Caitlyn Taussig mending fences in Kremmling, Colo.
CreditAmanda Lucier/The New York Times
Hundreds of years before John Wayne and Gary Cooper gave us a Hollywood version of the American West, with men as the brute, weather-beaten stewards of the land, female ranchers roamed the frontier. They were the indigenous, Navajo, Cheyenne and other tribes, and Spanish-Mexican rancheras, who tended and tamed vast fields, traversed rugged landscapes with their dogs, hunted, and raised livestock.
The descendants of European settlers brought with them ideas about the roles of men and women, and for decades, family farms and ranches were handed down to men. Now, as mechanization and technology transform the ranching industry, making the job of cowboy less about physical strength — though female ranchers have that in spades — and more about business, animal husbandry and the environment, women have reclaimed their connection to the land.
At the same time, the brothers, sons and grandsons who would have historically inherited a family ranch have, in the last decade, opted to […]
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This shift began several years back and while living in Charlottesville, I interviewed 4 women – one a retired doctor in her 60s and the others in their 40s. And now, I’ve been observing the arrival of a growing number of younger women on the Island who’ve launched various business models that focus on treating the soil, growing produce and working the land for older people who are no longer able to do so. This feels like a vital and naturally timely development – women moving into an area that was previously and often still is dominated by the aging patriarchal mindset that puts profit over well being. My heart is with these women.