength,

01:36 but we can get it done if we put our minds to it.

01:41 Breaking glass ceilings one shovel at a time.

01:45 (film projector whirring)

01:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]