Now there be some healthy women, and they earned the description with lots of respect attached. Down around my place we still have gals like that, and the healthy males to go along with 'em. By healthy I mean:

Christian
American
heterosexual
pro-gun
Conservative

any questions?

It's part of the development of The Narrative, just like Katherine Hepburn wearing slacks and besting men 'in a man's world' in those 1930s movies. Take a look at photo number three, for example. We have a brunette wearing men's clothing and smoking a (Hand Rolled!)cigarette, just like a man! She even holds it like a man and has a bit of a mustache. Pretty butch even by modern standards.

The subtext is pretty clear.

Reverse cowgurl.

Lorne: I see where you made observations but I think you're off the mark a bit. Out west here the folks have to be a bit harder to make it. The weather itself can be fatal.

Any of the ranch girls I see around town have a bit of an edge to them. still obviously feminine and can be pretty but there is a subliminal vibe of can-do. There is no room in their value system for queers. They ain't spoon-fed and feather-pillowed that's for sure.

I'd say the subtext is pretty clear to you. You're the one putting the spin on it.

I thought the pic with the hand-rolled cig was charming. The gal is wearing work clothes. That's what people wear when they're ranching. A girl that can roll her own cigarettes can probably split wood for the stove and put the worm on her own hook. In some parts of the country, these are valuable traits.

Is it just me, or are the cigarette girl's pants unzipped?

DrDave, she's wearing button fly jeans.

I'm kinda intrigued by the photo below "Cigarette Girl". "Fence-Post Girl" is looking at something off-camera as she leans on a weathered fence post with her hand unflinching on top of the barbed wire.

And the Mexican ranch hand in the background looks at "Fence-Post Girl" with a look that I can't quite describe. Is he looking at her with disgust? Is she the "Princess of the Ranch" and unobtainable from his position in life?

Great finds on those pictures, Gerard. Thanks.

Whatever was actually going on with 'cigarette girl', which we can't know, the subtext was supplied by the photographer
and by the editor who selected that particular photo for publication. An editor would also have selected the 'theme' for the article which was illustrated and supported by the photos.

Nothing goes into a publican like TIME or LIFE magazine 'just because.'

Gerard, why did you drop that turd in amongst the nice photos? WTF does that LSD addled brain of Neil Young have to do with it anyway? Just beacuse when he was smoking pot and making up shit he happened to stumble upon the word "cowgirl"? Please remove that human dreck from these pages. Thank you. Doug

Alas, Doug, I just haven't learned to subject everyone's work to a political purity test before using it for my own purposes.

I'm deeply and abidingly sorry and will try to be more fascist and leftist in my politics from now on.

EXIT RIGHT ----->

I see, it's "fascist" not to like Neil Young? Why, you're learning more from the real fascists every day!

I see, it's "fascist" not to like Neil Young? Why, you're learning more from the real fascists every day!

Actually one can learn a lot from "Nazi Germany at the height of the Marxist Leninest Stalinist Maoist Cultural Revolution led by Idi Amin in pants with sharp creases"

I prefer Suzy Bogguss's explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3znVb0XBD4

Nlow she's got the spirit!