\n<\/p>\n
Savanah McCarty was not riding across the wide-open prairie when a horse accident nearly killed her.<\/p>\n
She was in the driveway of her leased farm outside Bozeman, Montana, waiting for a student\u2019s mother to arrive, when her horse seized and flipped over backwards, landing on top of her.<\/p>\n
The horse, it turned out, had a neurological disorder linked to possum urine. McCarty never imagined it could cause this.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an absolute freak accident,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought I was fine because nothing was visibly bleeding, but the EMTs called in Life Flight [emergency helicopter transport] because I was showing signs of a brain bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n
After her transfer to Billings, McCarty underwent emergency brain surgery and entered a coma. A week later, she woke up.<\/p>\n
She began sharing her recovery on Instagram, writing about the pain, the strain on her business, and her mounting medical debt. (She was uninsured; a Life Flight bill alone can reach $50,000.) She was also reeling from a miscarriage that had begun a week before the accident and was still occurring throughout her emergency treatment.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Savanah McCarty.<\/span> Photograph: Janie Osborne<\/p>\n These are not the traditional struggles of a textbook Marlboro cowboy. They are the challenges modern women across industries face \u2013 high costs of living, healthcare gaps, reproductive loss \u2013 only layered with an extreme wild west twist.<\/p>\n With her non-profit background and outspoken feminism, McCarty has built an online following around a grittier version of cowgirl life \u2013 one that makes no money, but defies the male-centered cliches of Yellowstone.<\/p>\n If those stereotypes still hold sway, it may not be for long. The gender ratio of ranching and agriculture in the US is changing. With more women entering the field and more men leaving it, as data from the US Department of Agriculture\u2019s 2022 census shows, women now account for more than 36% of all producers in the US. Male producers have steadily decreased since 2007, while the number of women has increased with every survey since 2002.<\/p>\n You can exist on your terms and have your dreams, rather than [fitting] society\u2019s version of what a cowgirl or rancher looks likeSavanah McCarty<\/p>\n With that shift in gender demographics comes a reimagined definition of what it means to be a rancher in the west \u2013 and a good one at that. Beyond the core components of responsible land stewardship and animal husbandry practices, an emphasis on mental health, economic empowerment, and mentorship is replacing the emotional suppression and rugged individualism of old western lore.<\/p>\n This newer version of the ranching lifestyle is just as demanding and dangerous. But many women feel it is exactly where they belong.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the hardest I\u2019ve ever lived,\u201d McCarty says. \u201cI stack a ton of hay a week by myself. I\u2019m constantly fixing fences. I do all the housework. Yes, I really wish I had a partner. I still long to be soft and nurturing \u2026 but this is all worth it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Even nine months after the last episode aired, Yellowstone still reverberates throughout global pop culture. You could not throw a lit Marlboro Red at a Banff skijoring weekend without hitting a multimillionaire in Lucchese boots and a Pendleton coat. Everyone wants to dress, drink and party like a Dutton. If they can do so without stepping in cowpies, all the better.<\/p>\n Cowgirl culture has risen through more female-centric avenues, as well. From Beyonce\u2019s custom Cowboy Carter Shiaparelli look \u2013 a tribute to the long history of Black cowboy culture \u2013 to Shania Twain\u2019s latest tour get-ups, these women of extreme social and financial power are wielding it like a pair of pearl-handled six-shooters.<\/p>\n But this pop culture persona remains an incredibly far cry from the realities on the ground, something that McCarty points out in a reel that went viral shortly after her accident.<\/p>\n Allow Instagram content?<\/p>\n This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In it, a glammed-out Instagram influencer in leather shorts, a glittering halter top, and knee-high boots primps and preens behind the caption \u201cgetting ready to go feed the cows and some horses\u201d.<\/p>\n Then appears a clean-faced McCarty in a T-shirt, sweatpants and a messy bun, leaning on a shovel, looking tired. The contrast makes the point: the glamorized cowgirl fantasy is nothing like the reality.<\/p>\n For McCarty, reality was brutal: if she did not return to work quickly, she faced financial ruin. Just three months after surgery \u2013 nine months earlier than doctors advised \u2013 she was back-breaking colts.<\/p>\n <\/span>Savanah McCarty does ranch chores on her property.<\/span> Photograph: Janie Osborne\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have a year,\u201d she says. \u201cShould I have gone back that soon? Absolutely not. But I was pushed to the brink of \u2018you have to get back in the saddle or you\u2019re going to be homeless.