Progressive Steps to Egalitarianism

“Kansas is all right for men and dogs but it’s pretty hard on women and horses. ”(The Santa Fe Trail) a quote chosen by Tompkins to elucidate the meaning of women in westerns. This is to say that the west was made for men and dogs, men being aggressive and dogs being their loyal best friends. While women and horses find it hard living in such a harsh climate due to their beauty and elegance. But throughout the major women rights suffarage campaigns in the world this quote is proven wrong and wrong again. In High Noon (1952), Rooster Cogburn(1975), and The Ballod of Little Jo(1993) the transition of women to equality with men is evident as the times pass and as women make small yet progressive steps to egalitarianism.
In High Noon, the audience is introduced to a women of religion a Quaker who believes in peace and is against violence, in every aspect. She becomes the yin to the yang of her husband (Kane) as the cliché prescribes opposites attract. In the film Kane faces an obstruction by his nemesis Miller who is set out to kill him in sights of revenge. Already Amy has gone through numerous heart drenching losses due to guns, the deaths of her father and her brother. She decides to leave Hadleyville, as she can’t take any more violence. Thinking it’s the last of it, Amy then decides to stay and protect Kane, joining him in the gun brawl. The key word is protect, usually in westerns men protect the women playing the cliché damsel in distress but rather here the woman has taken the hard way out and joined the men in combat to fight for the man she loves, and this is the beginning of strong women.
“When your back is to the wall you find out that what you want most is not to save your eternal soul-if it exists-but to live, in the body.” In Rooster Cogburn, John Wayne finds a woman and an Indian native boy, when he learns the Eula is the daughter of a reverend killed in attack he decides to take them home to safety. Eula and Wolf (the Indian native) decide to buy supplies and help Cogburn find Breed. “The loneliness comes from knowing you can’t contact another person’s feelings or actions, no matter how hard you try.” But in the case of Eula she tried and broke the language barrier between woman and cowboy earning the respect of Cogburn, and earning the respect to be viewed as a substantial character in Rooster Cogburn.
The Ballad of Little Jo is a story of a woman who dresses up as a man in escape of the prejudice issued with women. She is respected in the town as a male sheep herder, and it is truly evident that she is only respected because of her self-proclaimed gender. When she is faced with aggression brought on by another cattle company opting to buy all the land, she does not take the easy way out even though its obvious death makes her queasy, she instead fights and kills two men, so she can have her right and her land. Things only men in westerns would do if the film was made in the 1930’s or the 1940’s. For once in a western the women is established as the hero of the movie, and she proclaims the role of alpha male. In the 1990’s many women became super powers, Rikki Lake, Oprah Winfrey and this was transcribed to them.