Mostly Texas women are tough in some very fundamental ways. Not unfeminine, nor necessarily unladylike, just tough. It may be possible for a little girl to grow to womanhood in this state entirely sheltered from the rampant sexism all around her—but it’s damned difficult.The result is that Texas women tend to know how to cope. We can cope with put-downs and come-ons, with preachers and hustlers, with drunks and cowboys. And when it’s all over, if we stick together and work, we’ll come out better than the sister who’s buried in a grave near Marble Falls under a stone that says, ‘Rudolph Richter,1822-1916, and Wife.’