\u2019 I didn\u2019t have any choice.\u201d<\/p>\n McCarty\u2019s social media platform grew rapidly throughout this time. The more unfiltered content she shared from her cowgirl-dream-turned-nightmare, the more followers followed, many of them offering words of support and encouragement.<\/p>\n Then, in the midst of her recovery, McCarty ran into trouble with her landlord and received an unlawful eviction notice. Suddenly, she had to relocate her life and business \u2013 including all her clients\u2019 horses \u2013 in a region where agricultural leases are scarce. Gallatin county alone lost 44,600 acres (18,050 hectares) of farmland and 114 farms between 2017 and 2022, much of it to housing developments.<\/p>\n Now, McCarty sits on the porch of her prairie farmhouse in Broadwater county, Montana, with a half-shaved head, a new lease on a 200-acre property, a full pen of animals and a new personal brand: the Hellbitch Ranch, a play on a popular moniker for an ill-tempered mare. The name is a fierce nod to the freedom that comes with her choice of occupation.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to inspire women to know that they don\u2019t have to live in a box,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can exist on your terms and have your dreams, rather than [fitting] society\u2019s version of what a cowgirl or a rancher looks like, or the idea that you have to be born into ranching. I\u2019m trying to push against all these lies that our culture tells us about who we have to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Women are hardly a minority at the Redwing Ranch outside Gardner, Colorado. Ranch owner Christy Wyckoff, programs coordinator Erin Sheridan, and ranch manager Fiona Jackson piled into the same camera frame to tune into a virtual meetup.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was never planned to be a majority-woman team, but that\u2019s just how it worked out,\u201d Wyckoff says. \u201cWe\u2019re all pretty much first-generation ranchers who have come to the industry from very different paths. Because everyone is on the younger side and we don\u2019t come with tons of history, we aren\u2019t tied to paradigms.\u201d<\/p>\n While Redwing\u2019s ecology-informed livestock operation is at the core of their business model, their education program also provides everything from chainsaw classes for women and the LGBTQ+ community to co-ed stockmanship clinics, knife-making and silversmithing.<\/p>\n <\/span>Redwing Ranch\u2019s Christy Wyckoff (ranch owner and operator), Fiona Jackson (ranch manager), Erin Sheridan (programs coordinator).<\/span> Photograph: Rhonda Batchelor \/Sagebrush Souls Photography<\/p>\n Sheridan and Jackson met as summer employees on a different cattle ranch. Neither come from ranching families, but they have taken to the lifestyle all the same \u2013 even if they occasionally run up against stereotypes.<\/p>\n Wyckoff points out how unusual it is not only for a ranch to have a female owner-operator, but for that woman to be unmarried. \u201cPeople tend to assume that women on ranches are just ranch wives, and not working,\u201d Sheridan says. \u201cThere\u2019s also this sexualized element to women working in the field. I\u2019ve had a lot of comments. \u2018Wow, I can\u2019t believe you\u2019re wearing chainsaw chaps. Those look so good on you.\u2019 No one says that to a man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am a rancher, and that is that,\u201d Jackson chimes in. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a lifestyle. This is the work we do every single day. I am a rancher, not a sidepiece. This is my career.\u201d<\/p>\n The trio speak highly of Redwing\u2019s lone male employee, apprentice Gabe Chubb. Chubb spent four years in the Marines as an aircraft technician before seeking a hands-on ranching education at Redwing. Wyckoff, Jackson and Sheridan were instantly impressed by his impeccable work ethic and enthusiasm. But with their otherwise entirely female staff, Redwing remains a major outlier.<\/p>\n Wyckoff recalls how often eyebrows raise when she brings up Jackson. \u201cIt takes them a second to recognize that my ranch manager is a woman,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t say outright that my ranch manager is a woman, because that\u2019s not the conversation I want to have. The conversation I want to have is about how we\u2019re running our livestock, and how we\u2019re on our way to being a profitable operation, because of our great practices.\u201d<\/p>\n By focusing heavily on landscape ecology in southern Colorado\u2019s changing climate and learning to ranch for profit amid the economic uncertainty of the global food system, the Redwing team is working proof of how women can breathe fresh life into an industry that frequently frets over its own demise.<\/p>\n Few have a better grasp on the patriarchal myth of what a \u201creal\u201d rancher looks like than Amber Smith.<\/p>\n A lifelong horse girl from central Illinois, Smith now ranches 80 miles (129km) north of Miles City, Montana, with her husband and kids. She is also the executive director of Women In Ranching, a non-profit that unites female ranchers from across the country.