Rooster Cogburn, High Noon, and Little Jo

In all the three movies, namely Roster Cogburn, High Noon and the Ballad of Little Jo we see women emerging as much stronger and having a major role in the movies. In the initial western, women were always sidelined in the movies; the entire emphasis was on the male character. The only job that women had was to look after all the needs of the cowboy and help them and assist them.
We saw a bit of a transition in the movie “The man who shot Liberty Valance”; but that was nothing in compared to what we see in these three movies.
In the movie Little Jo we see how Josephine, who sleeps with a photographer, is removed from her town. She does not lose hope or gives up like one would think traditional women would do. She fights for herself, make a new image of her, learns to live life her way.
In the movie high noon, the two strong characters are Helen Ramirez, and Amy Kane. They stand up for what they feel is right. If they feel that their husband is wrong they don’t sit back quietly doing nothing. They stand up and fight. If they know that someone has done wrong with their husband, they are not afraid to stand up and fight for them.
Tompkins states that, women are no good when it comes to fighting. All they do is follow what men tell them to do, and they cannot stand up for themselves. We see that in these movies the scene has completely changed. We can surely assume that these changes in the movies are due to the civil rights movement for the women. The increasing power of women, the change in social status of women at that point of time.