Macho Women

John: Okay. So Sarah, you said you participated in rodeos before but I thought only men ride horses in rodeos?

Sarah: Yeah. Like 99.9% of the time, the men do all of the rodeo sports. There's like two sports for women and the rest of them are all for men.

John: Oh.

Sarah: When I said I wanted to do the traditionally male events, they said, "You can't do that. You're a woman. You have to do these other events that are not dangerous. They're safe."
For example, the men do calf roping. You work with a baby cow, a calf that's about 100 pounds. The women do goat roping.

And they work with a tiny goat that's about the size of a small dog. So I just always thought the difference was stupid. I don't want to do the easy, safe event. I want to do the difficult event and people were really surprised. And first, they said, "You can't." And I said, "I'm going to anyways."

John: Wow!

Sarah: And the first time I did the saddle bronc, they said, "Look, look, look. We got you a girl horse because you're a girl."

John: Oh my.

Sarah: And I thought, "Well, you didn't need to draw more attention to it. I just want to compete like everyone else."

John: Right.

Sarah: And my first time, I fell off the horse and I was really injured. And I was laying there and one of my friends came running out. And he said – I thought he was going to help me up and help me leave because I was really hurt. And instead he said, "Hurry up! You got to get off the – you get out of the arena because the next person wants to go."

John: Oh, wow!

Sarah: And I was really happy that he said that actually because he was just treating me the way he treated any other competitor. "Oh, get up. Be tough. You're fine."

John: Yeah.

Sarah: And I didn't want anyone to help me.

John: So he didn't help you.

Sarah: Right. And I was really glad that he was treating me like everyone else. And when you see a rodeo, you'll see that the women do events where they can dress really nice. They always wear nice clothes, beautiful hat. They even have earrings and things on.

And when the men do events, they're doing events that they really have to use their muscles and get dirty, and I really liked doing those instead. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying I like to do the other one and I think that maybe other women like to do the other events, too.

John: So do you think that the situation is improving? Are more girls joining rodeo now?

Sarah: I don't think so. I think the sport of rodeo is becoming less popular. So I think in the future, there won't be more women in rodeo. There will just be fewer people in rodeo.

John: Oh, I see.

Sarah: Because the rodeo events, they're not very kind to the cows or the other animals. And as people get older, maybe they get more softhearted like me, and they don't want to make the animals get tied up or chase the animals. And so I think fewer people are interested in rodeo these days.