<\/p>\n The topic of today\u2019s meetup is horsemanship. One woman tunes in from her camper van, another from a busy morning of fencing repairs, others still from the Bay Area and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Participants share stories about falling in love with horses both in infancy and later in life. Book recommendations on natural horsemanship and stockmanship light up the chat box. One participant remarks on the unique comfort of an all-female setting for these types of discussions. Her comment is a sign that Women In Ranching is accomplishing exactly what founders Elaine Patarini and Wendy Millet first set out to do in 2016.<\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re conventional or organic, or you have 10 head of animals or 1000, it doesn\u2019t matter. Everyone has a seat at the tableJessie Jarvis<\/p>\n \u201cThese young, first-generation ranching women were all saying, \u2018I love ranching, I love agriculture, I\u2019m deeply passionate about this industry, but if I don\u2019t find some community, I don\u2019t know if I can do this,\u2019\u201d Smith explains. \u201cThat inspired Elaine and Wendy to get some of these women together for a long weekend, just so they could meet someone to call and have a cup of coffee with when they\u2019re struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2018, Smith attended her first gathering in San Mateo county. \u201cI came home fired up,\u201d Smith recalls. \u201cAny educational thing I ever did was with all men. I wasn\u2019t seeing women out on the landscape, participating in the way that I really enjoyed. I came into ranching through a love of horsemanship and the outdoors, so moving and sorting cattle and checking water was just an extension of that joy for me. I didn\u2019t see that in anyone around me until I participated in an all-female gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Janie Osborne\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But Smith was shocked to discover that even the most seasoned attendees felt out-of-place in their operations. Women admitted to being nervous about suggesting operational changes to their husbands, who seemed to have the final say in all ranch matters. They feared divorce and losing access to land. They felt imposter syndrome at every stage of their ranching careers.<\/p>\n Smith saw this as more than just a source of inequity for female ranchers. She also saw it as a roadblock to the industry\u2019s continued success.<\/p>\n \u201cHere we are in agriculture, bitching and moaning because nobody wants to come back to the family ranch, and all the ranches are getting sold to wealthy absentee landowners,\u201d Smith says. \u201cBut half the population on these ranches, who want to be actively engaged, don\u2019t see a pathway for themselves or feel isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n Ask anyone in agriculture about the industry\u2019s greatest challenges and they will use some combination of words like \u201cconsolidation\u201d, \u201cbuyouts\u201d, and \u201cthe kids not coming home to take over the family farm\u201d.<\/p>\n That is where Jessie Jarvis\u2019s work comes in. A third-generation Idaho cattle rancher and entrepreneur, Jarvis launched an agricultural job board and networking platform called Of The West in January 2021. In 2023, she added Leaders Of The West,<\/em> a podcast spotlighting the next generation of agricultural practitioners.<\/p>\n \u201cChange is hard and scary,\u201d Jarvis says. \u201cI understand why people are not necessarily receptive to change. There\u2019s a lot of volatility in it. But if we want to see agriculture into the future, and see real families at the root of those operations, we have to diversify ourselves and our operations in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Jarvis, who has more than 50,000 Instagram followers, has used her social media platform to introduce a lot of outsiders, especially women, to \u201cranch life\u201d. One of her favorite ways to draw them in is slipping style posts into her steady stream of horses, cows, crops, family and vast Idaho landscapes.<\/p>\n Jarvis likes to feel like she is reintroducing some of her followers to the origins of their food system, by showing ranchers doing right by their animals and landscapes. Ultimately, her goal is to create an environment of mutual respect and community across the industry. The only path forward is one with room for anyone who feels compelled to participate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need everybody,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are 2% of the population trying to feed everyone. Whether you\u2019re conventional or organic, or you have 10 head of animals or 1000, it doesn\u2019t matter. Everyone has a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018<\/strong>You have to get back in the saddle<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018I am a rancher, not a sidepiece\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018We need everybody\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n